“Nobody will notice!” She exclaimed hotly.
“I think you’re wrong, but it’s your idea.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Jorse, for everything.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I’m happy for you, really. I just stopped by to say goodbye.”
“You’re leaving again?” Her voice quavered, and then hardened.
“I have a job... we have a job actually, Anya and I.”
“It can’t be more important than being the King, can it?”
Jorse had the self-mocking smile this time. “Actually, it is.” He bent over and gave the young woman a quick kiss on the cheek. “Goodbye, Dala.” He turned to the door, took a single step and was gone.
Lin was standing on the uppermost battlement of the castle, staring out over the moonwashed harbor, while overhead pennons popped in the stiff breeze. Her finely boned face was sad, and the stone crenellation was rough and cold under her fingers. She gasped when a warm hand came to rest on her shoulder.
“It’s a nice night for flying. Care to join me?” The baritone voice said gently.
She turned her head slowly, so as not to break the spell. “Jorse?”
The man pushed back his hood with his free hand and smiled, the light from a full Elysium sparkling in his eyes. “I promised I’d take you flying.”
Bemusement settled on Lin, and a kind of serene happiness she’d never known before. “And where shall we fly to, this beautiful night?” The man beside her glanced up at the full blue moon, and she felt her heart pound in her breast. “And when shall we return?”
“Never.” He whispered, offering her his hand.
She looked out over the harbor, sighed once, and laced her fingers into his.
Epilogue
The two stood entwined, on a tall cliff, overlooking a strange sea. Far below them the water reflected the light of the two current moons, and the breeze, neither warm nor cold, carried the smell of brine and the resinous tang of balsam pines. The encircling rings glittered above their heads in coruscating fire.
“I have a gift for you, my love.” The man said to the woman, in a soft, intimate voice.
“Oh?” There was a playful curiosity in the woman’s reply. “And what might that be, dear one?”
The man began to weave his hands in an elaborate pattern while he sang a complex melody in a voice that was low and vibrant and full of passion. The song hinted at unknown instruments, and unknowable musicians—a complex, multi-faceted strain that rang in the air around them. The sound of sunrise filled the sky. The smell of the rain on a flat rock in the spring. A wind sprang up, carrying strange scents of unknown lands and colors pulsed around the two figures in all the colors of the rainbow and a few that were not. The flavor of mist running through the trees on a crisp winter morning played on their tongues.
Anya let out a delighted laugh that sounded like silver bells in the clear night air. “You’ve finally discovered my name.”
END
The Corsairs of Aethalia: A Thalassia novel Page 29
