[10 Cycles Later...]
Aedom Tate had done many things in his life. He'd helped put enough cannonballs through a ship full of murderous rapers to sink it faster than a gull could shit. He'd seen Cazars and keeps along every remen of Pagegonia.
Palaces and Cazars so magnanimous he'd quite literally slept on a pallet of pure gold beneath a mattress made of softened, dead sea sponges.
He'd feasted on food so decadent he'd spent days tortured over the phantom tastes left on his tongue. He'd reveled beneath the glittering black cosmos on white sand beaches, soft enough like clouds, as if the world had turned them upside down.
However, nothing ever compared to the fastidious, passionate hatred he felt while mucking the thrice damned stables of the menagerie. It was something he spent an inordinate amount of time on in his new life, at
his new keep, with his new outlook. It was a startling resemblance to one he once had, what felt like hundreds of lives ago, when he spent much of his time doing this same damned job as a child. It frustrated him the fond memories of raising animals and tending to the nature surrounding them had been so strong to make him forget it was fucking miserable. For hours, every single day, he hefted an enormous, iron pitchfork laden with piles of hay sopped in excrement over his shoulder. Then he had to haul it off in a shoddy cart to be used later for the crops. It left him smelly and irritable.
It was midmorning. He'd gotten a
considerable amount of the work done with the help of the wards they housed and taught a trade. They had to go through and dole out food to the animals housed there. Double check all the injured and parturient. Then make sure they all got the care or medicine they needed for the day. After that, he'd work on training both animals and his apprentices in their rearing practices.
He propped up his pitchfork after finishing laying down a fresh layer of hay. An instinct or something like a premonition itched at the back of his neck. Alert in an instant, he peered back over his shoulder.
A leopard sat in the doorway of the open pen. Next to it lay the injured deer living inside said pen, having a rest while its leg healed up, gnawing on some of the hay. Its eyes blinked, blank, black, and unfazed by the deadly predator a mere breath away from it.
"Much use those prey instincts do you, hm?"
He spat at the ungulate. "What do you want?"
He grumbled with a glare at the leopard with its gleaming coat, reflecting like gold with the burgeoning day. He watched as the enormous cat's eyes gradually slitted. The rounded curve of her tail flicked behind her, peaking above a shoulder that wiggled.
"Don't —!" Lovou tried to snarl, but the beast had already leapt at him with an inundated grace. He thumped into the hay with the big cat splayed on top of him, two massive
paws on his chest as she looked down at him, expectant.
"Beets, I already fed you, you shit. How the fuck did you get out of your pen again?" He groused and tried to shift beneath the beast.
Beets thrummed something deep in her throat and then drove her head right into his face. She dropped all of her weight on him and writhed over him enthusiastically, giving him a good, thorough bath in her scent.
Aedom sputtered up to a sitting position as Beets rolled off of him. She then splayed out on her back with her head tilted at an awkward angle, gold gleaming eyes staring back at him.
She flopped onto her feet and rammed her head into him again and again, shoulder, jaw, neck, elbow, her throat still thrumming.
"I get it, you're bored." Aedom grumbled,
"Where's your brother? Why can't you bug him to play?"
The cat purred again and trampled over his lap a few times. She rounded wide, leapt at his
leg, clamped her massive teeth around his boot, and tugged at him. Being such a large, healthy cat, she dragged him out of the pen without a problem. He thrashed and cussed at her imaginatively too, but she was undeterred. He swiped at his pitchfork. The clattering it made drudged up a reaction out of the deer. It gave a distraught bleat that made Beets relinquish his foot and dart away with a wild, swinging tail and flailing back legs.
He grumbled his way to his feet with the pitchfork in hand, ready to give the cat the best damn scare of her soon to be brief life. As he faced the long hall, open to the world outside himself, he spotted riders coming up his path.
They chaperoned a cart displaying several flags dyed bright Copper, Indigo, Gold, and Silver.
The Imperial Clan's colors.
He gripped his pitchfork tighter and trudged down the long hall. Emerging from the stables, he allowed a brief and rueful appreciation for Beets as several soldiers came plodding onto his property without announcement.
