“Analin, you cannot avoid me forever.” Arvenus watched her in the mansion garden as she plucked a few late blooming petals from the rosebush before her.

“I don’t intend such a thing,” she waved him away flippantly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“For weeks we have barely spoken,” he said, following her as she moved between the flowering plants. “We have not shared the same bed in as many days. Tell me what I have done to offend you so?”

Analin shook her head, lips pursed in irritation. “I have told you many times before Arvenus… this will take time. I do not withhold myself from you out of some imagined spite. I am healing. Physically and emotionally.”

She turned to face him, and he could see a deep anger inside her, a black sort of pain that she kept from him.

“I know you are hurting,” he said, reaching for her. She stiffened at his touch, just as she had every time he touched her of late. “I just want to be there for you as best I can.”

“But you cannot,” she relented, her words hot with emotion. “You cannot help me through this. I look at you and I see the life we should have had. I see what should have been, and I am gutted by the fact that life has now been lost forever. How can you not understand that?”

“I do!” Arvenus shouted, pushing her away. “How could you think that I don’t? It was my child as much as it was yours. I look at you and see the same things, but I would love you and cherish you in spite of the pain it brings me, because you are all I have left of our child.”

Analin’s face changed in an instant. No longer heated, full of the emotion she was so afraid to show him, she was pensive, distant, almost as if the fire within her had been doused by his words.

“I carried our child within me,” she whispered, taking a step back from him. “I felt it move, felt it kick with life. This child was more a part of me than my own thoughts. I cradled it between my arms. I spoke to it. I loved it more than I’ve loved anything else. And I will not grieve this loss according to your schedule, or anyone else’s for that matter. My world was shattered the day I lost our baby. So, forgive me, if it takes time to look at you with love again. Forgive me if I cannot simply grieve and be done with it as you seem to be.”

Shocked by her outburst, Arvenus stood speechless before her. He felt as if he was seeing her for the first time, seeing all of her pain, all of her heartache. She had turned herself away from him for so long, and now he could finally see the depth of the hatred she held for him. She blamed him for the loss of their child, blamed him for being unable to conceive ever again. He had robbed her of her only chance to be a mother, and that knowledge held her captive. She could not let go of the child they lost, because she would never have another chance at having one.

“If you cannot see your way to forgiving me, wife,” Arvenus whispered, turning away, “then it will be the death of my love for you. And the death of this marriage.”

Her response was a cold one. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

Arvenus trudged through the grasses, his heart aching. His legs moved unbidden, tracing their way across the mansion’s garden and through the village to the graveyard. They came to rest at the feet of his mother’s and father’s graves. He slumped down into the grass, pulling his knees up to his chest. His eyes traced the words etched into the gravestones, bits of stone already broken and crumbling between spots of green moss.

“It seems I was never very good at holding onto those dearest to me,” he said, his eyes not once leaving the gravestones. “The ones I love most always seem to slip through my fingers. You. My child. Analin. The only love I’ve managed to have saved is the love I share with Yarnus. It is as much a shock to me as I’m sure it would be to you.”

Arvenus was silent for a moment. He felt the breeze on his skin, the cool grasses between his legs, felt the sunlight as it kissed his face. But none of it truly touched him. He felt it all, yet it meant nothing to him. He was empty. He had no love left to give; to anyone else, let alone to himself.

“Give me guidance,” he said at last, returning his gaze to his parents’ graves. “Give me the strength to see what is right. I can see that Analin holds no love for me, but I do not know who or what I am without her,” he said, his words falling quiet. “I have loved her for so long. I never once dreamed of a future without her in it. And while I still suffer the loss of our child, I fear I do not suffer the same way she does. She is mired in it. It torments her every waking moment. And as long as she is with me, she will never be able to conceive again. She will be childless forever. And that is a choice that I made.”

He reached forward, wiping away the dirt and grime that had built up on the stones.  “Help me to figure out what to do,” he begged them. “I love her, but I would see her happy. And I fear that it is too late for me to have both.”

“Perhaps not.”

Arvenus froze. He had thought himself to be alone, isolated from the rest of the world. He traveled to his parents’ graves often lately, to ruminate on his life, to seek their guidance and pray for their understanding and support, but never had he been interrupted. Cautious, he slowly rose from the ground and turned to confront his intruder, only to find himself face to face with Daron. Arvenus breathed a sigh of relief.

“I was not expecting company,” he chastised the landlord, though his heart was not in it.

“My apologies, my son,” Daron smiled sheepishly. “I heard you and Analin talk, and saw you leave the garden.”

“No harm done,” Arvenus waved the words away. “Truthfully, I am grateful for your company. My parents’ graves provide me a measure of comfort, but their advice is rather poor.”

