Chương 99: 95 • SUNLIGHT

65 SUNLIGHT 🙜 E mber pulled the blanket up beneath his chin and rolled to one side, wondering why his mattress was packed hard like rooted earth, and why his cabin smelled like river crocuses and dried summer grasses… the river was so close, so loud, with only the birds and the occasional sound of flapping cloth to disturb it. Something rustled nearby and he squinted against the unwelcome daylight—he really must stop leaving his door open by mistake.

A songbird flapped over his head with a chirring trill, so close the wind of it stirred his hair, and he sat up on his elbows with a start, blinking rapidly in the sudden brightness. A few yellow petals fluttered through his hair, flowers tumbling around him. He lay in a little clearing that he did not know, beside a burbling brook that was not his river, near a stone bridge which had half crumbled away a hundred years before his name was first spoken.

The blanket was not even his blanket, but a tattered woolen garment which had been draped across his sleeping form, and he felt the frayed edges of it between his fingers… A grey woolen dress. He winced at a faint ache beneath his ribs and tossed the covering aside, abashed to find that he was naked except for the remainder of her skirt, the rest of which had been torn to strips and wrapped securely about his bare waist.

Flowering herbs and crushed leaves crumbled away from the tattered cloth like moss on a stone—some sort of poultice. Only then did he notice, waking fully from his dream, that his right hand was wrapped in like fashion, and as his blurry vision focused across the clearing, the source of the fabric snapping and rustling presented itself as his tunic and trousers, and several more strips of stained cloth which had been rinsed and set to dry.

They hung from a gnarled oak limb like the trees in the town square on washing day, lofting in the breeze. Faint humming drifted up the forested hillside, weaving through the roots and grasses—a breathy waulking tune which ebbed and flowed the way he imagined the ocean tides to ebb and flow. It was unlike any song the village women had sung in the valley below Sisters Mountain, but he knew the swaying lilt of it. A soft footstep alighted on the mossy ground and half-covered flagstones.

Graceful fingers curled around the tunic, brushing it aside. A feminine figure stepped forth, strands of black hair looping across her shoulders, and she was both intimate and strange to him. Her body was damp and shimmered like abalone shells, clad in nothing but her hair, arms laden with wild onions, meadowsweet, rosehips, and the last of the summer chickweed. When their eyes met, she paused with her lips parted—and then moved toward him with quick, soft steps.

Bare feet patted on packed soil and buried flagstones, rustling through dried grasses. Before he could bestir himself, she dropped to her knees beside him, the bundle of leaves tumbling from her arms. Her fragrant tresses brushed his ribs, and his eyes left her face, wandering down the length of her body. She smiled and preened her hair over a patch where there was none—self-consciously, he thought—but half a moment later those fingers flitted to his face, her touch soft and cool and comforting, like spring rain.

He pressed his palm over the back of her hand, the cloth bandage muffling his grasp. Without thinking, he lifted his other hand to sweep the tattered hair from her face, tucking it behind one ear. His mouth turned up in a helpless grin. He must have looked a fool, though he could not bring himself to care. It was right to have her near. To have her near… and nearer…

She tipped her head to one side, the dark eyes he had once thought empty swirling with a tangle of emotions that were now all too easily discerned—desire foremost among them. Desire. Her breath touched his lips as she bent down, more of her long dark hair falling in wild curtains around them. Hesitant. Ember slipped his hand behind her neck. The scent of the crushed morning earth rose up to greet them both as the woman from the river met the fisherman's son with an open-mouthed kiss.

He felt nothing and everything of that moment—the softness of her lips, dripping in florals and honeyed delight, the prick of a feral tooth against his tongue, the way she gently tugged his lower lip between her teeth… Trailed her careful caresses along the edge of his bristly jaw.

"Ember, Ember, my Ember," she whispered sweetly, brushing his ear with her nose.

"Are you my Ember?"

"Ky," he gasped, scarcely able to breathe.

"Are you mine, Ky?" And with those words he found at last he had come to the end of the road—the winding, war-torn, spell-ravaged road which had taken him so far from his lazy river and quiet woodlands, from everything familiar that he had once known and loved. Here, on the other side of it all, he discovered that home was not a cabin in the forest, but another hand in his. His Ky had fashioned a nest for them both amidst the creeping wildness, the remnants of a time which had once been.

The trees as good as four walls and a door, the forest their picket-fence garden hemmed in by bush and bole, each branch a clothesline, the babbling brook their wellspring, the half-buried flagstones a cabin floor.