When they reached the bottleneck of an entrance to his keep, Aedom stormed in front of them with a bellowing roar, swinging the pitchfork in a frenzy. It sent most of the horses and soldiers into a ruckus of terror. They had been so surprised.
"Get the fuck off my land!" Aedom slashed at the man in front who almost fell off his frightened horse. Aedom was careful and good enough to not put the beast in danger. They didn't have a damned choice about where their owner forced them to tread.
A boyish voice came out bleating, "We're here on Imperial Order!" Everyone was huffing and anxious as they tried to calm their animals.
"You think I give a shit!?" Aedom spat and backed up, still holding the pitchfork high enough to jab it into the shaking young guard before him if need be. It had been a long while since he left the Citadel behind. He still found the place wretched and boring. He wanted
nothing more to do with Imperial Orders or courtly bull shit.
"We are looking for Vau Cetlali on Imperial Order!" the soldier screeched in response, his face going red with frustration.
Aedom stepped forward, swift as ever, spinning the pitchfork in his grip before he hooked it rather luckily into just the front of the soldier's leather plackhart. He hefted him up off his horse and over his head like a pile of hay and flung him into the ground. Aedom lifted his pitchfork in both hands and jammed it down with a vicious snarl. The pointy end pinned the man's thin neck between the wide prongs of the shit stained farm tool.
Aedom stepped a foot on to his chest. He leaned forward to place an elbow on his knee as he sneered down at the soldier beneath him. "I would have let you ride off if not for mentioning her name..."
"Wh-what will you do now?" The man swallowed while speaking, breaking up his words into anxious croaks.
Aedom smiled a very old smile and reached down into his boot. He yanked out a knife that was clearly far too large to be safe in a shoe. He opened his mouth to speak, but another voice interrupted.
"Aedom Tate, knock that shit off
immediately!" A furious screech ended up as more of a pleasant lilting from how far away it came from.
Both heads swiveled towards the sound.
They saw her bright red hair first, spun into thick braids hanging far past her broad shoulders and down her back. A rather plain purple smock hung haphazard off her shoulders as she came stomping forward. A passel of baby ferrets hung in her arms like sausages and a golden conure hid in the braids at her shoulders.
"What in all nine hells are you doing to that stranger?" Cetlali screeched at Aedom and came storming down the small path leading to the gate. Two wolf pups stumbled out behind her and chased after the uneven hem of her dress, dragging in the dirt behind her sandal covered feet. "They bear the colors of the Empress!"
"Both colors, Cetlali!" Aedom snarled, his foot still on the man's chest until Cetlali came forward and kicked it off. "I told you what would happen if I ever saw that Silver and Gold come spitting in my face, in my own home!"
The pups yipped, loudly displeased by Aedom's vocal wrath directed at Cetlali.
"Oh, my gods!" Cetlali wailed. She yanked the pitchfork out of the dirt one handed. "Are you still pissed at Oluchi and Athua for beating us at cards?"
"Oluchi cheated, I know it!" He spat it before reaching down and yanking up the young soldier, slamming him to his feet right in front of Cetlali.
Aedom glared at him. "You wanted to see her. She's here now. Be quick about it and then get the fuck off my land."
Cetlali gave Aedom a sour look before looking back at the guard. "I apologize for my husband's attitude. He's allergic to decency."
She stepped forward and reached out the arm that wasn't bearing several small, snuffling ferrets and walked him back over to his party.
"Do you require water or food for any of your guards?"
The man swallowed his nerves as he stared into the delicate features of the famed Consort Elect that helped quash an entire coup near a decade ago. He was a child the last time he saw her, a young kitchen boy who had a meat porter laying into him about dropping something.
She'd put a knife to the aggressive man's throat, kicked him out, and took his life without even killing him. The young solider, Amat, had to devote a certain focus to remembering how to speak in her presence.
"We've come to deliver a sensitive missive from Empress Athua. She regrets she could not accompany this shipment and wished you read this prior to opening the trunk." Amat handed her a thick envelope with Athua's colors and seal.
