Page 118 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“Tahrik?” I ask hesitantly. He does not turn to look at me. “Are you alright?”

There’s a pause, and I wonder for a moment if he even hears me, before he finally sighs, deeply, as though exhaling his soul, and meets my eyes. It’s to his credit, I think, that he does not turn away from my questioning look. “I don’t know,” he replies quietly, a terrible rawness in his voice. “I don’t know.” Leaning back on his hands, he stares back up at the sky above us. It is open and vast, even with a forest around us, and seems to stretch to infinity. The moon is close to full, bright enough to cast shadows, and there are a multitude of stars, flowing in sparking rivers through the blue-black ink overhead.

It calls to me, as though it wants me to lift my arms up and embrace it, wrap my arms around the entirety of the night and pull it to me. I feel…I feel at home in this wild and wondrous space, where water pours from the world above us like a dream, where we can swim in a year’s worth of wealth for our village as though it was nothing, where there are tiny jeweled flowers and shimmering birds — where I can lay beneath the night sky and live until the morning. Something is being unleashed inside of me, something I never thought existed, and I don’t understand the expression on my friend’s face.

“The sky is so big here…” he whispers, as though to himself, and he rubs his face again with a trembling hand.

“It is the same sky, Rik,” I whisper back, almost silently. Whatever is happening here is between us, and not something for Rannoch and Kaden’s ears.

“Is it, Wren?” He is so sad, like a funeral shroud, like a lost soul.

And I think, Ithink, we both know it isn’t. Not really. It may be connected somewhere, maybe patched together with rough stitching somewhere closer to the borders of the Upper Kingdom — but this open sky, with all of its stars and promise — it is something different. Somewhere different. And we are both different as well, beneath it.

“I miss the stone of the mountains,” he says, voice so homesick it hurts my heart. I don’t know how to respond, because I…I don’t. And I don’t know how to comfort him. He came here for me — left the whole of his world behind at the beckoning of my pale finger, and I wonder if he’s regretting his choice. I can’t bring myself to ask him, don’t want to hear his answer. So we sit in silence instead, until the crackling fire settles, the pops of moisture burnt away, leaving only the dry, quiet wood.

“Will you sing to me, Tahrik?” I ask quietly. I don’t know why, other than I love his voice, that the music of our village is one thing we love together, that gives us both comfort. And it reminds me of a time when I would walk along the bone walls, speaking to the dead, lost in my own world, and Tahrik’s songs were the only shimmering line that tied me to the living world. Perhaps, in a way, I feel like I need that shimmering string connecting us tonight — that I will float away into the dark sky, never to return, if he does not tie me to himself.

He shifts closer, pressing the side of his body to my own, and I open my arms to pull him into my blankets, before wrapping us upagain and leaning my head on his shoulder. This casual contact is new, and the feel of my hair tumbling down his back and my bare skin pressing into his own catches his breath, so he has to clear his throat and start his words over.

“I…I will always sing for you Wren. Whenever you desire, I am yours to command.” The words are a fervent promise, and he lifts one of my cold hands to his mouth, pressing a swift kiss to my fingertips, before leaning his head against mine, and singing quietly.

”The world was a song, the world was a flower…”

My heart clenches in my chest. I know this tune, although it is an old melody and rarely sung anymore in our village. An aching throb chokes my throat— the feeling of tears — and I wonder why he chose this to end such a happy day.

“The world was a whisper, the whisper your name

Your name was my heartbeat, my heartbeat your smile

I knew you an hour, you seared me as flame

Oh forever’s a moment, forever’s an eye’s blink

Forever’s a promise that cannot be kept

For Reaping or Render

For Silence or Ender

For tears of the Mother, for Maiden who wept.

I saw you as Summer, I watched you in Dancing

I dreamt you as Water, I loved you as Rain,

Forever’s a flesh cut, forever’s a blood oath,

To lose you forever, forever’s my pain.

You’ve gone to the Silence, or gone to the Dreaming

Gone far from the village, Gone far from our shores

Forever was nothing but mirrors and smoke tricks

I loved you forever, forever I’m yours.

I love you forever, forever I’m yours….”

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