“To choose life, one cannot cling to the dead.”
-Genesifin
The day was not long, having only really begun for Colette and Arman after midday. The three friends ate heartily, although all remained watchful for the hordes still seeking Colette. They need not have feared. The meal passed with barely a second glance given to the handsome bronzed gentleman who accompanied Brenol and the invisible juile, and that look was merely one of feminine appraisal.
After dining, the group remained sitting, allowing the late afternoon sun to warm their features. Arman silently sipped his tea, his mind churning in both relief and grief. His thoughts were interrupted by Brenol.
“I still do not understand,” the man began. “It seems so clear that Colette used the hos in the right way. It came alive and jumped into the water at her direction. The maralane must have enchanted the piece to do as much… So why didn’t Preifest tell us? Why didn’t he tell us to wait until they had passed? Why did he make it seem as though only terrible things would come if the hos went into Ziel?”
The juile’s voice was low and somber. “Bren, what was it that Preifest wrote?”
“The exact words?” Brenol thought briefly. “Do not bring it to the water. It will only cause death.” He furrowed his brow.
Arman sighed. The sound bespoke pain. “I had wondered as much too, when Colette had said she must go to Ziel. But out on the water it finally made sense.”
“Yes?” Brenol asked.
“They didn’t want to waste it on themselves,” Colette said softly. She spoke not with the tone of new revelation. She had concluded this much on the lake as well.
Arman nodded, although the two could not see the gesture. “They were passing anyway, somehow. That is what Preifest said, what the Genesifin says. Jerem’s poison merely hurried the process… I think to create the level of enchantment needed to heal the terrisdans is no small work. It would likely have been all they could manage. And if they had been in the water when the hos was released? The healing powers would have gone to them too, and the lands would not have received enough.”
“Then why not tell us as much?”
Colette wiped her glistening cheek. “To ensure that our world was saved.”
“Death truly would have followed,” Brenol said with sudden understanding. “But not theirs. They were just making sure we didn’t try to save them.”
“Their benere has been great indeed,” Arman said softly.
Colette nodded. Her hand crept over to Brenol’s. The warm pressure of his grip was a gentle consolation in the midst of her sorrow.
Arman’s invisible eyes rested upon the two, alternating between amusement and grief. Eventually, the juile spoke, “I must go to Ziel.”
“Today?” asked Brenol.
Colette nodded. “I must too.”
Brenol raised a coppery eyebrow.
“No reason to postpone,” Arman replied, rising, and the two heard the flapping of his robes as wind met his straightened frame.
The juile did not glance again to his companions but merely turned south and began the journey. Colette and Brenol fumbled up to follow his swift strides.
It was an easy trek beside the Davoc; their feet trailed the curving waterway while the rushing of the river thundered in their ears. Its monotony served to ease the blaring silence of their party, even if it could not assuage the pain in their hearts. While it had been Arman’s grief that had spurred their steps, Brenol could not deny the biting ache that clenched his ribs and spread into his gut as reality settled. The maralane would be but a memory for the rest of time.
The late afternoon breeze was icy and nipped their noses and ears to a stinging red while their lungs puffed out white and lifted from their lips like prayers. Arman’s faint figure became visible as the group entered the lugazzi, but all remained silent. As they drew nearer, the air swelled with a sweet humidity, and clouds crowded the skies to block the sun. The whole land suddenly darkened—as though all of Massada donned black in mourning.
Brenol approached Ziel shivering. He followed the others but hung back with an unusual sense of self-consciousness; he knew nothing of the death rites of the land and suddenly felt keenly aware of his own foreignness.
Arman removed his shoes and laid them upon the sandy shore. He stood erect, a transparent man-giant, with clothing whipping like a flag in a storm, and stared out into the blue and brume. He stepped into the cool water, and his toes and ankles disappeared under dark ripples.
The juile removed an item from his cloak and held it out in extended hands like an offering ready to be plucked. He whispered, though audibly enough that Brenol could hear. “Long have you given bounty to the creatures of Massada. Thank you for all that you have taught me, all the experience you have given me, and for the love you have shown to the juile during the braiding of our histories. Thank you, above all, for saving our world. May your future travels be bountiful.”
He bowed low and remained as such for several minutes. When he rose, he lifted high the object—a brechant nut lantern—and lit it.
“No more shall we knock on your door, for your door is no more.”
The lantern crackled to life, suddenly shooting fire in all directions. In his possession, the lantern carried the quality of Arman—glass-like clarity—but as soon as the beams left his person, they shocked the dim evening with vibrant flames. The juile held it aloft without a wince or trace of fear. He turned his head expectantly to his companions, and Colette stepped forward, glancing briefly at Brenol. In that moment, he could have wept simply for her sake, for in her eyes was an affliction deeper than he would have thought possible.
