Chapter Fifteen
When she woke, Kali felt the soft, sinking comfort of her immaculate feather bed. She reached to the sides and her hands found stacks of pillows entombing her, a wall of soft safety. All those unnecessary pillows. She smiled at her own staunch practicality, then pulled herself up onto the pillows and looked around her room.
The glass on her windows was still gone, destroyed in the earthquakes. Clear, bright sunlight streamed into her room. Noticing this, she threw her head back and laughed, relief flooding her. Still laughing, she turned herself over and started, finally noticing that Ganshi lay beside her, asleep. Her smile widened and she kissed him softly on the mouth. His eyes fluttered open, and when they met hers, his mouth curved up at the corners.
“How?” Kali asked.
“I blame you,” Ganshi replied, his smile turning into a leer as he looked her over.
“What did I do?” Kali asked. She remembered a song, a beautiful song, but it was gone. A deep well of loss dug at her insides; but she was happy here, happy to wake up beside Ganshi, happy to wake to sunlight once again. “Who were all those men, and who was the woman? Who did we bury?”
“We buried a woman from clan Sakaki. From what we could piece together from the remnants of the clan you discovered,” Ganshi’s face reddened briefly, remembering. “The clan’s Solstice ritual is what began the unending night. There was a stranger among them, Midan told me—he was the big guy—a man that he shared wine with before the ritual. Midan said he warned the stranger that he was not allowed to partake in the ritual, but that he saw a woman from his clan give it to him anyway. He doesn’t remember who of the priestesses disseminated the flower, but the stranger influenced the ritual in some unintended way. The songs are powerful, Chancellor. More powerful than they have ever been. You know that better than all of us.” Ganshi’s face was stony, questioning.
Kali had no response. The songs had always been powerful, she thought. We just weren’t aware of their power. Finally, Kali spoke, “I fear the two we buried are bound to the songs in some way. We have little means of determining their role in this. Do we know their names?” Kali had a feeling she had to make certain of.
“The woman was known as Kara, and the stranger’s name has been forgotten.”
Kara. That’s right. That’s what the man had said before his outpouring of grief.
“The man’s name was Jurad,” Kali said reflexively. Ganshi’s eyebrow rose. “I can’t explain how I know this, but I know them. I think I know them better than they ever knew themselves in life. We must take steps to remember them. We cannot forget any more than we already have.”
Ganshi looked confused, but Kali couldn’t find the right words to explain it. She would never be able to express the sense of loss that now lived inside her, even at the same time she understood a feeling of being home here with Ganshi. Remembering was all she could do to fight the empty presence within her. She would remember Jurad and Kara, and everyone else would too. Jurad brought her the song of rushing water. That song was hard bought, she knew: it stole his childhood in his seeking. She needed to share it with the clans.
“Ganshi,” Kali said, resisting the urge to lie down again although she was still exhausted. It was hard to tell how many nights of sleep they lost. “Ganshi, may I sing you a song?”
“It would be my honor, Kali.” Ganshi smiled, though it was clear he was still confused.
“When you pick it up, sing it with me.” Kali began the song Jurad and Kara had taught her. She braced herself for the coming blackness, but nothing happened.
The song she remembered and gave voice to reverberated through her, but it was just a song. She did not hear Jurad or Kara, and her voice did not intermingle with the song of water as it had on the mountainside.
Ganshi joined his voice with Kali’s, and while most of the acolytes would have paid dearly to hear them at that moment, their song was just that—a song. With difficulty, Kali opened her eyes and saw him sitting near her with his eyes closed, the elemental rise and fall of the song brought forth from deep within him. She stopped singing and looked out her window, noticing light refracting off a wide pool far in the distance.
There, where she once beheld Two Mountains Standing, a ragged, craggy hill glistened black in the sunlight where lava had been cooled to obsidian. To the south, a broad river flowed through what had been the mountain valley, and she could see the waterfall from here, leagues and leagues away, spraying fiercely from the top of the still-standing Sunnyside mountain into a pool at the mountain’s base.
Kali sighed. She would deliver clan Kaphal from their drought, somehow. She stunned herself by recalling Jurad’s clan’s name. Before her experience at the mountain, she had relegated the western clans to the realm of the primitive. Now she knew how ignorant she had been. How myopic. She made a promise to the memory of Jurad: she would no longer disregard the sun-scorched land.
Jurad made a discovery that would have instantly gained him admittance to the Conservatory had he turned his journey here, but he chose not to. He placed his duty to his people above all else. Kali could not recall ever placing her desires or plans behind those of her people. Her stomach seemed to shrink on itself as she realized how she had equated her own plans and discoveries with what she believed were those of the Conservatory, the acolytes’, the clans’...everyone’s.
Ganshi finally noticed he was singing alone, and he stopped, his eyes snapping open. He must have seen the confidence drain from her, for his eyes flicked back and forth as they searched her face, confused.
His dark eyes were so beautiful in their green-flecked depth, and the concern in them quelled the pain she felt at her own selfishness. She smiled, realizing the depth of her love for this man, and she leaned forward to kiss him. He almost pulled back—she could feel his hesitation—but it was only for an instant.
In the soft touch of his lips she felt his understanding, and his acceptance. She raised her hand and drew her fingers through his thick, brown hair. Her other hand strayed down the length of his chestand over his smooth, dark abdomen. The song would come to her again, when she was ready. Right now, she wanted to make Ganshi sing a different melody.
Biography
Between writing and slinging organic veggies at local farmers’ markets, K.R.R. Bridgstreet teaches English Literature and Composition to unsuspecting college freshmen. Bridgstreet and her partner live in the woods in central New York with their cats and chickens. Visit krrbridgstreet.com for news on latest releases and upcoming books.
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