Excerpt from Cursed in Love, Chapter 37 — Failure
Chapter 37 — Failure
Zaire removed Magpie’s red leather bridle and released the pony into the meadow, but it was not until she closed the paddock gate, leaned against the fence railing and glancing down saw the red leather clutched in her hand, that the enormity of betrayal and broken trust slammed her. Anguish wrenched her heart and she reeled from the onslaught of emotions that left her stunned.
Silveron Oktalonli was Jantz Fayerfield — a Fayerfield of Rosenhall. However much she wanted to despise Silveron, the ancient promises of the Objishanda had bound her life to him until the time came for setting aside spoken vows. Not even the mountain haven of Ameradale could shelter her from heartbreak, or the husband chosen for her by her own father and brother.
Tears pricked her eyes. She blinked at the sudden sting. The reins she clutched slipped from her hand and fell in a tangle upon the ground. Turning, she fled toward the house and then stumbled to a halt. Through streaming tears, she stared at her father’s house — the wood weathered silver and overgrown by a riot of trailing vines. Streaked lichens encrusted the stonework of its foundation and chimneys. The colors blurred, swam.
Her father had welcomed him. He had traveled with her uncles. Suddenly, Mathias’ foul temper and his discord toward Silveron made sense to her. Even her uncles knew who he was.
Her breath catching, she backed away from the turf-cut steps and the house draped in tree shadows. Turning, she ran into the forest seeking escape from a fragile heart cracked into a thousand shards, each shard beating until the thousand pulsing heartbeats thundered within her skull and pulsed in her veins.
She stumbled through the forest along the deer trail, heedless at first. Running until she tripped over a tree root and scrapped her knees. Gasping, she sucked air into her lungs — each breath a burning fire. A thousand beating hearts pounded against her ribs and roared in her ears.
Somewhere nearby water trickled. She gathered her stampeding thoughts and forced her concentration to center upon the trill and splash of flowing water. The thousand beating hearts slowed, becoming two hundred churning hearts. Slower still — fifty beating hearts, then twenty beating hearts, then ten, until a single, steady beat hammered in her chest and whooshed in her ears, but no less broken.
She sat back upon her heels and dug her toes into the spongy layer of leaf and pine needles littering the deer trail. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripped from the end of her nose and clung to her mouth — salty sweet when she licked her tongue over her lips. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, fingertips brushing the hollow beneath her eyes, and wiped her hands down the bunched up folds of the skirt draping her thighs.
She sniffled. Blinking the wet spikes of her eyelashes, she looked around trying to regain her bearings. She searched for the source of the watery purl. Nearby, a flitter of sunlight glanced off water and struck the undersides of tree leaves in twinkling ripples of sun and sky.
The Farewell trickled a short distance from the deer path. Sunlight speared the trees, striking here and there before fading and disappearing as clouds scuttled across the sky only to reappear and strike elsewhere through the mossy depths of the forest. Stirred by the wind, leaves danced and cast dappled shadows beneath arbors of interlaced branches.
She stood, swaying upon her feet, and followed the Farewell toward a beech glade caught within a golden web of sunshine. Murmurs of wind whispered through the surrounding treetops. Wild, yellow canaries darted back and forth where the white flowers of the Dreamweaver grew in an abundant profusion.
Stepping across the mossy stones that littered the streambed, she crossed the Farewell. She walked among the beeches toward two white, leaning stone markers sprouting from the earth. Reverence settled upon her and drew her closer.
Peace guarded the clearing where Eolande and Cymbeline slept. Water rilled and the peeps and twitters of the wild canaries joined the chorus. The wind hummed, a suspiring of leaves and pine needles. Sylph spirits rode the voice of the wind: Welcome child.
A host of butterflies rose in a flurry of gold and white iridescent swirls, their bodies almost too heavy for the flutter of their fragile wings. Some skittered among the nearby witch hazels. Some clung to tree limbs and leaves, droplets of living color. Other butterflies hovered or settled upon the white stone markers, their wings opening and closing — a slow beat of resurrection. Still others of the tiny creatures rested and fed upon nectar succored from the Dreamweaver flowers before beginning their migratory journey south.
She walked among the butterflies. Some alighted upon her hair. Others clung to her clothing, shoulders, and arms. Sinking to her knees upon the flower-strewn earth, she stretched her hand to one of the standing stones. She stroked her fingertips across sun-kissed stone and traced the name carved into its surface. Butterflies kissed her wrist and knuckles.
“Eolande, mother of my blood.Why, Great Mother? Why did Silveron do this?”
Wind stirred through the trees. He is the one.
“I gifted him the Starstone!” Zaire cried.
Do you love him?
“What is love?” Zaire lifted her face to a warm gust. Butterflies, caught upon the wind, swirled into the semblance of a woman, their wings flashing gold and silver in the sun. Tears struck her afresh.
“I do not have the courage to forsake my blood and heritage enough to forgive.”
Wind tangled her hair and caressed her face. Its disembodied voice teased her ear, a comforting lullaby.
Hush, child.
The wind stilled. The swirl of butterflies settled upon stone, twig and leaf. She lay back and gazed up through the treetops swaying against a patch of azure sky — azure like his eyes. She rested in the moment — butterflies alighting upon her, covering her. She closed her eyes.
As the wind sighed and the wild canaries twittered, and green and gold leaves rippled, she dreamed of a man who shone — a brilliant sun haloed by plumes of fire — a man who wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, a man who pressed her into the forest loam and spilled his seed into her womb.
A lifetime ago, she had loved the golden man, as she now loved Silveron Oktalonli. Silveron resided in her heart, in her soul as surely as the flame that burned within the heart of the Starstone. Were the golden man and Silveron the same man? What power brought him back to this lifetime? What force lured him to walk the earth in flesh again?
The wind whispered. Love.
***
Zaire roused. She had fallen asleep. Twilight settled among the trees. The butterflies had taken flight. Their silver and gold bodies hung suspended from the surrounding trees. A few stragglers drifted here and there and sought a resting place for the night.
As reluctant as she was to leave the peaceful beech glade and the odd dream that had lulled her into a blissful oblivion, she could not stay. Home beckoned and night fell.
Somewhere within the forest a twig snapped. Nocturnal creatures stirred. A lonely beast prowled the night.
“Give me courage,” Zaire prayed.
Copyright 2013 © by Elizabeth A. Monroe
