The world shall grow cold, and ice will slowly creep over all.
-Genesifin
It took two days for Darse and Colette to bury them all, and the labor was brutally hard. Dirt and death clung to their bodies, clothes, and nostrils. Their fingernails chipped, and their muscles ached from both the exertion and the chill. It was hellish, yet purpose drove them.
Colette did not speak, but Darse observed her attentively. She was different, and not a soul could deny it. She housed a fire within where Darse before had only seen vacancy, pain, and hatred, and with each cadaver laid to rest, the flames grew steadier and stronger. So despite every urge he experienced to rush to Brenol, Darse could not begrudge either woman or maralane this needed task. Brenol would have to wait, or accomplish his work without them. The young man was capable—Darse knew this down to his bones—but to leave such weight on one man’s shoulders was not ideal.
After they had completed the burials on the second day, they separated to bathe in Ziel. Darse ventured west several paces while Colette meandered down into a thick stand of trees. She scanned the area, stripped off her filthy clothing, and scampered in a huddle out to the water. Her dark hair fell over her shivering body like a blanket, and her arms hugged her small frame to help conceal its remaining nakedness. She lowered in and jerked her way out to the deep, skin dancing with pins and needles.
The sharpness of the water did not diminish, yet its cutting freeze held an unforeseen relish. It smarted and awakened without subtlety, and it seemed an appropriate dovetail to finding the maralane. She smiled wryly and clamped down her chattering jaw. With determination, she inhaled and dipped beneath the surface to wash soil and scale from her hair and face. Despite the water’s sting, some tickling instinct pressed her to open her eyes. Her body shot back a hand span in the jolting realization that she was being watched.
A maralane peered at her from not more than two arm lengths away. It was only a fish-child, but the princess’s heart still thundered with adrenaline as she stared back with wide eyes. She keenly felt her vulnerability and nakedness.
The child held up a small hand—in greeting or assurance, Colette was left to guess. Yet it was not the motion but the girl herself that disarmed Colette. She was gorgeous. Her braids crowned her head in ivory and green, and her large almond eyes were a soft amber. Her tails came out in a fanfare of flowing beauty, and her scales glistened black and gray. The girl’s gentle gaze spoke of both simplicity and intellect, and she occasionally flicked her tails to remain stationary in Ziel’s undercurrents.
Colette did not want to move. She remained under until her lungs heaved and smarted and her vision clouded with spots, but she was finally forced to kick her way to the surface. As she gasped in air, a small webbed hand squeezed hers. It was surprisingly warm but as smooth as polished marble.
When the maralane did not surface, she ducked under again. The maralane smiled affectionately, and the lunitata was confounded. The maralane people were markedly disinterested in the upper-world, and to behave like this was far from characteristic.
She drew close to Colette’s ear and whispered—her voice astonishingly clear in the water—“Thank you. Thank you for burying them. My family.”
Death has melted their hardness too.
Colette squeezed the maralane’s hand and granted a small dip of her head in the icy water. It was lacking, but her only way to reply.
She rose to breathe once more, then dove back under to meet the girl.
The child suddenly opened her mouth in a morose and bitter expression. “It wasn’t just the poison,” she said quietly. She leaned in to whisper in Colette’s ear. “Please remember us.”
The words seeped into Colette, and sorrow stabbed at her with the unforgiving fierceness of a blade. As the webbed fingers caressed Colette’s frozen hand, she fought to choke down sobs that could never issue out in the water. She felt deadened to all her previous nuresti troubles in the wake of such anguish over the lake-people.
Seeing the human’s grief, the maralane bent her young face forward to kiss the lunitata’s cheek, and then hand, with tender lips. The kisses were lighter than a fairy’s touch, but they made Colette’s insides weak with mourning. The child wistfully released her and brushed away, tails gracefully trailing. She was lost within the water’s darkness in moments.
Colette emerged choking, like a babe seeking its first gasping breath, and forced her body to the shallows. She stood dripping and bare as the wind met her icy limbs but stared unblinking into the misty air, still removed from the concrete. Finally, she brushed the water off her face and stalked from the waters into the silence of the pressing wood.
~
There were several more days of travel ahead of Darse and Colette, but the journey proved to be less taxing for both. Colette was a new woman. She did not speak much, but she shone with light, her head held erect and posture aright. The hunched figure full of hate was no more, although she still appeared to be tortured by some unnamed agony. Darse could not discern the ailment, but at least he could breathe easier knowing she was coming back to life.