Cetlali frowned and grasped the thick pack.
She looked back up at the young soldier, "I imagine with Oluchi so nearing the birth of the twins, she shouldn't be traveling."
"She sends her deepest appreciation, as you are correct. Empress Oluchi is in her last month and has been on bed rest since before we left Epoubodaz." He replied. "However, Empress Athua said that this information was necessary to get to you as soon as possible."
Cetlali nodded with a soft, nervous smile. "I understand. Thank you for your services. Are you sure we can't offer your sustenance or a good night's rest?" She heard Aedom huff behind her and rolled her eyes. She directed a dedicated smile back at the soldier.
Amat eyed Aedom, knowing full well he was the one to kill Ovar the Ogre. Face to face with the beast and great living dread known as Lovou, Amat cleared his throat of his nerves as the massive man glowered at him. He shook his head at Cetlali. "No, thank you. Just point us in the direction of where you would like the trunk."
Cetlali smiled and nodded. She pulled her arm back to flap her dress out of the mouths and paws of the wolves at her feet. "Follow me, my friends. I'll have you put them in my study.
It's not very far at all."
The soldier nodded and turned to his soiree, beginning to shout orders at them.
Cetlali spun on Aedom with a testy glower, who already had a fond smile on his face for her.
She huffed, "Don't look at me like that when I'm meaning to scold you and you know you rightfully deserve it."
Aedom was still smiling. "Look at you how?"
She pursed her lips to keep the smile off of her face. "Like you adore me."
"How else am I supposed to look at you?
Would you prefer I wear a bag over my head?"
His scoff came out wicked.
She rolled her eyes at him and grinned.
"Quit being such a petty shit. If Masha hears you're picking on her young recruits, she'll send you worse than a box of scorpions, like the last time you pissed her off."
"It's not my fault she keeps sending all the flighty ones," he grumbled and leaned on his pitchfork. Spitting on the ground, he opined,
"Shit, soldiers come from shit command."
"If I tell her you used Ezren's words to insult her, she'll personally shove a wasp up your nose while you sleep at night," she threatened in good cheer. "Even if you survive, I'm not kissing you after you've had a wasp up your nose. I'll have to find a new husband entirely." She griped her woes at him and shuddered.
He swiped at her and tugged her closer, minding the squeaking rodents in her grasp.
He laid a noisy kiss on her cheek, "Good luck with that."
She hissed at Aedom and the bird on her shoulders squawked right in her ear at the indignity of his jostling. It flared its emerald tipped wings while the ferrets at her chest wriggled. "Thank you," she replied with a prim iciness that made him smirk.
Several soldiers bumbled forward with a large locked trunk swinging between them.
"Where to Vau Cetlali?"
"Follow me." She nodded and turned to Aedom, "Do you mind if I skimp out of duties to sort this out?" She thumped the envelope in her hand against her thigh, which made the pups at her feet want to jump for it.
"Aye, I'll get the wards to pick up the slack. I think Tiana and Feren were saying they wanted to learn more about rearing the newborns. We'll
take care of it." He nodded to her. A sudden bundle of nerves brewed in his chest. "You'll find me if you need me?"
Cetlali smiled at him, but he could see how it was strained. She nodded and turned away from him, whistling over her shoulder three distinct tones. The wolves' ears all twitched.
They jumped up and stumbled right after her.
The soldiers with the trunk trailed a fair distance behind as not to trample them.
Aedom scoffed and turned back towards the stables. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the soldier he'd pinned to the floor, staring at the keep with an odd wistfulness. He cleared his throat, and the soldier spun to face him, eyes widened like he'd been caught out. "Keep close to your carts. I don't want you and yours straying about my property. Beets and Sapote will be watching."
The soldier blanched, "Who are Beets and Sapote?"
Aedom let out a rattle of clicks from the corner of his mouth and then jerked a thumb upwards towards the overhang above him.
