She felt like something massive was sitting on her chest, crushing the life out of her, like there was cotton up her nose and in her eyes. Nothing was confusing and distressing, except for Amranth's constant presence, his touch cool and soothing as aloe, helping her hang on.
Graduallym she began to be able to stay awake longer, catch snatches of conversation through the haze of her pain.
"...that she made it through the night at all is a good sign. She'll pull through but it's going to take time."
"We don't have time. Turlabon could be searching the forest now. I have to get her off the planet before he finds us."
"If you move her now, she will die. That's all there is to it. The best thing you can do for her is remain patient and stay with her. She won't survive otherwise."
Darkness again, and the soothing touch of Amranth's hand on her cheek.
"...seen them out there looking. We aren't going to have much longer."
"I have lived out here for more than a hundred years. I know how not to be found if I don't care to be. If you will calm down, I will teach them to you. It will buy us some more time."
She felt his hand in hers, the gentle and reassuring squeeze, before she slipped down into drugged sleep again.
"Elder Keeler?"
She could feel the cool air of night on her skin, and Amranth's voice was quiet, calmer than she'd heard him in a while.
"Yes, sapling?" Keeler answered. She could hear someone stirring the fire and dimly see the flare of light.
"What are you? I've seen what you can do. You're no monk."
A few minutes ticked by in silence as Amranth waited patiently for answer Keeler was clearly reluctant to give. Lily thought she might pass out again before she heard his reply.
"Many centuries ago," he said, "I was something like what you were to King Turlabon. My king was a very different man. But in his youth, he shared much of Turlabon's ambition, and his lack of foresight. And because he was my king, I obeyed him.
Until the day he gave me an order I couldn't follow. I went to him, and I told him about what I'd seen, about the pain his orders had caused, and he told me that the ends justified the means. That he was building a better world. I'm certain your king told you similar.
So I asked him how he would rule this better world when he made it. And I asked him, how would he know when his better world was here if he continued to rule as though he still lived in the old one.
And because he was not Turlabon, because there truly were the seeds of good intentions in what he was doing, he listened. He changed. And I retired, determined never to spill blood again. I watched this world flourish for a time until the roots of entitlement and greed began to choke it again.
There was a new king by then, younger, unfamiliar with the strife of ages past, who thought the way things were was how they should and always would be. When I tried to tell him what was growing in his garden, he told me I was out of touch and he sent me away.
So I watched evil grow, strangling the world. I watched those in power secure their power by slowly and systematically classifying everyone different from them as less than people, arbitrarily declaring this trait or that one a sin for which the punishment was removal of personhood.
And vines grow the way they are trained, so they raised a new generation of flora to believe that some of them were people and some of them were not and that was how it had always been. And that's the place where good things die, sapling. So I became a refuge.
When the violence began, and the violence began long before Turlabon was a spore, I made myself a place that people could run to. I dedicated my life to it, determined to save as many lives as I had taken in the service of that young king, now forgotten by time.
That is what I am. That is what you may be too someday. I see your path ahead of you, and the many ways it may diverge. This mountain is one of the places that path might end, if you chose it."
"And the others?"
"Many and strange, my sapling. You will know the right path to take when it appears before you."
Lily slept again, and her dreams were filled with ancient kingdoms, grown over by ivy that slowly year by year tore down every stone.
Chapter Eleven
The first time she woke feeling clearheaded, she'd been unconscious for more than three days. She felt weak as a newborn kitten, trembling with the exhaustion of days spent fighting an internal battle.
"Is it safe for us to leave now?" Amranth asked as he offered her water, "Can she be moved?"
"She needs time to rest and recuperate," the Elder patted Amranth's shoulder, "If you over exert her now she may relapse. The fight isn't over just because she's begun to win it."
Amranth glanced over his shoulder at the window uneasily.
"But Turlabon's searches..."
"I have evaded them all these years," Keeler said, "I will evade them a few days more."
"I don't think I could get out of this bed if you paid me." Lily confirmed with a tired groan. Amranth smiled at her and brushed her hair back from her forehead.
"I just want to keep you safe," he said, and Lily's heart ached in her chest, knowing it was true. He could have left while she recovered. Keeler would have found her another way back to Earth when she was well.
They both knew Turlabon would rather chase his traitorous Sword than his runaway bride. He might have doomed himself by choosing to remain with her and the thought made Lily want to cry.
For another day, she slept, regathering her strength. Amranth was with her most any time she was awake, but she knew when she slept he was out in the forests on some mysterious business of Keeler's, slowing the progress of Turlabon's search teams. He often came back exhausted and bloodied.
"You should leave," she told him in the night, "Without me. He'll forget about me, but he'll hunt you forever. You need to put as much distance between you and this planet as you can."
He took her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles, looking at them with the same stoic thoughtfulness with which he'd looked at her that first day, like he was wondering what manner of creature she was.
"Whatever path I end up walking," he said, "I want to walk it with you. That's all that matters."
Lily's cheeks bloomed with color and she swallowed hard, wondering if he was saying what she thought he was.
