OLIVE

As the world burned, they stripped bare in shadows and dancing candlelight. As the world fell, they stood before shimmering water. As the screams of the dying still echoed, as all their kingdom swirled as ash, they had these shadows, these candles, this love.

Olive did not know her true name, if she had ever had one. She did not know if she was even Zoharite, perhaps the babe of some lost northern traveler who had bequeathed her flaming red hair, pale skin that burned here in the desert, and a wild heart. But she knew this: She loved her husband. She loved all that Epher fought for. All she lived for now, with the world gone, was their love.

The bathhouse atop Tarath El was dark, and between the columns that surrounded it, Olive could see countless stars strewn across the night sky. Within the bathhouse, a thousand candles burned like flaming stars, sisters to the heavenly lights. She and her husband stood on opposite sides of the pool, facing each other. Between them, the water steamed, flowing from hidden pipes that delved deep into the mountain, drinking from the deep caverns where the world was all fire and stone and steam. Solemnly, Olive pulled the straps on her tattered tunic, a gift he had given her months ago, simple cotton that was precious to her. Her garment fell around her feet, and the steam caressed her nakedness. Her body was still too slender, lacking the wide hips and heavy breasts that the men of this dry, hard desert desired, the body a woman needed to birth healthy babes who'd survive in this kingdom. She was not beautiful, not like the demon who had burned their world, not like the other women Epher had loved in his days as a lord upon the coast. But all that Olive had she gave to him.

She had grown up wild. She had grown up lost. She had run with jackals and wolves across the desert, and she had kindled fires in forests, and she had howled to the moon, coated with mud, the blood of animals on her teeth. She had never known the love, the emotions, the thoughts and dreams and wonders and fears of men. She had been an animal, but with him she was a woman.

Across the pool, Epher too doffed his tunic, and he stood naked before her, the steam rising around him. Like her, he carried the scars of their long war. Every scar was a life saved. Every scar was a miracle, as true as the miracle that Maya had summoned at the Gate of Myrrh.

Olive stepped into the pool, moving down a staircase until the hot water rose to her shoulders. Epher entered the pool from the other side, walked through the water, and stood before her. She caressed his cheek.

"You fucking bastard piece of shit," she whispered.

He smiled thinly. "I love you too, my sunrise."

They kissed in the pool, the steam rising around them. Outside, the world had fallen. Outside, the last shadows gathered to extinguish the light. But here they were pure. Here they were at peace. Here they were lions.

They made love in the pool. Softly yet urgently, her back pressed to the tiled wall, her elbows against the rim. He thrust into her, steadily, surely, gazing into her eyes, and she clutched his hair and tugged it as she climaxed. Then she collapsed into his arms, and she felt his seed fill her underwater.

She melted into his embrace, her head against his shoulder.

"Epher," she whispered. "Epher and Olive. Your name is Red."

He held her for a long time. In warmth. In safety. Olive closed her eyes, and she remembered those long years before him.

She had been nameless.

She had hunted on the hills.

She had been fire. She had been blood and meat in the dawn. She had been shelter in a cave as rain streamed outside. She had been lightning. She had been fangs shining in shadows. She had been disease, shuddering, shivering. She had been a thousand pine nuts smashed under stones. She had been a dance of sunrise and sunset and the bustle of birds. She had been wind on a cliff, and the sea whispering, then roaring, roaring to her, howling, a blue-and-gray beast exploding over the shore. She had been seashells in the sand and secrets under the water. She had been raw, rotten fish washed ashore, leaking between teeth. She had been hiding from men who roamed the forest, who stoned her, who mocked her. She had been the sticky wound on her head, the slow recovery after the fall from a shattered branch. She had been thirst. Sometimes all she had been was thirst, seeking, trembling, finding no water in the dry summers. She had been feet racing from wildfires that crackled through the brush. She had been feet bouncing on hot stones and smoldering ash. She had been the shivers of cold when the rain would not stop and she could not find her cave. She had been eyes. Yellow eyes in the forest staring into hers. She had been rustling in darkness. Owls. Things in the night. She had been the moon. She had been the observer of the stars, of a thousand comets that streamed above and made her laugh and spin around and weep for their beauty. She had been thoughts in pictures. She had been a mouth that knew only feeding, drinking, cackling, screaming, but not the words the others spoke. She had been afraid of the others. She had been fingers raw when carving arrows. She had been fury. She had been fear. She had been all those things before she had learned what they meant. Before she had met him. Before she had learned the secret words, these symbols for everything that she was, had been, would never be. Now she was Olive. Now Olive meant everything but meant nothing.

"Epher and Olive," she whispered to him, holding him so close. "Together. At the end of everything."

"This isn't the end," he said. "This is an oasis. This is the last safe place in the world. I don't believe that this storm will endure. When the winds blow and the hail hammers down, and all is darkness and sound and rage, it's easy to think that the world is ending. But the storm always passes, and new light dawns. We'll outlast our enemies. We'll outlive this empire. This is not the end."

Tears filled her eyes, and she stroked his cheek. "Epher, I am with child."

His eyes widened, and she prepared herself to see fear in them, to see these tidings, normally so blessed, crush him at this time of war. But she saw joy. He laughed, grabbed her waist, lifted her high, and kissed her belly.

"A child." Suddenly he frowned, lowered her, and stared into her eyes. "You should not have been fighting! You need to rest. You—"

"I fine." She kissed his lips. "You going to be a father. Here on island in desert. Here in little kingdom rising above the world." She trembled, and her tears turned bitter. "We need make this place safe. This can no be the end."

His arms were stronger than the walls of cities. His embrace was warmth, safety in the storm. "We're safe here, Olive. The three of us. All of us. We're safe."

Issazion had given them a bedchamber in Tarath El's palace, three stories above the plateau. Embers glowed in a brazier, filling the room with warmth and soft light. As Epher slept, Olive lay holding him, eyes open, unable to find rest. She kept glancing at the wall, at the fresco of Beth Eloh that sprawled there, a masterwork with details of a hundred towers and a thousand homes, the Temple rising above them all. All gone. All fallen to rubble. When she finally slept, she was there again, running through the city, running on the walls, running from fire, then lost, lost in the forest again, blood on her teeth and howling at the moon.