Peeling the ruined cloth off let her skin breathe. Cutting out material for a loincloth only took a few moments. She tied it around her. Now she was free, ready for anything. Too bad her thread and needles were still at the safe house. She could’ve made a loincloth to envy.
Jerani had been staring. His lips had flushed, and pinkness spread over his scars. So much life flowed through him that if she touched him she would wash away in his heat. She thought maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
He knelt and ran a finger down her knee, over her new scar. “Once,” he said, “I was afraid of my sister getting a scar. I thought no man could ever see her as fit.”
“And now?” If he stopped touching her, Celaise might scream. “What do you think?”
“Even if you lost a leg I’d love you.” His lips touched her knee, and tingles rushed up around her waist and all the way across her back.
She could step away. That might stop the jangling throb in her fingers, in her face, in her core. Or it might kill her.
Celaise clasped Jerani by his jaw and the side of his head. She guided him to kiss her higher on her leg, and higher, until she couldn’t stand anymore for all the whirling sweetness, and her legs gave out. She pulled him down after her.
He threw off his robes, and Celaise rolled on top with him, giggling and kissing. This time she met him warmth for warmth. They moved together. He didn’t hurt her. Waves of bliss rolled out from her hips. His loving filled her with aching pressure until she had to cry out.
The only pain came between his touches. She needed him to hold her everywhere, but he mustn’t stop what he was doing. No, not for a moment. She could never have enough of him. This was better than flying, better than a cascade of silks. Celaise was drunk with him.
One llama was watching, but others only flicked open an eye then went back to dozing, and it didn’t matter anyway. All the lands could watch. Celaise would never want him to stop. No, not until the sky flashed pink and orange. Not until she unraveled. Not until she and Jerani slumped against each other, panting and smiling.
Afterward, they sat arm in arm watching the river. Ribbons of blue water ran through its brown swiftness. Jerani gasped when a great pink fish leaped out.
“It’s a dolphin,” she said.
Another sprang out of the water, this one pale. More splashed past, squeaking and clicking to each other. The way they flipped out of the water, Celaise thought they had to be chasing sunlight and all the day’s joy.
“The smaller ones are grey,” Jerani said. “And they’re all one happy tribe.”
Celaise squeezed his hand. “Jerani.”
He kissed her ear. “Celaise?”
How could she say this? She took a deep breath, filled herself with all the calm smells of the river and the desperate musk of jungle flowers. “For a long time I thought the best way to live was to trust no one.”
“You changed your mind?” He traced a scar up her belly to her breast.
“No. I’m still not trusting anyone, except for you.”
They held each other closer. Then they waded out a way and washed each other. She rinsed the red from Jerani’s hair. He told her he didn’t want to battle for a long while. The bathing turned into a game of splashing, and it might’ve lasted all day but the llamas roused and started to bicker.
Jerani and Celaise led the pack along the river, to the west, to freedom. They could go anywhere, do anything, as long as they were together. For as long as they had. And Celaise had to think it might not be long.
“If the lord and lady aren’t dead.…” Celaise couldn’t say it.
He only managed a whisper. “It might end tonight.”
“Yes, but even so, I’m glad it was begun.”
“Me too.” He pulled her forward, pointing toward a lagoon. “Let’s make every moment our own.”
The llamas fluttered their ears and snorted. Celaise and Jerani ran ahead. Hand in hand, they bounded toward lily pads. They were wide as beds, all green and smooth. White flowers bobbed between them.
Celaise and Jerani sprinted toward the water. Small chance of a lily pad holding their weight, far as she could see. Landing on the big leaf would make it tip over, or it would split apart for a dunking.
They leaped anyway.
Hiresha couldn’t kill the Winged Flame. Such an undertaking, she understood now, would require as much preparation as a wedding. Even though the god ought to be annihilated, disgraced in front of his devotees, desecrated, and forgotten, Hiresha couldn’t do what was right. Fighting further would only kill more people, herself and Tethiel chief among them.