Amat looked up and stumbled backwards with wide, gaping eyes. Above Aedom were two leopards lazing in the sun, lying at the edge of the overhand. One glistening and golden, and the other a deep and perfect black like a starless night. Both sets of eyes glowed bright gold in the midday shine of Uroxem.
Aedom grinned. "Don't stare too much.
They hate eye contact almost as much as Cetlali does." He gave the man a rough pat on the shoulder. He turned away with the giant pitchfork slung over his arm, whistling his way back towards the stables. Over his shoulder he gave one last shout, "It's hard enough to train them out of the taste for human flesh and blood once they have it! So don't tempt them."
"Yes — Yes, Vao Aedom." Amat swallowed nervously. He did his best not to stare at the two giant cats, who were happy to lick their
maws while they watched him with beady, attentive eyes.
The rest of the day went by in a blur of business. Aedom hadn't paid attention to when the retainers had gone. He'd only left the animals to check in with the wards when Uroxem had been setting. He'd finished his rounds now that Oolmaya was strongest, emerging from the washroom after a long soak in the elegant in-ground pool. Athua insisted on building it as an engagement gift for Cetlali.
He had to admit he enjoyed the damn thing far too much for his own good.
He walked through the kitchens searching for sustenance. Aineias had baked fresh bread in the afternoon and saved some steaks she'd made their clan for dinner. He put a massive plate together for himself and another one for Cetlali. Both loaded with some onions, olives, cheese, and meat. He brought along two loaves of dark brown bread and a skin of ale.
So burdened, he made his way towards their study and knocked before entering. Aedom
didn't get an immediate reply but walked in after a few seconds, anyway. She might end up so absorbed in whatever she was doing, she likely blocked out every distraction.
Aedom strode through the large, airy room encasing several long tables in the center. It was probably closer to becoming a library than a study as they lined the walls with shelves stuffed with books and scrolls. The last table held what he cherished most, and she was not looking good.
Cetlali's eyes were wet, wide, and red. A hand pressed to her lips as she read over an aged and well-folded piece of parchment. She sat cross-legged in the center of the table, surrounded by piles and piles of paper, with the enormous trunk on the floor all but empty.
He frowned, curious as he strode past the pile of wolves and ferrets curled up on the floor together, asleep. The conure perched above them on the edge of the windowsill, ruffled feathers shifting as dark, groggy little beads stared up at him. Aedom placed the pile of food
on the table and approached Cetlali with slow, soft steps. He raised his palms up at his sides, palms pointed towards her, and he angled his voice for a soft hum.
She looked up at him in an instant. Her face was awash with a fresh agony he hadn't seen there since the nightmares had waned for them both. They filled their waking hours with work, but at night, they attempted to renew themselves within each other's embrace. A lot of times nightmares plagued their sleep, anyway.
Both of them had scars, skin deep and further that took too much time to face. The weight of them would not disappear just because their causes were gone. The ghosts would linger much longer. He didn't need to hide the pained look on his face as he watched her features crumple with a distinct despondency.
"What is it?" He asked her with urgency, but tried to stem his panic. She was distressed and allowing himself to get worked up when she needed him to stay clear-headed wouldn't help them. She'd done the same for him far too many times already, selfless as she helped shoulder his
pain while silencing her own. His heart wrenched in his chest and he approached her.
"Are you safe?"
She sobbed a bit at his prompt and nodded her head. He sighed with a clear sense of relief and approached her more quickly. He stopped himself before he attempted to crawl on top of the table with her, the heaps of erratically organized paper his only obstacle. "Cetlali, what is all this?"
She hiccuped and placed the letter she was holding down in her lap. Turning towards the third pile to her left, several stacks back, she grabbed the fat envelope he remembered seeing the soldier hand her.
"You wish me to read it?" His tentative question received a small nod in response and she held out the missive. When he took it into his hands, she curled up into herself, knees rising to her chest, and arms wrapping around them as she rocked, eyes shut tight.
Aedom's eyes didn't want to stray from her, but he opened up the folded letter and started reading Athua's painfully embellished script.