The two followed the mountainous paths around Ziel and by the second day had reached the eastern lugazzi territory beneath Brovingbune. A plateau spread before them as flat as a plate, and they tramped across its surface of waving, knee-high yellow grasses. The sun glinted brightly in their eyes but was not unpleasant, and the wind tugged at their clothing and toyed with the swaying reeds. A song of some unseen bird rippled through the air. Darse did not want to breathe lest he disturb the dense beauty of the moment. He drank each element in as though parched.
Despite all efforts to seal himself in the experience, he spied Colette casting a strange look upon him. He waited and feigned ignorance, but the glace came again.
She finally spoke. “Darse?”
The idyllic beauty seemed to cower back and hide at the intrusion of words. He wished he could hoard it up in his arms. He sighed quietly; solace was so fleeting.
“Yes?” Darse responded.
“Why do you choose to live in Granoile?”
Something lay hidden in her voice that Darse could not pinpoint. He looked at her curiously. Her eyes were clear but stoic. He rubbed his hands together as he realized that the inquiry elicited annoyance within him. Many unsettling questions ushered in with it.
Why should I care what she thinks?
He responded flatly but not unkindly. “I like the frawnish. They’re an interesting people.”
“That was not what I meant.”
Darse sighed, perturbed by the bizarre sensitivity he felt at her probing. “What is it, Colette?”
“I meant…” Her emerald eyes met his and held him with a strange power. “Why do you separate yourself here?”
Oh.
If she had elbowed him solidly in the gut it would not have been as painful.
“They will never accept you as their own,” she continued, although the man’s eyes now drifted off into the sea of flowing gold. “Nor,” she added, “do I really think you want them to…”
Darse lidded his eyes and felt his face burn at her words. Insight into the world around him had left him blind to his own blundering person. His tongue refused to move, so he pressed forward silently, wondering when his insides would solidify again.
Colette reached sideways to squeeze his hand. They walked with hands folded together for several minutes. He seemed to grow easier with the gentle consolation of her touch, even if he refused to reply. Colette allowed the peace to ease back in between them.
She finally spoke, hesitantly, but with tenderness, “I’ve seen the manner in which you gaze at my mother.”
Darse forced his feet to maintain movement although his legs suddenly felt stiff and numb. His face flushed yet again, now to a deep crimson, and his heart thundered terribly in his eardrums. His reaction left little doubt as to the accuracy of her statement—for either of them.
“Darse?” Colette’s voice was pleading and soft. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you too.”
The man could not feign indifference, even his weak attempt at it, any longer. He halted and released her hand. “She has no affection for an old man spit from the portals,” he said coldly. “It doesn’t matter that I was born here. I’m still foreign.”
Colette smiled and tilted her head forward with raised brows. “She shares a roof with foreignness. She’s lived with a nurest, a keeper—whatever it is that I am. But she has lost too much. She needs love, Darse.”
Darse remained silent.
“I don’t think it’s as complicated as you believe,” she added tenderly.
His thoughts raced and returned to the same fact that forever haunted him, that refused to dislodge from the tracts of his mind. He harbored dread at what the words would bring but suddenly found his fears tumbling forth from his mouth regardless. “The black fever,” he whispered hoarsely. “The icar. I am cursed. My name and line are nothing but a blight upon this world.” Darse’s gold eyes grew fierce. “I see the glances. I know their meaning. I am a torment. They wish me away because I remind them of the fever. I only bring fear.”
He allowed his pack to slide from his shoulders to the swaying grasses. It thudded softly, and he raised his hands to cup his face. His chest caved inward in weariness. Massada had helped him in so many ways, but too long had the weight of his past burrowed into his soul. He suddenly felt pocked by its devouring darkness.
The lunitata tugged both hands gently from his features and held them tightly in her own. “You were but a baby. How could you be the cause of this plague?” She shook her head in negation, and her light cast shimmers like a pocket mirror scattering the sun’s reflection. “Wherever this started, it certainly was not with you.”
And it will not end with him either. The eerie voice of premonition resounded in her ears and shook her down to her bones. She cowered back from the voice—too real, too dark—but maintained a firm grasp on Darse’s large hands.
The man looked back at the princess, unaware of her ruminations. He feared his voice would crack, but when he spoke he found it merely small. “I… You would have me?”
