Gwen moved forward to lay her hand on Roland's shoulder.
"Think of the wars of your lifetime. How much was lost? How few years of peace gained by each conflict? For an eternity of peace, would Caspian not have readily traded his life? Riley? And your life, would you not have volunteered it for a mere single lifetime of peace for your world?" She asked quietly.
The heat of his rage was dampened by her words, but he clung to it. It was anger that kept his grief at bay.
"You blame the Sorcerer?" Gwen spoke in soft tones, but it was loud enough for those nearest to hear. Finn gasped, and Roland grimaced.
"You have to let all my thoughts be known?" He accused the Fae.
"The Sorcerer knows them all." She said evenly, looking over her shoulder. "Perhaps you would like to speak to him?"
Roland paled. Despite having spoken to the Sorcerer countless times in his dreams, that had been talking to a formless voice on the wind. The Sorcerer's real presence was overwhelming.
"I don't think—" The king began, but it was too late.
The Sorcerer stood before him, a towering being of light. The humans' eyes were all glued to the ground, afraid to look at his face for reasons they couldn't articulate. If his mere presence was so stunning, surely to see his face would be unfathomable, even deadly.
"Roland," The Sorcerer's voice made the man flinch and want to fall to his face.
"I am here," He said meekly.
"You have served faithfully."
The compliment made Roland crumble. He fell forward to the earth, his face inches from the dust as he beat one fist there.
"So have many others," He managed to grind out. "Yet, undeservedly, I live and they have died."
"You doubt that I know who deserves what fate?" The Sorcerer's voice was serious, but not angry.
Roland sighed into the ground. Gwen's words echoed in his mind: Who was he to question the Sorcerer's Will? He, who had lived a mere few decades, doubting the wise creator who had been around untold centuries?
"Please, let them live again," Roland begged. "Take me instead."
"You already sacrificed your life for theirs once before," The Sorcerer commented. "You believe it is still yours to bargain with?"
"No," The king closed his eyes, releasing a fresh streak of tears down his grimy face. "No, my life is yours."
"And you would ask that I take it now?" The voice gave nothing away, but Roland heard Finn's sharp inhale behind him. He wondered how the children would react.
"If my mere life could be traded for so many," Roland lifted his forehead from the dirt, "I would beg that you take it immediately."
"Papa, no!" Lily cried, but was shushed. Guilt filled Roland for doing this in front of his children… but what of Riley's children? Of Caspian's? Of all the others who had died fighting the same war he had?
"Child," The Sorcerer spoke softly now, and not to Roland. "Your father is brave, and has done much good."
"Please don't take him!" Lily's sweet voice. "You are so powerful, can't you heal everyone?"
"Hush, Lily," Finn chided.
"Let the little ones come to me," The Sorcerer's voice held a tenderness that Roland had not yet experienced. He looked behind as Ivan, Roen, and Lily walked shyly forward to speak to their creator.
"What would you ask me to do?" The figure of light whispered gently to them.
"Heal and save everybody. Please," Ivan spoke the last word belatedly with a look towards his mother.
"The city, fix the city so that everyone has homes, too," Roen ducked his head. "Please."
"May we also have some time with our grandparents, before they have to go?" Lily looked toward the warriors in white. "I would love to hug them, but I understand they cannot stay… please." She ducked a curtsy.
The Sorcerer chuckled. "How much a child asks, freely and without reservation. You three have faith I can accomplish these things?"
"Can't you?" Lily asked curiously. "I mean, you are all powerful, can't you accomplish anything you want?"
"Evil is dead, there is nothing in the way of your will now, right?" Ivan put in. The triplets looked at each other and nodded in tentative agreement.
Roland blinked. Ivan seemed healthy, radiant even, nothing like the sickly, ailing child from a short time before. Could he feel the absence of the Darkness so keenly as to know it was gone forever?
If that was true, then the Sorcerer's words were indeed entirely fair. He would have easily traded his life for an eternity without evil in it. His children and grandchildren to have peace. His eyes prickled again as he remembered having a conversation about that with Riley.
Riley was willing to give his life for the same thing. And now he had.
There was an eerie quiet as all the humans, and all the creatures that now inhabited their world held their breath, waiting for the Sorcerer's reply to the children's requests.
A new scream of horror broke out, and Roland tensed. It was the same voice as before, but there was a new, more wretched quality to it.
His eyes scanned until they found Shayn, who had been cradling Riley's body. Laying his brother's form gently back on the earth, Shayn stood and staggered several steps…
"SIMONE!" The young man's voice carried the grief of the world as he fell to his knees beside another body.
"No," Roland breathed quietly, "No, not her, too."
__
Shayn had only peripherally taken in the interaction between the Sorcerer and Roland. After the battle's conclusion he had finally begun to really absorb the reality of his eldest brother's death.
Shayn, the middle of the five brothers, was now the eldest left alive.
A wail of grief had escaped his lips as he held Riley's cooling body. There was no life left in it. There was no hope for his survival. He had sat in his shock for several minutes before he realized… he should not be alone.
Simone would have been here, holding onto him… if she were able.
And so his eyes had searched with alarm until they found her. Her dress, marred by the stain of the wound she'd endured–and recovered from–earlier, was the first thing he noticed. He'd almost lost her earlier, nearly died with her, and the experience had scared him so deeply that he'd left her behind as he rushed into the most intense fighting.
But had he been wrong to do so?
"SIMONE!!"
He swallowed and lowered Riley to the ground, and tripped forward until he nearly fell again, onto the woman he loved.
She was breathing, but pale, and her foot oozed the insidious green color of goblin poison.
His tortured heart broke.
"No." He spoke in a whisper.
"NO!" A shout.
"NO, HOW CAN THIS BE ALLOWED?" The scream cut off as he choked on emotion, pulling the woman he loved into his arms and weeping into her shoulder. "You can't leave me. Not now, we survived together, remember? You can't go. You promised… you promised to marry me. We were safe. We were going to make it, both of us."
A heavy hand laid on his shoulder, and he shook it off. "Leave me alone," He growled. There was no cure for the poison. He knew that from the last war. He'd watched so many on the battlefield infected. Any moment now, she would convulse violently and die. The least he could do was hold her in her last minutes of life.
He owed her that much, and so much more. He owed her a lifetime.
"My son," Ashmayne said sternly. "When the Sorcerer is speaking, we must listen."
The rebuke landed ill on Shayn's ears, and he did not lift his head to grind out the words between his teeth, "I'm sorry that my intended bride is dying too loudly."
The biting sarcasm was not lost on anyone, but Ashmayne spoke again.
"Shayn, my son. When the Sorcerer speaks, you will listen." He replied.
The young man whirled his head to deliver another sarcastic retort, but his father's steady gaze was powerful. It was not uncompassionate, but it was unmoving. Without comment, Shayn cradled Simone more snugly against him, but turned his attention toward the towering figure of light speaking with the royal children.
There was a long pause in the conversation, and everyone seemed to be holding their breaths. For what purpose? What had Shayn missed in the conversation?
He almost wanted to complain to his father that there was no point in listening right now since the Sorcerer wasn't speaking, but Ashmayne, too, watched and waited with a tense expression.
Finally, after an interminable moment, The Sorcerer spoke. His tone commanded the attention of the world, and there was not a word, not a whisper, no wind nor movement, not a sound other than his voice.
"You ask with such faith, that I cannot deny your requests, children. It shall be as you ask."