White Gold Wielder Read Online Free PDF Page A

and the Giantfriend remain among us, there is hope!”
    But Pitchwife’s claim was too direct. Covenant flinched from it. He had wronged too many people and had no hope left for himself. A part of him wanted to cry out in protest. Was that what he would have to do in the end? Give Linden his ring, the meaning of his life, when she had never seen the Land without the Sunbane and did not know how to love it? Weakly he muttered, “Tell that to Honninscrave. He could use some hope.”
    At that, Pitchwife’s eyes darkened. But he did not look away. “The Master has spoken of your refusal. I know not the good or ill of these matters, but the word of my heart is that you have done what you must—and that is well. Do not think me ungrieved by Seadreamer*s fall—or the Master’s hurt. Yet the hazard of your might is great. And who can say how the
Nicor
would answer such fire, though they have passed us by? None may judge the doom which lies upon you now. You have done well in your way.”
    Pitchwife’s frank empathy made Covenant’s eyes burn. He knew acutely that he had not done well. Pain like Honninscrave’s should not be refused, never be refused. But the fear and the despair were still there, blocking everything. He could not even meet Pitchwife’s gaze.
    “Ah, Giantfriend,” Pitchwife breathed at last. “You also are grieved beyond bearing. I know not how to solace you.” Abruptly he stooped, and one hand lifted a leather flask into the hammock. “If you find no ease in my tale of the Chosen, will you not at the least drink
diamondraught
and grant your flesh rest? Your own story remains to be told. Be not so harsh with yourself.”
    His words raised memories of dead Atiaran in Andelain. The mother of the woman he had raped and driven mad had said with severe compassion.
In punishing yourself, you come to merit punishment
.
This is Despite
. But Covenant did not want to think about Atiaran.
Find no ease
—Belatedly he pictured Linden in the depths of the
dromond
, holding the survival of the Search in her hands. He could not bear the rhythm of her courage, but he saw her face. Framed by her wheaten hair, it was acute with concentration, knotted between the brows, marked on either side of the mouth by the consequences of severity—and beautiful to him in every bone and line.
    Humbled by what she had done to save the ship, he raised the flask to his lips and drank.
    When he awoke, the cabin was full of afternoon sunshine, and the pungent taste of
diamondraught
lingered on his tongue. The Giantship was moving again. He remembered no dreams. The impression he bore with him out of slumber was one of blankness, a leper’s numbness carried to its logical extreme. He wanted to roll over and never wake up again.
    But as he glanced blearily around the sun-sharp cabin, he saw Linden sitting in one of the chairs beside the table.
    She sat with her head bowed and her hands open in her lap, as if she had been waiting there for a long time. Her hair gleamed cleanly in the light, giving her the appearance of a woman who had emerged whole from an ordeal—refined, perhaps, but not reduced. With an inward moan, he recollected what the old man on Haven Farm had said to her.
There is also love in the world
. And in Andelain dead Elena, Covenant’s daughter, had urged him,
Care for her, beloved, so that in the end she may heal us all
. The sight of her made his chest contract. He had lost her as well. He had nothing left.
    Then she seemed to feel his gaze on her. She looked up at him, automatically brushing the tresses back from her face; and he saw that she was not unhurt. Her eyes were hollow and flagrant with fatigue; her cheeks were pallid; and the twinned lines running past her mouth from either side of her delicate nose looked like they had been left there by tears as well as time. A voiceless protest gathered in him. Had she been sitting here with him ever since the passing of the
Nicor?
When she needed so much rest?
    But a