Daron grinned. “Silence is often the most prudent, if least invited, advice. But I think perhaps this time I might offer a word of wisdom, if you’ll allow me. I am most grateful for you purging the crop plague from my lands the past weeks, and would hope you let me repay my debt to you, even just a bit.”

Arvenus sighed but nodded his ascent. “Join me,” he suggested, motioning to the ground next to him. Once more he folded up his legs, sitting in the grass next to the graves. Daron mirrored his movements.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your lament just now,” the landlord confessed, though he had the good graces to seem abashed by it. “I know you believe Analin to be a lost cause. You think that she cannot ever be happy with you again, but I do not believe that to be the truth of it. She was never happier than she was with you, Arvenus. You have brought so much life and love to my sweet Analin, and I would not see either of you throw away what you have made so readily.”

“She cannot even look at me, let alone love me,” Arvenus confessed, the words bitter in his mouth. “She spends far too much time with Yarnus it seems. Perhaps because his face does not remind her much of mine.”

“Yes,” Daron agreed. “I have seen the way she hangs onto your brother. It is improper for both of them. Yarnus needs to move on, to find a wife of his own. And Analin… she will remember what you are to her only if you persist. I urge you, do not give up. She is in a fragile state now, but the only thing that will help her heal is the love you give her. Now, more than ever.”

Arvenus was silent for a time. He swallowed down the hurt he felt, the muscles tight in his throat. Perhaps there was merit in Daron’s words. After all, his love for Analin had not wavered. Perhaps her love for him was still there, beneath the pain and anger. Perhaps the outward hatred she held was fueled by that love.

“Go to her,” Daron urged quietly as he struggled to his feet. “You will see the truth of my words. She loves you still, Arvenus. Take solace in that. One day she will come around. Give her time and give her all the love you have to muster. She will be your loving wife once more.”

Arvenus nodded to the landlord as the older man took his leave. He stared at the graves of his parents, wondering if perhaps Daron’s guidance was somehow their intervention. He sat in silent contemplation a while longer, until at long last he had made up his mind.

Ambling back through the village, he had already cut a wide path through, Arvenus tried to still the heart thundering against his ribs. There was no reason he should be nervous, yet his hands trembled all the same. As he walked through the garden gate up to the mansion, he allowed himself to feel hopeful, if only for a moment. It would be a relief to hold her in his arms again, to feel her melt against him and caress him the way she once had.

Arvenus took the porch steps two at a time, hurrying through the door. Daron was right. After all the devastation they had suffered, it was only natural that Analin would push him away. She needed space to grieve. Yet that didn’t mean he couldn’t give her all the love and support he could spare.

The house was quiet as he walked through the halls. He made his way to the room he shared with Analin, hoping to find her there. It was where she spent much of her days now, aside from her brief respites in the orchard. Outside the door to the room, Arvenus paused. There was a distinct rustling on the other side of the door, and he pressed his ear against the wood trying to determine the noise. Mutterings whispered to him through the cracks in the wood. He could hear Analin’s soft voice, but he could not tell what words were spoken. Perhaps Lanika sat inside, keeping her daughter company. Or, even more likely was the idea that Daron, who had arrived back home before him, was at that very moment doing his best to convince Analin to give her husband another chance. Without giving it a second thought, Arvenus gripped the handle and swung the door forward.

The scene that greeted him was wholly unexpected. There Analin lay, wrapped naked in his brother’s arms, her legs wrapped around his waist. Yarnus’ mouth was pressed against hers as their bodies moved in sync, a steady rhythm that left nothing to the imagination. Aghast, Arvenus could do nothing but watch as Yarnus defiled his wife.

Yet within moments the shock had worn away to anger. Arvenus raced forward and gripped the startled Yarnus about the neck. With a strength he had never felt before, Arvenus tore his brother aside, throwing him against the wall. Analin’s shriek bored into his mind, worming its way inside him until he turned back to her with a raised hand.

“You would hit me?” she shouted, pulling the furs up over her naked body.

“Be silent,” Arvenus hissed. “I thought you to be an honorable woman. I came here to salvage our marriage, to be the kind of husband I pledged to be, but I can see you had no intention of honoring your own vow. You’re vile. Hardly better than the filth and muck in the fields. To say I am outraged at how you conned me into loving you is an understatement. I am disgusted that I pledged my love to you, when you would stoop to this low.”

“Do not speak to her in such a way.”

Arvenus turned back to his brother, who sat slumped against the wall, bits of bright blood dribbling from his lips.

Arvenus laughed, but it was a cold and hollow sort of sound. “Do not think to command any respect here, brother-mine. You’ve always been a covetous fool, but even I believed you would respect the will of the Gods. Your actions have tarnished something that was pure.”

“You tarnished it,” Analin accused, the words torn from her throat in a rage. “You made a pledge to Psikar that would make me a motherless old crone. You are the reason my baby could not come to term, the reason I bled out for days wishing I, too, had died when he did. Do not blame this on Yarnus, or anyone else. This was your folly, and yours alone.”