She toed her way into the water, hesitating slightly, and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for seeing me and helping me. Thank you for letting me love you. Thank you for helping us save the terrisdans—or at least try to. And…and thank you for sharing your waters. I…I only have my own to give back to you.” Colette gracefully wiped the tears that streamed down her cheek and placed her hands into the water. “You were so beautiful.” She touched her lips gently to her dripping palm and then submerged it anew: a kiss for the dead.
Brenol was speechless. He found his own agony forgotten before her words and distress, and his self-consciousness blossomed anew. His foot began to burrow with the toe—a habit from his youth—and suddenly his eyes perceived the motion. He sighed, shaking his head as he awoke to the moment.
Silly man. This isn’t about me. Not about me, he thought, recalling Darse’s words to him so many orbits ago. Life isn’t just about me. Did I come here to impress Arman and Colette? Or to honor a people now lost forever?
He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and then stepped forward and allowed the icy water to numb his feet and shins. Ever so softly, like a hand leading him forward, the pungent sweetness summoned him to the ghosts that lurked heavily within. His mind played out his memories of the lake-men, his conversations with Preifest. Then a fissure opened, and emotion choked him. He collapsed in a trembling kneel and let the cold surround him while he wept.
His whispers were barely audible. “Thank you. For everything.” He bowed his head and touched Ziel’s screen with a kiss.
After several minutes, he spoke again. “Preifest…you once told me that the isle had been tunneled to one day unite the upper and lower worlds… What happened to us all was sloppy and terrible, but I think that in the end we did come together. Not through an isle, but the dream still came to pass. Be at peace.” Brenol mouthed the names of the dead he knew—Preifest, Samest, Helst, Carest—and his vision filled with the nameless maralane child he had buried in the soft loam.
Arman bowed deeply, and his robes dipped into the water, clinging to him as he righted. “It has been bountiful.” He leaned his body back and heaved the spraying lantern out upon the lake. It sunk into darkness.
As if in response, the sun descended from the clouds and settled into the earth like a fire licking the last embers of its hungry feast. Pink, orange, and red striped from horizon to zenith and left Brenol small before the vastness of the heavens. He did not turn his eyes from the last rutilant lights, for somewhere within lay an unspoken fear that they might never return.
Colette did not allow her vision to stray either, yet more out of reverie than anxiety. She quietly recalled the sunsets on the mount she had seen as a child and how she had shared them with Deniel. He had been her protector, her friend, her brother, her cartontz. Colette held the images with an openness, examining them like a child discovering a pebble or a feather, and found that as she released them, there was a simple and content joy; the harrowing pain had disappeared. No more was the restless ache there to exhaust her, no more did emptiness hound her heels.
Colette smiled, breathing in a wholeness she had thought she would never again achieve.
I really am alive. I really am going to survive. I lived despite Jerem. I am finding life past Den… I can face what comes. I truly can.
She blinked back tears as relief swept through her. Thought and emotion flowed up with a lucent clarity. She saw the man before her now—the strong, proud man of benere—and glimpsed the depth of her affection. Brenol would never replace Deniel, but she did not want him to. She wanted Brenol as himself, for he was what she needed, he was who she loved. There was no need to grope in her past. Her present and future lay before her eyes.
Wordlessly, she slid her hand into Brenol’s. Their palms touched, and his countenance straightened in a new knowing.
It is time, he realized.
His arm slipped around her waist, and he pulled her slender body to his. She drew in a breath—a honeyed purr of contentment and surprise. He leaned forward in a gentle embrace, peering into her face to discern her reaction. She smiled softly, looking into his eyes, so green, so sure, and her own eyes glittered with affection.
Brenol drew her tighter and kissed her as he had always longed to do. Their lips merged and melted, and he felt lost in the sea of her. His heart could barely contain all its emotion. Everything in him promised to protect her, cherish her, love her. There was nothing else but her. It was all Colette.
He curled his arms around her, and her own arms wrapped surely around his neck. In his elation, he lifted her from the ground, refusing to relinquish the kiss.
It may be the end of the terrisdans. Or the beginning, he thought. But how can I even care when I’m blind to all but love?
He lit her tiny feet down and watched as her face glowed in pleasure, and felt her chest against his thrum in song.
“We will face it together,” Brenol said with conviction and strength.
“We will face it together,” she affirmed.
Arman, still present, merely smiled. He had not forgotten the grave trials ahead of them, but breathed in the beauty of the moment with satisfaction.
They turned again to the sunset, watching and waiting for what the night and new day would bring.