The descending god reflected in Tethiel’s armor plates in a circular pattern of blinding metal. Her husband had been ruinously right. They shouldn’t have tried to fight the god. Hiresha could take some measure of comfort knowing that between the two of them, one had been correct. Even so, a word of gloating from him would require a response of murder and divorce, in that order.
“When gods battle,” Tethiel said, “one must retreat. None would fault us for fleeing to our honeymoon.”
“We’d only leave all progress behind.” The pacts made at the wedding might fall to nothing.
“Only cowards fight to the death. The brave run to face another day.”
She and he only had seven and a half seconds to decide before the Winged Flame spiraled down within devouring distance. The god was taking his time in a leisurely descent. She could well believe he was savoring their defeat. Should they try to fly away, he might give chase as he had before, and with the sun out they might not escape.
Hiresha compressed her thoughts into her reservoir of dreams. A sleeper might achieve labors of years in a ringing moment, and in the same timeless space she had to envision a new paradigm.
Without wishing to, Hiresha had done as the Talon had recommended. She had sacrificed her friends in battle, yet still the divine cataclysm descended. He could want a greater sacrifice, or a more specific one.
Last night she had given unto him the forgiveness of half the Talon’s gift prisoners, rather than the hearts. The god may have sensed the different manner of devotion. She calculated he could have then traversed the distance from the City of Endless Day to the wedding site. The god might desire more of the same.
Light whorled off his feathers in bubbling patterns. His curving flight resonated within her, a bridge across time to the vortex she had observed in the Dream Storm Sea long past. Chimes rang and clashed within Hiresha in piercing revelation. In those glowing waters, she had made peace with a sea monster. Now she had to do the same with something more powerful and terrible.
She would have to forgive.
All Hiresha needed to do was absolve the Winged Flame for crushing the daughter of Miss Barrows under a tower, for threatening so many guests, for obliterating a work of crystalline genius, for dismembering Fos, for shredding his potential, and for defiling his body. The being she had to forgive had inspired armies of men to butcher each other and could ignite war between continents.
Perhaps the god pursued her for that reason. He wanted her power to enable his mass bloodletting.
That she wouldn’t give. Better to be dead and correct than alive and wrong. She would rather die gauntlet in gauntlet with Tethiel.
Neither could she forgive. Only an idiot could do so for the Winged Flame. She could’ve sooner forgiven a typhoon. The god had more sentience and less regard for humans. He had rescued Elbe from her fall, yes, in the same way a person might idly save a drowning bug.
Elbe had forgiven him, and she was not brainless. In the same way her city had compromised to appease the Dominion’s bloodlust; she may have pressured herself to offer amnesty for reasons of practicality.
Avoiding the fangs of a two-headed-dragon god was the definition of practicality.
Hiresha doubted she could merely say she forgave the Winged Flame. She would have to mean it. The god would sense her true feelings. Within her, sorrow abutted outrage, one exacerbating the othe
r: painful heat, trembling sickness, and adrenaline-charged helplessness.
Only complete forgiveness would satisfy him, and once given, she was not certain she could have it back. The women who had sacrificed their forgiveness had seemed changed, many upset, all diminished. They had kept their hearts but given a piece of themselves nonetheless.
If Hiresha did this, she may never be able to forgive again.
She might be able to sacrifice something else. The Winged Flame had flown to their wedding. He was a god of both bloodlust and tender affection as well. He might hunger for their devotion.
Hiresha and Tethiel had built more than alliances and crystal ships at their wedding. They had crafted a future, an understanding, and a comfort they could take in each other’s presence.
All that, she might sacrifice. It would only mean the wedding had been for nothing.
Beside her, Tethiel stood frozen in compressed time. When she had met him four years ago, he had been bowed and drooping under the weight of controlling his magic. He had looked a defeated king. Now in massive armor and glowing with her enchantments, he was triumphant. He had even snuck a flower between his breastplate and shoulder guard, wearing the orchid as he might’ve in a coat. On him, a half-decayed tunic would be dashing, and her armor lofted him to brilliancy.
