Graveyard of Lullabies

Chapter 48 (to the dawn)

This is how we walk, in the dawn, surrounded by storms and the weight of dried blood. All of us, marred.

I shut my eyes and reach out for the deep current of a blood, like kin, grass stems and rough soil.

The queen hugs herself, holding her body up by her arms, and the skeleton holds our supplies. I hold a box empty except for clay bottles; a jet bird perches among the dents, peering at me. We leave a hill behind, a looming palace. I reach out for the people who have fled, like scattered rocks, drifting further. Are we better off alone, waltzing across a tundra of moss, under a fire sky?

We leave an army behind us, halved by a jet bird, upended. I don't regret her wild storm, her craters, her feathers not-black by blood. I wonder if Tatter-cloak would. I wonder if Rattle-bones would, if Aukai would.

We leave Iqavu behind us, behind us Iqavu waits, I resist the urge to glance backward. Dear brain, would you look back instead of doing your best not to count bootsteps, over moss and mud and through bright red flowers, marred by a single crater?

A current draws us forward, across the days of a tundra. And instead of counting footsteps, dear brain, I think of the picture of you, waltzing alone, hunting bones to bury them in a blue. I think of the picture of you, lying under a table in the cold of the blizzards, whispering thank you to an old rock for their pulsing warmth.

I think of the picture of you. This body, you never met them. This blood, you never felt her heartbeat in a storm. But if you did, I think you would like them. It is in this, that I am trying to love you, who never knew me.

What I mean is, this mind holds a sea. Ice cubes, shores, sand. Maybe more than one of us has swam inside this skin, and though in the dawn the selves in the stars are dying; dear brain, this ocean can hold you, love you who never knew me, until a sky fades from sunlight, flickering.

***

Tatter-cloak looks better when we find them. Assuming I ignore the haphazard hair tufts, like sprigs of grass waving from a patch of fuzzy moss. But they do look better. The mottled bruises once covering their face have faded to a dull green. Yet I hesitate, because even though they look better, the only way I can tell Tatter-cloak is alive is because of their heartbeat. The queen eyes them cautiously in the muddy cloak, unmoving, curled on the ground, she glances back and forth between the two of us. I ignore whatever she is trying to say with her eyes and kneel beside them.

I inhale. I force my tongue into movement. "Hi," I say.

Tatter-cloak's eyes snap open. "Oh my bothering goodness." They scramble backwards, bumping into the mud-streaked box. "I did not hear you." They rub their eyes. I glance back at the queen. She looks...unsettled.

"How are you?" I take in the depression in the ground and the boxes forming a pitiful wall and the open tundra under an orange-nearly-yellow sky.

"Well, if you must ask," Tatter-cloak says, "I've felt like a he for three days, my knees still hurt, the scabs on my arms itch, I have no idea how my face looks but I can blink without crying, and I haven't exactly tried anything but crawling."

I don't point out this could be why his knees still hurt.

"Felt like a what?" the queen asks behind me.

Tatter-cloak stares over my shoulder. They rub their cheek, and promptly wince. "So...are you the queen's servant?"

"No," she says, "she died."

Tatter-cloak blinks tremendously slowly. Turns to me. "What do I say to that?" he whispers.

I shrug. I stand again, arms laden with sacks holding vegetables and a bird's dented sleeping box. "Queen, this is the king's servant. The old king." Then I motion to her. I already said she was the queen. I hesitate.

"Kaliq works fine," she tells Tatter-cloak. "Seeing as how I'm not ruling over anything at the moment."

Tatter-cloak nods. "Okay, question: where's the bird?"

I glance up. She was wheeling earlier this morning--

"Okay, second question: you said you would make her carry you. That clearly didn't happen."

"What?" the queen exclaims, unslinging the array of water skins tied around her waist.

"The bird," I say. I turn to Tatter-cloak, "there were two of us to carry."

"Okay, third question: what do you mean you're not ruling over anything at the moment? And how'd your servant die?"

I silently kneel, letting go of the sacks in my arms.

"I think it's my turn to ask you something." The queen also kneels in the flattened moss. "She told me you saw my husband die."

"Yeah." Tatter-cloak nods, scooting over to lean on the large box.

"That was months ago. Why didn't you return to the palace?"

Tatter-cloak glances at me. The queen does too. I sigh. "You two have a lot of catching up to do," I say. They continue staring at me. I unknot the mouth of a sack. Root around for solid green vegetables, pointed at the ends.

Finally, Tatter-cloak and the queen glance away. They start talking. At the same time. There's a pause and then it's Tatter-cloak who continues, stumbling over words, explaining how he fled and thought the palace wouldn't believe him over all the accomplices. I creak open Tatter-cloak's large box, feeling around for a heavy pan and a bundled heating rock. This moment, at least, small talk in the nowhere, we can make like normal.

***

Author note: Here we are, at the end...thank you for reading! I appreciate it vastly:) You can also read the sequel, After Forever Falls Apart, where the queen plots vengeance on the Jani Empress.