Her words were biting, flaying Arvenus as he stood there, but they did nothing to assuage his anger. He burned with the heat of it, felt it beat in time with his pulse as it scorched his insides, twisting his guts to ash. Then something hard grabbed him about the middle and pushed him to the ground. He struggled out from beneath it, only to find Yarnus attacking him. Arvenus curled his fingers into a fist and cracked his brother hard against the jaw. There was an audible snap as his fist made contact.

With a howl, Yarnus flung his naked body toward his brother, catching him once more around the middle and forcing him down. He brought a knee up into Arvenus' hip, pinning him there as he began to pummel him in the ribs with two fists that hammered into him like stone.

“Stop!” Analin screamed, scrambling to the edge of the bed. She watched as the brothers rolled about on the floor, exchanging blows. “Stop this!”

Yarnus rushed Arvenus again, but this time Arvenus was ready. As Yarnus dropped his shoulder to barrel into his brother’s chest, Arvenus parried to the side, gripping his brother’s arm tight. He spun behind Yarnus and kicked the back of his knee, forcing him down to the ground. In the blink of an eye his hands were around his brother’s neck. Arvenus squeezed the flesh between his fingers, feeling the heat of his brother’s blood as it pooled beneath his touch. He could feel Yarnus’ heartbeat, could hear the blood slowing as he cut off all air supply. Arvenus watched as his brother’s face turned a hideous shade of purple, his eyes a sickly pink as one by one the capillaries inside them began to pop.

“Arvenus, you’re killing him. Oh, Gods, you’re killing him!”

He could hear Analin’s screams as she begged him to stop, but the rage still flowed hot and heavy inside him. His lips curled in disgust, he hoisted his brother up by the neck and threw his body back down to the floor.

Yarnus moaned and coughed as he gasped for air, and Analin raced to him, throwing her body down on top of his.

“This is enough,” she said, but as Yarnus' skin regained a normal color, he pushed her aside.

“Admit it, brother,” he taunted Arvenus. “You’ve wanted to do this for years. You couldn’t stand the love Analin held for me. You couldn’t fathom that a woman like her could love someone as hideous as me. You couldn’t fathom that she might prefer me to you. But you knew it, didn’t you? Deep down inside, you knew that there was something special between us. And rather than let us live in peace, you had to have her for yourself.”

“She pledged herself to me,” Arvenus bellowed. “Willingly! She begged me to have a child with her. Begged me to become her husband. You’re the one who lived in wretched jealousy, sneaking in the shadows at every turn, hiding in the bushes like some depraved voyeur. You wished she was yours, and you would stop at nothing to convince her that you were who she was meant to be with. You couldn’t stand that someone could be so kind to you and still be repulsed by you. So you waited until she was at her lowest point, waited until she was vulnerable from loss, and then you whispered sweet nothings in her ear until she caved to your will.”

“That’s not true,” Yarnus hissed, licking his lips as he glanced sidelong at Analin. “She has always cared for me. And you’re a fool to see it any other way.”

A guttural scream escaped him, and Arvenus rushed at his brother. In his blind rage, he didn’t notice the stone wall collapsing around them as he pushed Yarnus through to the other side. He hit the ground with a hollow thud, lifting his head in time to see his brother’s body rolling beyond his reach.

Arvenus scrambled to his feet, crouched low as if he were ready to pounce. Yarnus faced him, knees bent, panting hard from their struggle.

“Don’t do this,” Analin pleaded, stepping over jagged bits of fallen stone to stand among the crags and refuse.

Arvenus regarded his wife with cold eyes. She was beautiful. Even through his anger and hurt he could see that. Except there was an ugliness within her now that he hadn’t seen before. A hardness beneath her gentle fragility that made him wonder if he had ever truly known her at all.

“I wonder, wife,” he sneered. “For which of us do you plead? Do you fear that Yarnus will kill me? Or do you fear that I will kill him?”

“It need not come to that,” she said, a hitch in her voice. Arvenus caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes, and deep in his heart he knew who it was she begged for.

With deliberate slowness, he curled his fingers into a fist. Yarnus watched his every move, his icy eyes sharp and unyielding. Arvenus could feel the rage burning inside him, could feel the anguish mottling into a hard pit. He longed to feel empty again, as he had in the days following his baby’s death. He longed to face that black expanse that lived inside him, the vast cavern that opened into nothingness, but his hurt was too great to ignore, and he was done trying to push it aside. He raised his arm and as he prepared to lunge at his brother, he saw a hint of fear in Yarnus’ eyes.

Then, the sound of the estate bell chimed, a slow, dulcet tone that echoed and spread throughout the village.

“Kenderik One-Arm is here!” Analin shouted at them crying. “Please stop fighting. I beg you. Do something…”