How much they could achieve together, with his splendor and her invention, his secrets and her foresight. If they sacrificed their devotion, she would likely not trust him as little as she did. He would probably drift away and forget about her. The marriage would fail.
No one knew Hiresha better than Tethiel. They had both been made pariahs, and now they would rule. Kings had told them they mustn’t be together, and yet she stood with him. She could even tolerate his addiction to his magic. He hadn’t complained of her mining jewels. As long as she and he used their powers to create, Hiresha believed they would be boundless.
In the other world they had become adversaries. In this one, they would be even better confidants.
No, she couldn’t countenance losing him. They could have the world, if they only would share it with the Winged Flame.
How wretched to forgive this god! How horrid! How necessary.
Tethiel’s decision to make peace with the Bright Palms couldn’t have been any easier. They had tortured him and killed his colleagues. He had forgiven. He’d chosen to adapt his people, to give up heritage for a chance of something greater and more lasting.
The Bleeding Maiden had claimed Hiresha had led Tethiel astray, that she had inspired him to this scheme. A fire of fuchsia and cerulean sparks filled Hiresha at the thought. She might return the favor and take his idea.
A new age would never arise from the same tired bloodletting, not from fighting, not from killing all dissent. Progress would come not from conflict but cooperation. Peace would arise not from fighting but abiding.
Hiresha could begin the new cycle by forgiving the Winged Flame, if she could bear the pain. It skewered her like broken jewel shards, slicing through blood vessels she needed to live, puncturing organs, cracking bone, and shredding the heart.
Purest Elbe had been right. Forgiving was harder and more courageous.
Presuming Hiresha could manage the feat, she might succeed in influencing the Winged Flame. His priests had glutted him on life force seasoned with pain and murder. The god might behave differently should he be appeased through less carnivorous means.
Hiresha had witnessed something akin to forgiveness in the manner he had saved Elbe. The Purest must’ve been overripe with clemency, and thus the god had forgiven her. He met like with like and claw for claw.
By sacrificing with different sentiments, Hiresha might influence him. It was a working hypothesis. Yes, she might manipulate him through forgiveness. This plan she could abide. Its necessity she could respect.
Best of all to be correct and alive than wrong and dead.
She dipped back into the flow of time. Behind her, crowds shrieked. Above, the air distorted around the feathered serpent slipping down from the sky. Beside her, Tethiel asked, “We must decide now, my heart.”
“I already have,” she said.
The Winged Flame spun closer in a cyclone of wings. Tethiel’s cloak whipped around. Hiresha’s hair would’ve done the same had it not been safe in a bun beneath her crowned helm. The god hadn’t attacked them yet. Neither had he left.
“Give him a heart. Give …” A burbling came from the Talon. The man floundered toward them through the river. What he lacked in swimming skill he made up for in frenzy.
She lifted him above the surface by his gold knife. “Perhaps your god is not as ravenous for them as you suppose.”
“Cut out Lord Tethiel’s.” The Talon threw the gold knife to Hiresha.
“When a man promises his heart to his wife,” Tethiel said, “he has to trust she won’t cut it out and offer it to a god of bloodlust.”
“Your heart will be safe with me.” Hiresha threw the knife to the Talon. It hovered above him, gleaming until he took hold of it. She said, “I choose to believe there’s a better way.”
Her two worlds scraped against each other like two flawless jewels smashing together. They would scratch and chip. Unless she succeeded now they might cleave themselves in the ruination of natural wonder and lifetime achievement. Nothing less was at stake.
She raised her plated gauntlets to the god. “You have my forgiveness. Take it all.”
