To Love A Murderer | ✔

08 | A Darker Path

Her sobbing breath was the loudest thing in the soundless room, the moon shining through the filtered windows, casting shadows that seemed fierce and sharp-edged on the floor, as Lilavati gasped, trying to calm her racing heart.

She had shot up in her bed, terror making her frame quiver as she struggled to support herself upwards with her hands.

The images of her most recent nightmare were quickly fading away, but the abject terror that had woken her seemed to refuse to leave her, clinging to her bones. Lilavati swallowed, and pushed down the waves of self-loathing and guilt that usually followed on her awakening.

Deep breaths, Lila. In, and out. In and out. Just like that.

Iltani's words came back to her, in her soothing cadence as though she were standing before Lilavati just that moment. The heedy scent of incense that she associated with Iltani came floating back to her, and her breaths evened out quicker than it normally would.

Just as she found herself calmer, she noticed a dark figure standing at the edge of her bed.

Lilavati froze.

In the moonlight, she could barely make out the gentle features of her dearest friend, the silvery rays cool upon her bronze skin.

"Iltani?" her voice was only a notch above a whisper, a tangle of emotions rising up to choke her.

Her dearest friend said nothing, only cupped her face with both her hands and the warmth that radiated off her made tears form in Lilavati's eyes. Her own hands came to grasp Iltani's, looking up at the priestess with blurred eyes.

"Am I dreaming?" her voice broke.

There was the rustling of clothes as Iltani sat on the bed beside her, never letting go of her hands. Dark amber eyes met her own, and Lilavati could see that tears glimmered in her own eyes as well.

"You are not dreaming, kianga."

Iltani's lilting voice was hoarse as well, and Lilavati blinked at the endearment. Kianga was a word in Sumerian as she well knew, that meant 'my love', but the Sumerians rarely differentiated between romantic and non-romantic love.

Tears rolled down her face, and Iltani wiped them away with a gentle touch.

"Why?" she whispered. "Have my sins become so heavy that you—you had to leave me too?"

Iltani had known her for nearly half their lives, she had known everything about Lilavati yet chose to remain friends with her despite everything she had done.

"Why did that have to be the tipping point, Iltani? What—what happened back there?"

It seemed that Iltani could not hear these words and she shut her eyes, turning her face away from Lilavati's tear-tracked one. She never let go of her, however.

There was silence in the room for a while.

Iltani's hands gripped Lilavati's, the warmth in the former's hands seeping through to the latter's and they looked at each other again.

Iltani bent slightly to her height, tucking one hand under her chin, and placed a soft kiss on Lilavati's closed eyes. This was a gesture common amongst the people Iltani had grown up with, as she had learnt, and it meant many things at once: open your eyes to my apologies and I am utterly devoted to you and different things in other contexts.

Lilavati opened her eyes.

She caught her free hand with her own, and lowered it to their laps, interlacing their fingers.