Colette laughed, dispelling the quivering dread that tickled her insides. “You have any doubt?”
He responded with a morose half-smile. She met his gaze seriously. “I would have you as a father. I would have you for my mother. And I would not simply permit it. I desire it… And ask it.”
Darse marveled at the strong woman before him. Her face was engraved with power and decision and bursting with light. She was not the creature who had left Veronia with soul bent and heart wrought. Colette was alive.
Abruptly, Colette dropped to her belly before him and burrowed her head in the ground in marked humility. She drew her index and middle fingers to her lips, kissed them, and with a graceful sweep touched them to his foot like a butterfly lighting between blossoms. The hand then retracted the space of three digits and lay palm open before him. Her prostrate form remained motionless, save the dark tresses that swept as one with the whipping yellow grasses around her.
Darse had never been the recipient of the crushing pardon before, but he had seen it. It was not a common spectacle, and it drew sharp inhales when it did occur. The surrounding crowd would watch rapt as the procumbent Massadan awaited either forgiveness or a crushing blow. He had seen both, and the memory of the vulnerable hand breaking beneath the fury of a boot had left him cringing for seasons. And now Colette offered the same eloquent apology for a grave wrongdoing, and his acceptance was a free choice.
Darse knelt immediately and scooped up her hand—cool from the wind and soil—and raised her up. He cupped her cheek in his palm and found his heart churning in confusion. “You’ve done me no wrong.”
“I have, I have.” Her eyes streamed with remorse, but she kept her face up with a simple dignity. “I’ve been deadened by anger and greed and hatred. And my selfishness is a burden too heavy for me to endure.”
He nodded, understanding. The weight of one’s own choices could drown a soul. “But you have done nothing to me.”
Her gaze remained straight and focused. “I know it doesn’t make sense entirely, but you saved me from Jerem. At great personal cost, too… And I waited too long to truly accept the gift of life.”
Darse sighed softly. “I do not think you owe me anything, Colette. Truly. But I give you what you ask. I’d never withhold forgiveness from you.”
“Your mercy is my bounty,” she replied.
He labored to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it easily and lithely drew herself aright, brushing blades of gold from her blue attire.
“Let’s not speak of these things again,” he said.
She assented with a graceful movement of her chin, and in the tilt, Darse could see that he need not have made such a request; the woman before him was far too regal and composed to dwell on the past any longer. She had made amends—more with herself than with any other—and would not trouble herself with guilt and tail dragging. Even now, she was forging ahead with a blazing heart.
They continued on, pausing briefly for refreshment at a stream, and then strode together in silence until the shadows fell long. They made camp, settled before a golden brazier, and sat with hands laced together to watch the stars and moons emerge.
~
Colette awoke gently. She opened her eyes, for a moment disoriented as to where she was, and soon found her mind align. She breathed in softly. Darse lay about a stride away, deep in slumber. The simple clearing was cool with night, and the fire had long ago died. The stars twinkled lightly, and the sky seemed to extend out eternally.
Colette remained quiet and unmoving. The reality of the passing of the maralane ached in every recess of her soul, but she rested and allowed the sorrow to simply be. She felt peaceful and was glad she had not spoken of her underwater encounter to Darse. She wanted a few moments to let the grief air in her.
But yes, I will tell Bren when we arrive. Her memory tugged her back to the delicate, graceful hand, the girl’s kiss upon her cheek. A silent tear slid down her face. He will understand.
Darse stirred and shifted in his blankets, and as though the sound were a trigger, she felt the greed for the nuresti connection slowly creep into her.
No, she panicked. It can’t be. I can’t want these things after seeing the maralane. After knowing their fate. I can’t.
Yet her body refused to relent. Her blood burned hot, and her skin slicked to a sheen. “Get the antidote,” the addiction within ordered. “No one else needs it like Veronia. Get it.”
Colette grit her teeth as her mind swam. For a brief moment, she considered the suggestion and, in this allowance, found her will sink under its duress. Her hands slowly pushed her body aright, and she found herself sliding from the fire into the darkness. Her body moved stealthily into the woods. She did not stop, but kept gracing the forest with swift steps.
About an hour passed before the hunger lost its sure grip. She still pulsed with desire, but her body was exhausted, and its limitations worked to wake her clouded mind.
“What am I doing?” she asked aloud, and she blushed to her ears. Her triumph and healing at Ziel now seemed pitifully shadowed by the corruption that clearly reigned in her. “What am I doing?”
