Scene Thirty Eight
Proteus and Miranda walking down the true road, towards the white castle at the center of the crux.
As Miranda and Proteus walked the true road, drawing nearer the castle, Miranda tried to discern her father’s standard upon the towers, but the flagpole over the castle was empty. And, try as she might, she could not see -- upon the ramparts -- even a trace of brown curls, or the glimmer of those broad shoulders: of the mortal raised as prince of elfland, as the Hunter’s own pupil.
Had she imagined it? Had she imagined all?
Her dread, her grief, her anger, beat within her like warring tides, and made her wonder about her sanity.
Still she smiled, and kept her voice even and low.
And tried to slow Proteus down.
For though she was sure of being prepared, though she was sure of her power, she feared that her death was waiting by those white ramparts.
“Wait a while, love,” she said to Proteus as he strode ahead of her. “Wait a while. For my feet hurt and I’m all out of breath.”
“Miranda, there is not time to wait,” Proteus said. As he spoke, he pressed on in broad strides, at an almost-canter. “Miranda, we must press on, for the day is short and after this day will we forever be part of the crux, bonded to it by magic and unable to live as ourselves. If you prize me and our future happiness, we must press on.”
Miranda sighed and pressed on, for what could she do? What could she say that would justify her dread and not give away what she knew of him?
Yet as the castle drew near she felt something falling over her — a heaviness, like a blanket that muffled her thoughts and sensations and made her feel as though she were walking, asleep, through a dreary, sleeping world.
Had she not heard the conversation the night before, she’d have thought she was tired.
But as it was, she knew her disease for its symptoms -- a compulsion upon her. She pushed at it with her will and held it at bay with her anger.
She wondered if Proteus could feel her resistance.
It seemed to Miranda that -- now and then -- he stared at her doubtfully, out of the corner of his eye.
She would gladly have told him what she thought of him and ended this deadly charade.
She was tired, she was hungry, she was scared. The world in which she’d longed to live, the world that had seemed so enticing in her solitude had proven bewildering and passing strange. It was but an unknowable land, populated by people that belied all tales.
How could anyone, human or elf, find her way amid these beings that deceived with their very appearance and lied even to themselves?
But she was all that stood between Proteus and sure death for all his captives, sure death for the unending worlds.
She had to stay free. She had to muster all her strength for the duel that she would have to fight.
For now that her uncle was captive, of all of Proteus's intended victims, only she had the power to oppose him.