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April 5 - April 6, 2023
How the blood-fed crystals drew the worshippers’ emotions from their bodies. Trapped them, held them. Left them cold and hard. But that feeling must go somewhere, and those crystals were not strong enough to contain it all. So it had sought a new place of shelter and found it . . . in me.
Vor! He’s here, beside me. I would recognize the shape of his soul anywhere, in any plain of existence. His hands are on me. That touch is enough to jar my awareness back to my body, and I’m relieved to find that, though every bone in my skeleton aches, the pain is not what it was. It has moved out from me, poured into the tall crystals, and my heart beats freely in my breast once more.
With a sigh, I give in and rest my head against his shoulder. I don’t ask where we are going or how long it will take to get there. All I want is to live in this moment. To listen to the pulse of his heart, to feel the rhythm of his breath, and let it sink into my soul like the living song of the crystals.
The relief flooding through me is almost more than I can bear. I must summon all my strength simply to keep my knees from buckling and my body from sinking to the ground, trembling as I cradle her against me. She’s alive! Warm, alive, here in my arms. Her soft breath stirs against my skin, her graceful arms drape round my neck, and her hair, soft and sweet as spun-silk, brushes my jaw.
If I open my mouth, it won’t be any of the questions burning on my tongue that pour forth. No, it will be confessions. Declarations. Words I have no business articulating.
Now, she tucks her head under my chin and simply holds onto me. Like she trusts me. Like I can help her, comfort her. It’s the most beautiful sensation I’ve ever experienced.
Realization strikes me like a blow: she’s beautiful. Sitting there, disheveled, hair pointing every which way, dirt smearing one cheek. I remember once wondering if I could learn to find her attractive. Now, I almost want to laugh out loud at my own foolishness. I should have known even then, looking at her for the first time, that all my definitions of beauty were suddenly changed. Since that moment no woman has compared to her in my mind. If I force myself, I can objectively see and list her flaws. Her mouth is too wide, her jaw too square, her nose too prominent. And of course, those
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Then I had not realized it was her, however. Now that I know, how much more intense would the pleasure be?
“I did not believe a world under stone could be so beautiful. Now that I’ve seen it . . . seen this place . . . my own world seems rather colorless by comparison.” My heart warms.
All I knew was that my mother had gone. And she’d not taken me with her.”
“I feel the feelings of others. Deep inside me. Like a pulse. A reverberation. I feel them so strongly, it hurts sometimes.”
And even as I speak, I cannot help thinking how strong she is. How determined, how brave. To take on this pain, like a series of blows, without once turning aside.
“You think . . .” She hesitates before continuing. “You think they intend to use me. For this sacrifice.”
“Yes,” she says, her voice almost a growl. “Your feelings. For me.” All the breath seems to have been blasted from my lungs. “You . . . you know how I . . .?” She lets out an exasperated huff. “It doesn’t exactly take a gods-gift, Vor.”
She sits perched on that stone. So vulnerable. So lovely. So everything I crave. But this craving is an enemy I must face and fight and conquer.
Vor wants me. Though his defenses are back in place, I know I didn’t misread his emotions earlier. He wants me—and not just in the hot, fiery way a man wants a woman. He wants more than that. He longs for a companion he can trust, for someone on whom he can depend through all the tumultuous storms of this life. When he looks at me, he knows I could be that very companion. I could be the one to give his heart safe harbor.
My heart rams in my throat, and my gods-gift roils with powerful bursts of emotion. I don’t know which of these feelings belong to me and which to him. It’s all one. All need. All desire.
Time is running out. I can feel the seconds slipping away. Too soon, too soon, we will be parted forever. I need this moment. I need him. Now.
“What have you done to me?” His voice is a low snarl against my mouth, my cheek, my ear, my neck. “What have you done, Faraine? Deeper Dark damn me for a fool!”
Give me this one boon. Give me this one last chance to truly see something of the worlds beyond my limited scope. Show it to me as you see it, as you love it.”
I suspect he’ll be a bit limp these next three lusterlings or so.” “Limp?” Sul pricks an eyebrow. “You don’t mean—?” “I mean you’d best not get out of bed for fear of taking a tumble, that’s what I mean. As to the other?” She casts a significant glance down his body. “Let me assure you, you won’t be getting a chance to find out anytime soon.”
I wish I could break all the cage bars for Faraine. Let her fly free, let her soar as high into that terrifying sky as her spirit will carry her. Away from all the darkness which haunts both my kingdom and hers. Instead, I must send her from one cage to another.
I eye the boy up and down. I’ve known him his whole life. How many times had Hael strapped her infant brother to her back, carting him around with her as she, Sul, and I went on our childhood adventures? Later, he’d trailed after us on fat legs and tiny feet, demanding to be included. He’s now a gangly lad, nearly full grown. Inexperienced, sure, but there’s only one known remedy for that.
