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He finds her before a door to the void with armor still stained black from her last venture to its unforgiving shores. Andruil shakes, unsteady with the maddening need consuming her soul, desperate to fill a hole the universe could not satisfy.
Fen’Harel should not waste time with this. He knows it won’t work, that he will not save her with desperate pleas towards unhearing ears, but he finds himself stepping towards her nonetheless. Ghilan’nain was right in that he loves his haunted huntress even now, so he must try to save her hardening heart before he destroys it completely.
“Andruil,” he calls out and she is a flash of scarlet as she whirls to face him. There is blood on her fingertips and he wonders who or what she sacrificed this time to fuel her quest. Her eyes take too long to focus on his familiar features and something wilts inside him to see a stranger standing where lover should be.
“What do you want?”
“You must stop this before it’s too late.”
Andruil laughs, hollow and hard. “And if I do not do this, who will? Who will keep this world clean?”
“I will help you, but not this way. Not anymore. Please, leave this madness behind.”
“This the only way to stop the darkness from spreading. I have to-”
“Look at yourself!” he shouts. “It has already spread. It has seeped onto you and every time you traverse into that blackness, you lose a part of yourself and bring more through.”
Andruil glances at her red tipped hands, at the tar coating her armor as if seeing it for the first time. Clarity returns piece by piece to her eyes and Fen’Harel steps closer with hopeful breaths.
“Ma dassan…”
“No!” Fire erupts around her form and sends a whirlwind of heat and ash against him. She turns to face him, all rage and beauty and terror as wild hair dances like flames around her. “You would tempt me from my purpose and I will not submit!”
He places a barrier around him and walks into her inferno. “You are more than this madness! Fight it! Remember the songs we’ve sung for the people, the oath you swore to protect them from the very darkness in your veins. You rose from the dirt with nothing but your cunning mind. You can defeat this.”
Andruil shakes her head and the flames grow and grow, licking away at the shield around his body. He can feel tongues of heat seeping through to devour him, but he cannot stop just yet.
“If that is not enough, have you forgotten the place you hold in my heart? I cannot bear to see you lost to this decay, to see the wondrous spirit of your soul twisted beyond recognition. I am not trying to trick you, but only wish to help. Please, Andruil! Listen to me!”
“Stop!” Her power shatters his barrier and the flames swarm close. He puts his arms up to protect his face and pushes onward, even as his skin blisters. He pushes onward even as the air in his lungs burns and burns.
Fen’Harel falls to the ground as he nears her boots, fingers digging into the soil to pull him forward when his legs fail. It is his fault they have come to this. He saw the signs and omens of her fall and watched her slip into this pit, but did nothing. He cannot leave her to this fate.
“What are you doing, you fool?” Andruil screams above him. “Go back! Leave me!”
He glances up, eyes blurred with pain and flames, and lets his adoration for her shine in the slant of his smile. “I will stay, if it is all the same to you.”
Andruil gasps and the wildfire snaps out with a crack. She plummets to the ground before him and wraps arms around his shaking frame. Magic, cool and light, washes over him as she kisses his face and heals his injuries and when he takes his next, full breath, he is strong enough to return her embrace.
“Fen’Harel,” she whispers and he sighs with joy to hear it free from the disease of darkness. When he looks into her face he could cry to finally see the clear cut of her amethyst gaze again.
“Forgive me,” she begs and he wipes the tears from her eyes before they can fall. “I can’t…I can’t stop it. It’s inside me. It’s too far inside.”
He shakes his head. “No. I can help you. I will help you.”
She says his name like a prayer, a wish, a memory of better times. Her lips taste of the calming crackle of a hearth fire instead of the sickening stench of a funeral pyre when her mouth finds his. There is desperation in the way she kisses, but there is a tenderness there he has craved for far too long. It feels like the first time and, as her fingers begin to tremble against his skin, the very last.
She pulls away and he can see the cracks forming and filling with black in her eyes again. He groans, wounded from phantom claws. “Please, please stay.”
“I can’t.” And then she is moving, hands and lips and love retreating and there is no one to stop his tears. She walks towards the gaping maw of oblivion with shoulders pushed back and legs marching to her wretched ambition.
“Andruil!” he cries out, the proud wolf bent low in the face of this loss. “I…I love you.”
She grins, mournful and defeated, lost and gone. “I know, but it’s not enough,” she says and slips away into the void.