He read through the generous updates. Caran and Loraeta had plans on retiring from the Municipal Army and the Financier Elect position in the next few years. Masha would likely become the Imperator Elect. Her wife Zelpha was still the Palace Bruter, apprenticing many from all over the realm in her advanced techniques. Merlo and his husband were half season from becoming a parent to one more of six total children. Xocthl and Dalal were running a racket along the coast with their hordes of ships, slinging merchandise, only sometimes a little pilfered. The Citadel was booming with life and stability with all the Athua had done.
Then he read on.
The silence stretched as he consumed the letter. The words leapt off of the page into his mind, painting a picture so wretched he was sure it couldn't be true. He looked over at his spouse, and she was already staring at him,
watching him with a cautious glare. His features attempted to soften as he spoke, eyes only straying to the empty trunk of letters Athua had sent, "Did you —,"
"Read them all?" Cetlali replied with a croak and cleared her throat. "Yes. Some twice." She sniffled loud.
"And you believe it's true?" He asked her.
She nodded and shrugged at the same time.
Cetlali murmured, "Athua said her parents had their suspicions ages ago, even before all the unpleasantness of the coup. All they unearthed and dismantled only seems to support it." She swallowed, dazed. "Zoya didn't want to approach Athua or me before she gathered the evidence. It took some time to organize all the letters and confirm her suspicions."
"What — what happened?" Aedom asked with a heartfelt agony. "I mean, do you want to talk about it?"
Cetlali's smile seemed pained. Her eyes glazed over. She started rocking as she told the story she'd already memorized. "Zoya knew Ezren Armistead since she was a child. As the daughter of the Vassal of Cazar Payejnthe, her family raised her in the customs and courtesies of the Citadel's court. Just as Ezren was as the son of the Vassal of Wisteryala. She traveled to Epoubodaz often after marrying Sivoy and more so when he became Vassal of Ynuchalak.
They had numerous interactions with the other leaders of the Empire." Cetlali nodded as she spoke, her voice becoming tight and lifeless as she continued, "And their spouses."
Cetlali frowned and shivered. "Though Zoya never particularly liked Ezren, she knew his wife Rehka very well." A painful smile etched onto her face. "Zoya said Rehka was a bright woman, unique and wise, and funny in ways people didn't always see. They became fast friends and wrote to each other often."
Cetlali's sable skin wrinkled above her nose with the mournful sadness pinching her features. "I read them all. Every single one."
She hefted out a shaky breath. Aedom sat on the edge of the table and stayed silent. "Rehka often wrote about how Ezren's attitudes shifted and changed as he became more powerful, more rich, and more obsessed with his ambition. She felt neglected and often scared of his rages. Zoya tried to urge Rehka to find solace and safety. She even offered Rehka a chance at life in Ynuchalak under Enharouq protection, but she refused."
Aedom snorted, "Like mother like daughter, it seems."
Cetlali shook her head and heaved out a sigh laden with regret, though it might have been half a bitter laugh. "Rehka loved Ezren very much. Evidently, he was not always so horrible.
She wanted to stay by Ezren's side, to make sure he did not devolve into a monster." She shook her head again and her hands flicked out at her sides as she shuddered. "It was too late, far too late," she lamented.
Her tone became measured and embittered.
"Rehka grew very ill while she bore Zeger and
was bedridden, miserable, guilty, and feeling wretchedly alone in her suffering. Far too scared to speak the truth about it and seem ungrateful for the life she created, the life she wanted to guide through this world." Cetlali swallowed, her eyes welled with the early intentions of tears, "The birth was near disastrous and Zeger seemed weak at first.
Ezren refused Zeger during the days of Rehka's slow and painful recovery. It was unfortunate also that she struggled to care for the babe.
Suffering and terrified, all alone because Ezren couldn't face her or the child that almost killed her. Because of the journal Zeger had from his nursemaid, Zoya found out that Ezren didn't expect Zeger to live. He charged the nursemaid with allowing the child to fade, but she couldn't do it. She kept him thriving, even when Ezren took Rehka away, hoping to spare her witnessing their child's passing..."
