His lover’s face was everywhere now, upon all sides. Beneath the rims of helms, among his kin and among the enemy surging around him. He sobbed as he fought, howled as he cut down that dear man again and again, and screamed each time one of his comrades fell. He had left his lance buried halfway through a horse, the point driving into its chest and reaching all the way to its gut. Disbelief had flashed through Havaral then: he’d felt little resistance along the weapon’s shaft. The point had slipped past every possible obstacle. The horse’s rider had attempted to swing his heavy longsword at the captain, but the beast collapsing under him had tugged him away, and moments later a Warden’s lance cut clean through his neck, sending the head spinning.

His troop was falling back, collapsing inward. Lord Rend had done nothing to prevent it, and Havaral understood the role his flank now inherited, as a sacrificial bulwark protecting the centre. They would fight on, without hope of victory or even escape, and in this forlorn fate their only task was to take a long time in dying.

He knew nothing of the rest of the battle. The few flags he caught sight of, barely glimpsed and distant on the far slope, were all black.

He swung his sword, hacking at Legion soldiers. The multitude of his lover’s face showed twisted, enraged expressions, filled with hate and fury, with terror. Others showed him that face in grey, clouded confusion, as they sank back, or slid from their saddles. The surprise of death was one no actor on a stage could capture, because its truth cast an inhuman shade upon the eyes, and that shade spread out to claim the skin of the face, rushing down to bleach the throat. It was silent and it was, horribly, irrefutable.

Beloved, why are you doing this to me? Why are you here? What have I done to you, to so earn this?

He had lost sight of Kullis, and yet longed for the man, desperate to see a visage other than those that now surrounded him. He imagined holding the man tightly in his arms, burying his face in the crook of neck and shoulder, and weeping as only an old man could.

Was not love its own shock? A match to that of death? Did it not take the eyes first? Such reverberations as to weaken the bravest man or woman – its trembling echoes never left a mortal soul. He had fooled himself. There was no music in this, no song, no chorus of longing and regret. There was only chaos, and a lover’s face that never, ever went away.

He killed his beloved without pause. Again and again, and again.

* * *