No struggle through sky or sea had ever tried her harder. The strain of it brought tears. This she would yield. Her conflict of rage and vengeance with the god had left her weak. Then, he had drained her as well. This time, she felt different: a coldness sliced through her skull in an oblivion headache. It felt as if part of her brain had been excised and replaced with packed ice. Her tears she levitated amongst her jewels in a vortex of her own design.
The Winged Flame changed direction and fluttered the other way around. His plumage shifted from fire blue to igneous green. His loops widened. He revolved around them in a helix. Waves whipped into the beginning of a whirlpool. Hiresha had to rebalance her footing as water squirmed beneath her enchanted boots.
Now they were surrounded by a feathery inferno of blue. The change could’ve been coincidence or a sign of satisfaction.
Hiresha had stayed upright, though her hand was a vice on Tethiel’s. She shivered in her armor. Her head throbbed behind the eyes. The pain alone might stop her from forgiving anyone in the future.
“I worry,” she said to him, “I had to make myself a fraction of a Bright Palm.”
“How do you feel?”
Even as she touched her brow with a point of amethyst claw, the coldness within her changed. It roughened around the edges. Heat leaked in. Then she boiled. She hated how she had given part of herself to a dragon. No matter if it was the optimal action, the only solution, she would never forgive herself for it. For the dragon she felt only an aching numbness.
In another world, another Hiresha wept atop a rain cloud. She had lost her friends, and she would never be the same. Few enough remained whom she could trust, and these she would have to treasure all the more.
One stood beside her in this facet of rising suns. Tethiel peered at her. He was rapt for her. To him, she could speak.
“I feel … I think from now on you will have to be merciful and forgiving enough for us both.”
“Then I will.” Tethiel’s voice was still composed despite the feather storm. Illusion or not, he didn’t shout. “If you will be the restraint for my hunger.”
“We will each of us be complements. The dubious will guide the doubtful.” She smiled and was glad for it. Hiresha could still experience happiness. She could still be grateful to have married Tethiel, even with a dragon circling above.
His coils spanned upward in a tunnel of sky. The power of him beat against her mind and body in blusters. She withstood them. She remained herself, mostly. Hiresha called up to the god as the Talon had last night. He had named the god Aba
ndon, yet the god was not one thing but many. No one title would suffice for this being. This god was a living tempest of opposites. She would choose the one she pleased.
“He is Devotion.”
The fennec fox led the way. Hiresha suspected he took some measure of satisfaction in the exaltations of the citizens. They threw themselves down before him. Others leaped and cried out. Tears and laughter were in equal abundance.
For once, Hiresha could presume she outshone the fox. He had his wealth in ears, yet she was a new bride. She marched arm in arm with Tethiel through the city.
“Blessed by the god.” People tossed flowers from their rooftops, from violets to saffron. “A divine marriage.”
All was brightness. All was color. All was relief, if one rounded up. Hiresha never sought euphoria, yet sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.
The Winged Flame lazed through the air above them. The heat of his influence had lessened, perhaps due to his satiety; or people had grown accustomed. He seemed content to bask overhead and shine down upon the procession.
Hiresha couldn’t regret his survival. One dragon had already been destroyed last night. The world shouldn’t lose all its marvels.
“Any fool can slay dragons,” Tethiel said. “The truly great befriend them.”
“Agreeing with you is ever so easy,” she said. “I only need overlook all the flaws of logic and personality.”
“Fewer now, no thanks to you.” He tapped his dawnstone amulet. He managed to saunter even wearing full armor. “You wished to be with me forever, and so with me you’ll be cursed.”
“The centuries may positively speed by, as long as you leave me alone for the majority to work.”
“Delicious! I’ve married the ideal woman.”
Along the rooftops, the jaguar knight stalked. Pleasure sparkled within Hiresha to see him recovered. The fennec yipped up at him. He called back with a booming blast of air.
Another guest approached, carried above the throngs in a chair. Alyla’s crystalline poise had returned at the cost of her humanity. Tear-salt had dried on her cheeks.
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