After a few moments of silence, Cetlali snarled, "The soulless shit!" Despite it all happening three decades ago, it stung. She forced herself to remember Zeger was alive and well. Living a charmed life as a well loved
Vassal, happily married with a beloved wife, and a passel of adorable children who loved him. That visceral reaction never faded, it was still overwhelming. Her dire need to protect Zeger and love him. He would do the same for her. 'Like mother, like daughter.' The words echoed in her head and wouldn't stop.
"Rehka tried to fight, I suppose..." She forced words to drown out the loop. Perhaps too loud, because the table shifted when Aedom flinched. She continued more softly,
"Ezren moved her to a secluded cottage on the southern shores of Wisteryala." Her tone was soft, but bitter, "She wrote to Zoya during that time, still. She told her everything..." Cetlali wiped at her eyes and sniffed with a soft, embittered laughter. "Zoya kept the letters for years and never knew why, but she figured it out... Eventually."
Cetlali sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to continue. "Athua and her mother tried to fill in many of the gaps from the letters with their investigation. Rehka wrote about her kheirgeon, Naaji, a man from Suchai of her
own age, dedicated to her in ways Ezren never was. She fell for him so fast, perhaps too vibrant to be true." Cetlali smiled with an alien fondness as she spoke, "Zoya said that was very much Rehka's heart, vibrant and true even when others were not. Rehka loved Naaji during her recovery and she conceived a child.
She begged Zoya for assistance before the child was born." Cetlali cleared her throat. "Zoya, of course, told her she would send a retinue from the Ynuchalak or even aid from allies in Suchai, but she never received a reply."
Aedom watched close as Cetlali composed herself, eyes reddened and straining to hold back tears as she continued. "Rocha told me I appeared at the Cazar soon after they announced her mother's death. It was more than a year after Zeger's birth. No one has ever told me about it, but there were always whispers that I resulted from a debt Ezren owed... I'll need to talk to Zeger and Caran.
They deserve to know."
Aedom nodded, eyes slitted. His arms itched to be around her as she shook.
"The last letter Rehka wrote mentioned some of the names she wanted for her new babe." Cetlali scrambled as she pulled out another letter, yellowed with age. She held it out to Aedom.
He laid Athua's letter down on the desk and grasped the one she handed him. He held it up and read through the words. The last line was written in a script that was oddly sharp.
'Naaji wants to name them Husni. It's a proud name for a proud child. I don't doubt our child will be proud and lovely, like the very stars themselves. But Husni doesn't fit the feeling curled inside me. I don't think it will take much to convince Naaji, but I want to wait to meet the child before we decide. I think they'd like the name I've chosen:'
"Cetlali..." The word startled itself right out of Aedom. He looked up at her, the gentle curves of her face rife with anguish. He reached for her, offering a hand, and she scrambled right towards him. She slid through the piles of
letters to toss herself into his arms and he caught her easy enough, as he always would.
Words tumbled out of him and into her hair.
He crushed her to him. "What happened to her?"
Cetlali swallowed her nerves, her mind straying back to the letters that accompanied Athua's, the ones penned by Zoya. There was one in particular. It talked about her mother's curly red hair, the same bright brown eyes, and wide nose set above plush, curved lips. She always had an ethereal smile, ready to peek through. The rest of the knowledge crackled through Cetlali like lightning more than thoughts. She grit her teeth and shook her head. Cetlali couldn't speak because of the white-hot agony of wishing to take control of her. Aedom's arms squeezed around her with love and she wanted to believe the story deserved to be heard, for Rehka, for herself.
Her voice was a tenuous whisper, "When Zoya arrived to check in on her after her letters went unanswered, all she found were ashes."
Aedom's grasp hardened around her with the effort to maintain the rage pouring through him, "Did — did Ezren —?"
Cetlali nodded. "I don't imagine he would have been forgiving of such an insult."
Aedom squeezed her again and laid a kiss atop her head. He snarled, "I hope you feel a certain sense of honor in killing him. I know it wasn't easy for you, facing him down like that, but thank you. I want to thank you for giving justice to all of those he had wronged in his life
— for me, for Zeger and his siblings..." He swallowed past tight nerves and exhaled, "For your mother, your father. For yourself."