This is it: my last chance. My final opportunity to convince Vor that we belong with each other, regardless of kingdoms and politics, regardless of perils and fates. We, the two of us, must choose to make a life together, no matter what dire threats loom in whatever uncertain future.
For a moment, I cannot think. I’m no longer aware of Hael standing between us. It’s just me and him. Alone in all this world.
He’s nervous. It emerges through his barriers in little bursts. But his nerves give me courage. This time together means more to him than he wants to admit.
Then Vor’s hand comes to rest on the small of my back. Gently, he pulls me toward him. Warmth floods my senses. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter how anyone else looks at me, doesn’t matter that I am the only one of my kind in this whole hostile world. Vor is with me, his strength beside me, his power evident in even the smallest of gestures.
Everything about this is a mistake. The shape of her in my arms, the warmth of her back pressed against my chest. I’m acutely aware of her round softness perched between my legs, and that awareness is not helped by the way her skirts flutter and part at every other plodding step of the morleth.
When the road begins to level out, she sits up a bit straighter in the saddle. That I don’t care for. I fight the urge to pull her back against my chest so that I may feel her and breathe her.
She would have been happy here. As queen. She would not have ended up like my mother.
Gods, on high! Does she realize what she does to me simply by existing?
Just now, it’s nice to indulge in this little game of make-believe—to pretend she is, in truth, my new blushing bride and I, her proud bridegroom. That this is only the first of many ventures into Mythanar which we will make together as I teach her the ways of my people and my world.
I know something then with absolute certainty. Perhaps the only certainty in my whole sorry, uncertain life. I know this image of her—clad in that pink, trolde-style gown, wearing that crown of uncut gems, her hair tumbled about her face and shoulders, her eyes uplifted to mine—will stay with me to the end. When the world comes all undone, when the cracks spread and the caverns fall, her face, just as it is right now, will be the last vision my mind’s eye sees.
Wonderstruck, Faraine watches the performance. And I watch her. I can’t help myself. All the beauties of Mythanar pale by comparison to the joy of watching her face. The subtleties of expression, every slight shift of her brow, her cheek, her jaw, her lips. It’s like watching a living, breathing work of art. I could sit and make a study of her all day. I find myself wondering what her face would look like in . . . release?
Knowing me, knowing my heart. Knowing that truth which, until this moment, I’ve struggled so hard to deny. I am falling irrevocably in love. With my wife.
I wish I could stay here. Right here, in this singular point of time, suspended in the air. Held in his strong arms.
But what more can I say? There is nothing else. Just that one, simple fact. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be parted from him. Not now. Not ever.
For too long, I’ve let other people decide my fate. For too long, I’ve let them push and prod, manipulate and mold me into something I don’t even recognize, until I myself am lost. No more. I know what I must do.
“I won’t live my life aching for what I never had the courage to take.”
He cups my cheeks, pulls me back just a little, stares down at me in absolute wonder. “What have you done to me?” He kisses me again, gently. A sweet touch, like a promise, a prayer. “I would hazard it all. My realm, my crown, my kingdom. Even my honor. All for you. Only for you.”
She’s like a miracle. So perfectly formed, her warm softness against my palm, her strange, bi-colored eyes piercing mine. She wants this. She wants me. Despite all I’ve done. Despite how I’ve made her suffer. She wants me.
Thoughts of duty, crown, kingdom, and chaos can no longer fit inside my head. There’s no room for anything but her. For all I want to give her, all I want her to know and experience. She is a miracle. My miracle. And I won’t waste whatever time we have.
“You . . . you will be gentle with me, Vor?” “Oh, Faraine.” I bend down and kiss her stomach again. “Faraine, Faraine. I will be more than gentle.”
His smile returns, devasting and beautiful enough to stop my heart. “I’m going to make you soar, Faraine,” he murmurs.
I am his. Wholly and completely. I’ve given up whatever control I thought I had, placed myself in his hands, in his keeping. And now, he makes me new.
Vor. Vor is the missing part. My soul knew it from the moment I first heard his voice in my ear. It was as though I recognized him from some existence beyond time and space where we have always been inextricably linked. I am his just as he is mine.
“I took nothing from you! I gave and would give again and would go on giving. I would never use you, Faraine! I am not that man.”
But when the moment came, I could not give her what she needed. I could not give her me. Not completely. Because I do not belong to myself. I am Mythanar’s king. I belong to my people, my city, my realm. I belong to the warriors I lead and all the denizens of this world I have sworn to protect.
I can never regret what she gave so willingly . . . only what I could not give in return. But we are not destined for one another. Fate or the gods or both have conspired against us. The price has now come due on those beautiful moments we so joyfully took—a price neither of us is prepared to pay.
He pushes off from the wall. Wrenches the devil’s claws free of the stone. They fall. Tumble. Still grappling together. Plummeting through shadows and down to the fiery river far below.