"I love you, Lily," he said, making it clear, "I wish we had more time. I would devote a hundred years to courting you if I could. You deserve great acts of devotion and declarations of love made after acts of great heroism, not at your sick bed. But if fate will conspire against us and make that impossible, then at least I want to die knowing I was yours for even a little while."
"What are you asking me, Amranth?" Lily's voice caught in her throat, wanting to hear the words in case she was wrong.
"Marry me." Amranth replied, "Become bonded to me as you would have been to Turlabon. Even if he wins, even if he takes us both, we'll never belong to anyone but each other. It's a small victory, but it's the only one that matters to me."
"Yes," Lily felt tears running down her cheeks, and she pulled him down to kiss him adoringly, "Yes. I love you too, Amranth."
They had their bonding ceremony the following evening.
"You are certain this is what you want?" Elder Keeler asked her as he helped her choose a dress from his little collection of cast offs, "A bonding ceremony isn't the same as human marriage, you know. Your lives will be intertwined forever, even beyond death."
"It's a rash decision," Lily agreed, solemn in her quiet joy, still weak from her sickness but too happy to care, "It's not something I would be doing if not for the situation we're in. There's no point in pretending that. But there's also no point in waiting if this might be all the time we have left together."
"And what if you survive?" Keeler asked, "What then? If you escape and live, will you regret this decision?"
"Maybe," Lily shrugged, "But a life lived without any regrets is one lived without taking any chan
ces. I want to take a chance on him. If we survive this, I want to build a life with him. I want to at least try. And if it doesn't end in a happily ever after, then at least we had these moments together. And I won't regret being happy, even if doesn't last."
Keeler smiled, lifting a soft white and pale blue dress from the case. He pressed it into her hands.
"Then you have my blessing."
Lily dressed herself with hands that shook not from nerves but from exhaustion. The sundress Keeler had given her was nothing like the fairy tale gown she'd worn for Turlabon, but it was pretty, all lace and fluttering petals, and it felt more honest.
She put up her hair, and Elder Keeler threaded her dark tresses with white flowers. Then he took her arm and, half supporting her, led her outside to where Amranth was waiting for her.
"I have been cultivating this grove for centuries," he said as he led her down among the trees, "It is the most sacred place left in this forest."
The trees here, with strong black trunks, were in flower, their branches a riot of dripping color and soft music. Lily's heart fluttered and as she missed a step a jewel colored winged reptile burst from the branches, scattering blossoms. The caught the air and glowed with sudden warm illumination as they danced slowly towards the ground. As they walked, more blossoms fell, illuminating their path like floating candles.
A vast an ancient tree sat at the heart of the grove, its black branches stretching out to canopy the rest of the trees, which were almost certainly its offspring. Flowers flowed from it in a curtain like a willow or wisteria.
"Wait here for just a moment." Keeler said, patting her arm, then let her go, slipping through the flowers on his own. Lily knew Amranth must be waiting for her on the other side and her heart raced.
This really might be a mistake, she knew. But she couldn't allow that to stop her from doing it. It was a mistake to accept Turlabon's proposal, but she didn't regret that decision even now.
Without it, she would never have left Earth, never have seen or experienced all these wonderful things, never have met Amranth at all, who might still be doing Turlabon's dirty work despite all the protests of his soul, resigned to a life unloved. However it ended, she wanted this. She wanted him.
She heard the music of the flowers grow louder beyond the curtain of flowers and took that as her cue, reaching out to brush them aside as she stepped through.
Alien silk in shades of trembling summer sky sapphire rippled across Lily's dusky copper skin like the brush of a lover's fingers as she stepped through a curtain of a thousand white blossoms that glittered like icy stars and chimed like crystal as they touched. The grove beyond dripped in light and color and liquid sound.
Flowering trees with trunks of stark ebony were the pillars of this chapel, the walls woven from living branch and bush and budding vine.
There was no place that was not in bloom, from the hand sized irises the color of a maiden's blush to the jutting violet spears of delphinium and foxglove, to the carpet of plush moss starred with it tiny blue blossoms no bigger than a pinprick. The flowers sang with every breeze or touch, each voice unique, mingling into a divine chorus.
If the flowers on Earth had a voice, Lily thought, we would never have let them die. The crown of blossoms in her sleek black hair still sung, though softer than their rooted counterparts, soothing reassurance in her ear that she was not making a mistake as she stepped deeper into the grove, the floating candle-bells which illuminated it drifting out of her way, clearing the flower strewn path to the man she loved.
Amranth stood smiling by the trunk of the oldest tree. He was dressed in the nicest clothes Keeler could find for him, long white robes against which his petals almost glowed. A crown of flowers bloomed in his mossy hair, and he held out his hand to her with pure love in his eyes. Lily didn't hesitate as she moved forward to take it.
Elder Keeler stood beside Amranth, using his walking stick to tap the branches of the flowering trees above him, playing the singing flowers with a skillful hand, giving rise to a choir of celestial voices like the stars themselves had descended to sing for them.