In answer, the voice within spoke: “If you’re quiet, you might have a chance to get it. Just wait. Don’t tell anyone.”
Colette pressed her lips together, perturbed, and about-faced to make the return journey to camp. As she went, she stumbled and fell regularly, and her bare feet became raw with cuts. Several times the lunitata stopped to sit and weep, but there was little else to do but continue on in the dark.
Eventually, after nearly missing the small clearing, Colette came upon Darse still deep in sleep. She wiped away the silent tears that stained her cheeks and collapsed into her blankets.
I’m a monster, she thought.
As if in response, the inner darkness whispered back, “Just bide your time.”
~
The morning dawned, and Darse groaned to life. His limbs still held rebellious aches from the hours of grave digging. He rubbed his legs and stretched his shoulders while pondering Colette’s words yet again. His heart jittered with anticipation, and his mind arched forward in both apprehension and longing.
The man prepared a simple breakfast, and with the newfound clarity that comes with food in the belly, he resolved to tuck away his musings. Too much time lay until the next encounter with Isvelle to be flittering about full of school-boy angst. There was much to be accomplished, and he needed a sharp mind.
They cleared camp and extended their weary limbs east for a day of travel. Darse went slowly, for Colette appeared strangely beaten and fatigued. They crossed into Selenia but then curved farther north out of the lugazzi to avoid the rough and exhausting mountains hugging Ziel. Still, the air reaching their lungs felt thin and left them with rasping breaths. At midday they paused to rest, settling among the smooth grasses. Darse’s eyes repeatedly rose up to the slate-blue southern peaks thrusting up in stupefying majesty.
Glancing to Colette, he saw the lunitata staring vacantly at the soft green turf. What is bothering her?
Darse parted his lips to ask but was stopped before he could even draw breath. A startlingly close voice jolted him from his seat.
“I pray it has been bountiful,” the voice said, although in the openness of the mountainside, it was experienced more as a terrible booming.
“Bounty forgotten, Arman! You could warn us before making my stomach jump out of my very body,” Darse cried.
Colette gave a small smile but could not hide her shaking hands.
“I am here, as Bren promised.”
“Promised?” Darse asked the air.
“I—”
Colette quickly regained her composure. She interrupted Arman. “I used the aurenal. I told Bren to come or send someone to meet and take me on to Limbartina.” She paused, weighing her words for a moment, but continued after a breath. “I knew you’d not leave me to travel alone, but your path lies to the south. There’s nothing for you here. Or east to Granoile.”
Arman had not been privy to the previous conversation, but he caught Darse’s crimson blush. While he guessed as to its cause, he thought it best to respect the man’s privacy. The juile instead stood silently, his mind brimming with deliberations of his own.
Darse fidgeted with his coat pockets and answered her. “That’s not true. Bren needs—”
“Bren needs nothing” she interrupted swiftly. “And he’d agree with me if I spoke with him.”
“I—”
“Darse, I ask this of you. It’s not something to delay. Please.”
The man nodded, but the thought of heading to Veronia—to Isvelle—made his insides as soft as pudding. “I-I—” His voice choked in his throat. He peered out at the lofty mountains.
Can I really do this? I—
Arman finally found he could not wait any longer and severed Darse’s weaving thoughts. “Darse, pardon me for interrupting, but I must ask you something. Did any see Arista give you the jekob nut in Caladia?”
Darse blinked his golden eyes to steady his swirling mind. “Oh…” He pushed his memory back in recall. “I don’t think so. She came to my home. It was the first time.”
Silence ensued for a moment before Arman spoke. “Do not mention it again, please.” It was not a request.
“I had not planned to.” A strange discomposure lined Darse’s voice; he felt a fool. His time with the frawnish had been exactly as Colette had said: separate.
Colette stepped forward and laced his fingers with hers. Her hands were warm and delicate, and her eyes tugged at him. Again, his stomach swirled as he recalled the new purpose ahead.
“I’ll see you soon. You need have no fear. I know.” She toed herself a few digits higher and gently kissed his cheek, rough from the wind and his salted beard.
He granted her a weak smile and faced west. He strode forward a pace, halted, and turned back. “Thank you, Colette,” Darse said genuinely.
She nodded and watched him head toward the vale.
She took a deep breath, wishing her own troubles could be solved as simply, and followed Arman’s pedasse to Limbartina.