Page 11 of Angel in Absentia
“Healings won’t help you!” he declared, gesturing at them with the wooden swords. “We have enough greenery!”
She and other healers, though inexperienced as they were, had been working on restoring the woods. They’d found that if they repeatedly healed portions of the forest, not only did it expel the illusion, but it also gave the foliage a stronger chance of growing back on its own. It was a great personal accomplishment for Clea, who had sharpened her abilities against the forest itself in recent months with success.
Dae shook his head in frustration. “Healing is for after the war is done. Right now, you need sword skills! And you need to stop healing the forest! You should quarantine!”
Clea groaned and fell back into the grass. She didn’t exactly have an answer. She was drawn to healing with the same intensity and dedication that Dae was drawn to weaponry. Despite it, she chuckled at Dae’s use of the word “war.” They were at war. No longer survival, no longer struggle. War. Was that really true? Were their chances so fair that this had gone from being a siege of desperation to an all-out war?
“I’ll train with you, Dae,” Iris said, waving at him flirtatiously and causing him to shake his head and walk off.
“You’re a miracle worker to be able to repel him so quickly,” Clea muttered. “I used to yell at him to fight fire with fire, but sometimes I think he likes being yelled at.”
Iris giggled. “Why doesn’t he go train with other swordsmen? His family is rife with talented blades, and yet he follows you or Yvan around so much, you’d think he hates being alone.”
“He already trained with his family this morning, and yesterday. He feels guilty about Achor and my apparent near-death battle with Cacivus. He’s been training twice as much, and I’m getting punished for it. My hands were blistered yesterday,” she said, looking down at her palms. “They’ve barely healed today.”
“I’m tired of this,” Dae declared from the center of the clearing. “Achor was more disciplined than this,” he continued, throwing the sword back to Yvan, who let it fall into the grass before picking it up lazily.
Clea’s slight smile faded, recognizing that his grief played into his frustrations, but knowing that it was rare for Dae to mention it outright. Achor and Dae had been very similar, both born into noble houses, both boys who had grown up with Clea’s brothers. Clea and Yvan exchanged glances knowingly. Then Yvan returned her attention back to Dae, sword in hand. They didn’t have much in common, but loss was something they all understood. This time, Yvan approached without playfulness, the strokes hard and brutal as the two faced off.
The clacking of the swords now filled the field in place of conversation.
“Hmm,” Iris said thoughtfully, rolling over slightly so that she could comb a finger over Clea’s temple and push a strand of hair behind her ear. Looking down at her, she said, “You haven’t mentioned Achor at all. I know the two of you were close too.”
Clea watched Yvan and Dae fight fiercely against the backdrop of budding green and a stark blue sky. The day seemed sopeaceful, even beyond the walls. This field had a name: Dawn Field, named for how the sun rose just beyond it and caught it in a golden pink sheen. It had come to represent new beginnings in the ashen wasteland where it was now an oasis. The people of Loda saw their own story in that too.
Iris didn’t push her, always a patient listener, and Clea reflected on the peacefulness of the day and the stark contrast of the feelings inside her.
“I keep thinking about my family,” Clea said at last. “Not just Achor. Ever since I’ve gotten back, I think of everyone we lost over the campaign. I think of life before that. I think of my brothers and sisters, my mother.”
Iris looked off thoughtfully, perhaps thinking of her own losses. Everyone had them.
“Sometimes grief from a fresh loss reminds us of others,” Iris said.
Clea’s hand moved over her stomach as if she could reach the feeling. “I know grief,” she whispered, looking up at the green breaking through the ashen tree. “It doesn’t feel like grief. It’s not…anger or sadness or loss. It’s something…it’s…”
Not enough.
“Something else,” Clea whispered.
It was that phrase in a feeling, an ever-boiling cauldron of sensation in the pit of her stomach that grew with each passing day. Her body felt full of it, buzzing with it, recalling every loss she could commit to memory, and yet it didn’t feel like grief at all.
“I have to see my father at some point today. I’ve already waited much too long, and I don’t even know why,” Clea said.
“It’s because you’re avoiding discussion of the wedding,” Iris offered, though she wasn’t being presumptuous. She often freely suggested ideas and theories openly, perhaps a reflection of a mind that loved theorizing about history just the same.
“Idan is already on his way. He’s set to arrive tomorrow or the day after. Catagard told me this morning,” Clea said. “I’m to be married in six days. It’s going to happen the day after Victas Day, in full audience of the city.”
Iris lay down on her stomach, kicking her bare feet in the air as she watched Clea cast in the shade of the trees. Iris basked in the sunlight, and Clea was eager to feel it, yet she knew that if her skin tanned, it would further expose the traces of her old illness, which never darkened quite the same as the rest of her skin.
“Victas Day,” Iris whispered. “Appropriate. They moved up the wedding so the day after we celebrate the Veilin heroes’ conquest over the Warlord of Shambelin, the cities of Ruedom and Loda will be united through both of you. Something tells me this was the plan all along.”
Clea laughed. “Oh, I guarantee it. I half believe my father let me escape to Virday just knowing I’d miraculously make it back as the Heart of Loda! His cunning is endless. I was barely useful to him then, but I sure am now.”
Silence settled. Clea closed her eyes, thinking the conversation had ended. She took in a breath and simply listened to the world around her, trying to find solace in it.
After a moment, Iris spoke, her voice soft. “Clea.” In the word, Clea sensed the vaguest caution, which was a rare sentiment for Iris.
Clea opened her eyes, moving her head to look over at her friend’s face, but Iris was looking off toward the woods.