Lily took Amranth's hand, cool in her own, and stood before the Elder as he turned to face them. The glowing candle-bells drifted around them, showering them in light. Lily had never seen anything so magical, and she couldn't take her eyes from Amranth's.
"This tree which bears the name Linyenwa, is the oldest on this planet," Keeler said, leaning heavily on his stick as he looked down on the two of them, eyes full of fond benevolence, "It has watched lives beyond counting come and go, join and part again. Now you too shall be part of its ancient memory."
Lily looked up into Linyenwa's vast branches and wondered if it could see her. On a planet like this, she wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it was just as alive as all the other flora on Sahria, just quieter, peaceful remembering.
"Today you give a part of your life to another," Keeler continued, "Let no one undermine the significance of that. You made a decision today to share your future with another, to support them and rely on them, to build a life greater than the sum of its parts.
From this day forward you will no longer be two people, but a single soul reunited. Even if in time you choose to part again, you will remain always connected to one another.
It is my sincere hope that the life you make together is one overflowing with joy and understanding and that you never stop striving to learn and love one another better."
He turned to Lily then, inclining his head.
"Do you choose to bind yourself to this person? To become one being, root and stem, for time unending?"
Lily paused for only a moment, not in hesitation, but in appreciation, wanting to remember this forever.
"I do." she said, smiling at Amranth. He smiled back at her as Keeler turned to him.
"And do you agree to the binding?" Keeler asked, "To intertwine yourself, leaf and bud, to never again be parted?"
"I do." he answered at once without taking his eyes from her.
"Then let it be witnessed," Keeler said, "That what was parted is rejoined. Two souls always meant to be one have found each other at last."
Amranth bent to kiss her, and Lily felt a strange rush that started in his lips and ran down into the soil through her feet like roots of light. She could almost see it, the network of interconnections, hers and his, merging and intertwining until they could no longer be told apart. She could feel him, distantly, as though he were a part of her. She could feel her own hand in his.
It was dizzying but it somehow felt natural, as though she'd always been meant to feel this way. Like she'd been half blind all her life and now suddenly she could see.
As they parted from the kiss, Lily looked into his eyes and saw herself reflected back like infinite mirrors, their reflections no longer distinct. Lily had never been so happy, nor loved anyone so much. She couldn't imagine her hand without his in it.
Keeler brought them to a meadow where he'd prepared a celebratory feast. Lily, now properly adjusted to the planet's allergens, was at last free to eat something besides dusty rations, and she indulged gratefully, feeling her strength beginning to return at last.
Drunk on Keeler's homemade wine and flush with happiness, Amranth kissed Lily in the grass and she felt it more deeply than she ever had, the sensation made all the more intense by their new connection.
It wasn't long before they snuck away, finding their way down to the waterfall pool that had become such a landmark to their souls. Beside the water, he surged into her, and Lily felt as though the top of her head had opened and the universe was pouring in, filling her with so much light and sensation that she almost lost herself. They held each other, trembling in the revelation of their new closeness, and then threw themselves in again, craving more.
When their energy was spent, they lay in the flowers, Amranth stroking Lily's hair as she lay against his chest.
"When we leave here," he said, his voice a soothing rumble under Lily's ear, "I'll t
ake you back to Earth. Your village should know what happened to you. But don't stay there. Leave with me when I go. We'll run from Turlabon together and find a place that's safe for both of us."
Lily thought about it for a long moment, guilty about how instantly her soul cried out to agree. She didn't want to be separated from him, ever. But she'd dedicated her life to her village, to their quest to revive the planet. Could she really turn her back on them after all this?
He sensed her hesitation and kissed her forehead.
"You don't need to answer now," he said, shifting to stand and help her to her feet, "Take your time to decide. I love you, Lily. More than life."
"I love you too, Amranth," she replied, smiling, then frowned as she saw the sudden distressed look on Amranth face. He was frozen, like an animal that has sensed a predator, staring past her into the dark forest.
"I think we-"
He never got to finish the sentence. Something moved in the trees and, wrapping his arms around her, he threw them towards the ground. Too late, a blast of light, laser fire, struck him hard, knocking them apart, throwing him towards the edge of the pool and her towards the tree line.
"Amranth!" she shouted in terrified distress, scrambling to her feet to go to him. She could feel his pain, the burning agony of it flaring through the entire right side of her body. Despite the pain, she could see him struggling to get up, looking at her with wild eyes.
"No! Run!" he cried. Men, Turlabon's hunters, were bursting from the trees, weapons raised. Before Lily could obey or refuse, someone, one of the hunters, had grabbed her from behind, dragging her towards the trees.
She shrieked, struggling, and reached for Amranth, only to see one of the hunters stand over him and fire his weapon. She felt the hideous pain blooming like fire in her chest and couldn't tell if it was his pain or her own, couldn't hear anything over her own screaming.
He lay perfectly still on the bank as she was dragged away, kicking and struggling to get to him, and something hit her hard in the back of the head and darkness swallowed her up.
Alien Romance: ESCAPE: Bride Of The Beast: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 5) Page 8
