Page 119 of Shadows and Flames
She pinched the end between two black fingers, dangled her foot over the water, and extended the joint toward me.
Her eyes widened as she angled her lips to exhale away from us and watched as I took the joint, brought it to my own lips. The taste was not as bad as I thought it would be, though not as satisfying as the pipes I took to smoking with Mamá. It sent heat down my throat, stoking the Fire that always lived within the depths of me.
“I thought it was a disgusting habit?”
I pushed the smoke smoothly through my nostrils, letting it unfurl around me. Most of the time, I did not like being out of control—lapses of imbibing to excess notwithstanding.
I shrugged and took another drag of the joint, noticing the minute relaxation of my spine. “You rattled my nerves at the time. Everything you did unsettled me.”
Meline tsked and snatched the joint from me, taking a frustrated pull before stubbing it out on the stone between us. “You were a testy asshole, you mean.” But the admonishment held no malice, and the hash smoothed any barb I would normally lob her way. Maybe, had I accepted the way she affected me and also not been on duty, we would have had moments like this. Companionable, affectionate silence.
That was, until my queen began to hum. Through our recent travels, I caught her making the sound, though when anyone came close enough to hear, she would stifle the song and whatever she had been thinking at the time.
Now, though, she let it wind between us while she sat with eyes closed, wrinkle forming between her brow and humming over the river.
Could one’s heart clench and soar at the same time? As if its wings were beating fast and hard? I closed my eyes, too, as my queen went through the fragments of the lullaby.
“And I am with you. Loving you. For all the days we have and after,”I picked up the end of the chorus. Of one of the many lullabies Mamá would sing to my brother and me, then with usas we grew old enough to join her. When my twin would be loud, and my words would come out smooth.
I fluttered my lashes open as my singing traded for the galloping of her heart, the whistling of her breathing. “El—how?”
More slowly, I sang the words to her from the beginning. “My love, there is no world in which I will not protect you. You can count the grains of sand, and you will still not reach the end of my caring for you. I will be with you always, even when my soul is returned to the air in your lungs. Even when you must dance and sing without me. I am with you. Loving you. For all the days we have and after.”The slow, deep melody lilted with the tones that were characteristic of no other place but Zonoras. Banfian songs came close, but the blend of melancholy and devotion was of my people.
A promise and a prayer I’d sang over my queen every day, every hour, in the time before she awoke with the scar now on her spine.
Again, the last line of the song echoed into the night, over the water where she spread the ashes of our son. Of Soleil. And though I wept, I hoped the words were clear enough to reach him.
“You—” Meline cleared her throat “—you have abeautifulvoice, El.”
I smiled through my tears. “Gravas, mé relanha.” I had been told so before, that I had a gift for song like my mother. But the compliment was much more, coming from her.
“And you…I heard it. I’d just not realized it was you.” Meline sniffed, rubbing at her eyes and scooting closer to me. I opened my arms, giving space she slotted into perfectly. “I don’t understand the words, but Ifeelthem. Here.” She placed my hand on her heart, then landed hers on mine. Somehow, they beat in time. “And I used to hum it to Soleil.Every day.”
I buried my nose in her hair, catching the whiff of him on her. Of the love she felt for him, of the home she created for him.
“I will teach you the words. And we will sing it to him. To each other.”
Meline kissed the base of my throat, over where my pulse beat for her in this peaceful moment we were able to steal away. Where we did not have to stand alone in our hurt.
“Sê. Mé Zombro.”My Shadow.
Epilogue
Ididn’t bother keeping my steps silent. Not even quiet.
The rain battering the windows and facade of the Well drowned them out, anyway. My own rage, pulsing behind my eyelids, was louder.
Ever since I had been overruled, the quiet darkness of the Well was no longer comforting. It was menacing, with traitors andfoolslurking in every corner. I’d assured my brothers that the others with seats at the Elders’ table were reasonable. Now, I spat on the stone floor, twice for my siblings who blatantly assured me that Varus’s proposal would notstandthen proceeded to vote against me.
The Shadows no longer held sovereignty. The Shadows no longer stood on their own.
My fist banged on the heavy wooden door, painted black for as long as the Well stood.
The chandeliers fitted with small candles lit the room, warded for only sitting Elders and invited Shadows to pass through. The hot taste of my blood bloomed in my mouth as I took in those seated at the long table, constructed from the first tree felled in construction of the Well. Did they want to burn thattoo? Take an axe to it and set it aflame like the rest of our sacred ways?
I’d run away from the Trylas, from my responsibilities at birth and the dangers awaiting. I’d found ahome, a family, and a profession that felt truer to me than my own name.
“Master Noruh. Thank you for joining us.”