Her sigh came out shaky. "He deserved worse."
Aedom smiled into her hair. "Aye, you're not wrong. But there is something poetic about the secret child of the wife he likely murdered slitting his pathetic throat."
She snorted wetly in his arms and shivered into his chest. "She died terrified and alone. He took me like I was some sort of prize."
"Aye, and you killed him for it," Aedom snarled into her ear and adjusted his hold on her to get a good look at her face. "Hate him for the rest of your life like he deserves. All that he's done was monstrous, but it still does not change who you are, who you belong to."
"I belong to myself." She repeated the words softly, a common mantra when certain memories seemed to plague her, consume her.
"Yes, you do. You can do whatever the hells you please and he's still dead as shit. He doesn't get a say, never did, not truly." He pressed his head against hers, and Cetlali relished in the feeling. The next moment, he felt her shifting and squirming. Aedom sighed and released his hold on her. She fidgeted back towards the piles of papers and started sifting through them. "What are you doing?"
"Whatever the hells I please..." she murmured, lifting the papers Zoya had written her up to her face and scrutinizing them. "I'm finding the location where my mother died."
Aedom rose a careful eyebrow, "Why?"
When she looked over at him, her eyes were wide and furious. "She died alone, Aedom!"
"She's been dead for almost thirty cycles, Cetlali," Aedom tried for gentle, but it didn't work out that well.
Cetlali flinched, her shoulders hunched and he could see her defensiveness peeking out. "I can't just leave it like that. I can't just let her end be nothing but ashes." She waited as Aedom stared at her and waited for his beleaguered sigh when he figured out her plan. "I'll go alone if it's such an inconvenience —,"
"Cetlali, it's the middle of the night, of course it's inconvenient," he groaned.
She sniffed. "It's not that far from here. I can probably reach it by dawn if I ride hard."
He grumbled to himself, but then stood up off the table. Cetlali stared at him, blank and scared of rejection still. His scowl was harsh and his voice was grating, but his words were surprisingly sweet. "What? You gonna sit there all night like a lump, or are we going for a ride?"
"You're not mad at me for wanting to run off in the middle of the night on a likely grief-driven impulse?" She petitioned, her voice fragile, and the question spun like a thread of glass.
He gave her a soft scowl that had a hint of affection laced through his lips. "Mad? No. I'm tired as shit, but your heart just got broken all over again. We can take tomorrow off. This is more important." Her smile went a little ragged before she launched herself off of the table and into his arms again. He realized then the sleeplessness would be worth it. He held her tight and pressed firm lips against her temple.
"Let's go give your mother's spirit some godsdamned closure." She laughed and sniffled
into his neck and they went straight to the stables.
Uroxem crested over the horizon, painting the craggy bluffs golden and bronze in the warm light. The wind whipped around them as Aedom rode Harbinger and Cetlali rode Mudcake towards the wreckage lying before them at the edge of the road.
The tatters left of a small, caved in cottage sat blackened beneath tendrils of long developing nature. Vines hugged broken beams and willow moss grew up beneath the charred remains of the wooden floors. Growth and life overcame the space, but it held a deathly stillness.
Cetlali stumbled off of her horse, exhausted.
Aedom followed just as clumsily, not expecting her to get down so fast.
"Cetlali..." He started after her, but she stormed away from him and into the wreckage.
He followed right after her as quick and carefully as he could. Muttering curses at
Ezren's eternal, festering spirit with every step.
Winding around over grown lumps and ducking beneath low hanging beams wrapped with feathery moss, he found her.
Cetlali stood just past a half burned flight of stairs, underneath a crumbling upper level looking more made of moss than wood at this point. She was motionless in the space.
Sunlight flooded in through the nonexistent ceiling and bathing the area in a golden glow.
What looked to be long planks of wood, barely held together to resemble the door they once were, sat amid the haze.
Aedom watched as she took shaky steps towards it. He saw what she reached for as soon as her fingers brushed against it: the telltale notch of a sword once embedded in wood.
"Aedom..." Cetlali's voice cracked as she stared at the door. The divot beneath her fingers could mean nothing and everything.
The entire, cursed truth spanning a lifetime of concealment cradled inside a simple scratch.
"It's what it looks like, Changeling..." He hated to be so honest. To watch her shoulders hunch with anguish. Her hands started shaking with rage, all because he couldn't bear to lie to her. He opened his mouth to apologize, but the moment tore to tatters as she kicked at the scraps of wood with belligerent screeches. She let out a feral scream, much too plaintive, much too pained for the light of dawn to shine upon with such beauty.
Cetlali dropped to her knees in the open space where the door once laid, crowded by unruly vines and flowers crawling up the decaying remnants of walls. She sobbed into her palms for a good long time before Aedom came up behind her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Cetlali, I'm sorry." His tone was tender.
She snorted and looked up at Aedom. Her face was a living war of sadness as an unbearably bright smile shook on her lips.
"Look Aedom..." She pointed down to the spot in front of her where a wide ring of red topped
mushrooms grew poignantly out of the ashes beneath it.
"A Fae Ring..." His face went blank as he stared at it, shocked.
"Look inside it..." She whispered the words like they pained her. He reached forward and brushed at the pile of ashes in the center, where a few thick chunks of wood caught his eye. He tilted a piece sideways and saw the letters C, E, T, and L still vaguely etched in the aged, charred bark. His mouth dropped open, and he couldn't believe it all.
She laughed almost blissfully, "I really am a Changeling after all."
His bleary smile stretched wide with adoration for his beloved spouse, and he knelt next to her, squeezing her shoulder to get her attention. Her eyes were dimming with exhaustion. She shook in the dawn air, surrounding them in this sacred and doomed place. Thirty cycles had come and gone and no sure answers would ever come to light, but this
evidence made it feel truer all the same. All that remained was something far too meaningful to disturb. He sat there with her while she stared, almost expectantly, as if she deserved more or less or none of it at all.
"I suppose that settles it then." He took her hand in his and helped her stand, despite the ache in his thigh from the chill. He pressed warm lips to her icy fingers and exhaled the heat of his breath along her skin. "I suppose it's only right for the monstrous beast to fall in love with the delicate fae."
She snorted rudely and sniffled. All her pieces started slotting back into place, because there was nothing else for them to do. "What in the hells about me is delicate?"
"I suppose you have quite dainty ankles," he murmured playfully.
"Ankles?" she sniped before tucking herself into his side.
He nodded as he walked her back to their horses, grazing in the grass nearby. "I get quite a good look at them when they're hiked up on my shoulders." She smacked him hard on the stomach with an embarrassed squeal. He guffawed. "I was talking about that headlock you threw me into while we sparred the other day." He smiled, amused by her reaction. She glared up at him. "I don't know where your mind was taking you, Cetlali, but don't drag me down into your filth. I'm an honorable, married man now."
She tsked him, annoyed, "You're the worst shit I know."
He halted their walk out onto the bluffs and held her close, his tone teasing, "Aye, you're not entirely wrong, but you still love me for it."
She glared at him with a forced purse of her lips, trying to seem stern. She ultimately failed, and a smile bloomed because she couldn't stop herself from saying it. "Yes, I do love you." She got up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. He swept her up into his
arms, carrying her towards Harbinger with a bright and dashing grin. She laughed, languid and pure — and he could hold that wonder right in his grasp.
He hefted her up onto Harbinger's back, tying Mudcake to the back of his saddle before climbing up behind Cetlali. Situating themselves, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head as they got snug and set out.
Against the brand new day, Aedom asked his question along with the gentle warmth of Uroxem's rays, "Do you feel you've completed what you set out to do here?"
"I suppose I'm not really sure," Cetlali hummed as she snuggled into Aedom's warm embrace. A triumphant smile graced her lips as they rode towards the path that would take them back home. "But I dare say it's a damn good start."