"Wherever you go, beautiful Ember," she sighed, tangling her fingers into his hair, "I will surely be following you—until death should part us." Tears streamed from both his eyes. He pressed his hands against her waist, pulling her closer, inviting her touch.

"Until death," he agreed. And she quietly claimed him for her own, in the rustling stillness of a summer wood; in return, she gave to him herself, and that with a willing shyness. She shaped her form to his with all eagerness, half desperation—but he soon kissed such worries away. Ember only cared for Ky as she had ever been, as he loved her: simply. His relentless affection was sufficient, desire all-consuming. Never before had he bared so much of himself to anyone—been so undone—tasted such ecstasy.

Her gratefulness, her relief, her furious adoration poured over him like water. He found his fingers clumsy where hers were deft, and her usual confidence faltering where his brimmed full, and yet in the inelegance of uncertainty, neither felt the need to speak with words where glance or touch was sufficient. At last, so very quietly, his soul sought hers in the silence.

Her innermost secret welcomed him, threads unraveling, intertwining, weaving together—an explosion of color, a blinding brilliance—and for a moment, they became as they had always been, were always, and would always be. For a single, spectacular moment, he knew the river-woman as fully as he knew himself. Stolen novel; please report. When the colors faded, bright and fleeting, they had taken with them a golden, ephemeral thread…

He felt it unravel from the infinite tapestry of his soul, and, in the rushing peacefulness which settled after, observed that something new and strange lingered in its place. Something dark, like the first spring rushes in the twilight hours, cold like the touch of the winter frost, gentle as the first breath of autumn. It tapped a rhythm beneath his breast, that fragment of a siren's heart.

Not until each had wandered one another to their own satisfaction did they lay together for an eternal moment, breathless and glistening. Her fingers combed carelessly through his damp curls as she lay sighing in his arms. Ember caressed her sticky face with his thumb, felt the curve of her smile. Everything they had suffered until now was only a passing thing, twisted by dreams and chased away like mist before the rising sun. He brushed her cheek again. Relief swept over him with the breeze.

She rested her head upon the hollow of his sternum and her hands upon his shoulders, and it felt to Ember as if she had been shaped from the moon, the mist, and the sea to nestle there for the rest of forever. Perhaps, indeed, she had. ❧ Ember leaned against the bole of the tree, patches of sunlight swaying across the backs of his eyelids as Ky rinsed her dress in the stream beyond his sight, humming to herself.

It felt as if it had always been so, and yet each time she swept a damp curl from his forehead, or brushed against his skin while she wove her healing songs and freshened his bandages, or bent low to kiss him full on the mouth, the line of his jaw, the side of his neck—it always felt in some way as if it were the first time they had touched. At last, he slowly made his way to the bridge to rinse his face and hair.

Moving too quickly sent little shivers of pain through his stomach, but the first sip of crisp, clear mountain water was reward enough for his efforts. He scooped up palmfuls, drinking deep until his dry throat was sated and his parched tongue soothed. Then he splashed his face, shook the droplets from his fingers, and sat on his knees in the mud, wiping his hands on his soiled tunic and turning his face toward the sun.

He sat in silence for several minutes more, listening to the wind in the trees until the splashing ceased and a faint rustle stirred in the grass near his feet. There was a gentle patter of falling water. When he opened his eyes, Ky stood beside him wringing droplets from her hair, the remnants of the damp woolen dress hanging limply from her form. Even seeing her clothed now sent a wash of welcome heat rising up through his neck to the tips of his ears.

As his eyes adjusted to the sun and shade, an eager smile bloomed upon her face.

"You seem better."

"I feel better," he agreed, squinting up at her.

"Are you hungry? I left a few rosehips for you." She tugged the torn sleeve higher and picked at loose threads with a shrug.

"Have the rest; I find I hunger less than before..." Before he could marvel too long at her statement, she continued, "Do you think, perhaps, there are any of your folk dwelling nearby?"

"I've never been to this side of the mountains," Ember admitted, slowly getting to his feet. Ky offered him a hand, and he stood still for a few minutes, huffing slightly from the effort.

"Besides, if anyone sees you—or me, in this state—they'll run away in fright!" He gestured to his own makeshift bandages and threadbare tunic. Ky sniffed.

"It seems there is only one good thing to be doing." He blinked, surprised.

"And what is that?"

"Find a human nest and take their clothes." Ember's mouth popped open.

"You jest!"

"I do not." Ky examined her claws, running her thumb over her pointer finger and chewing the end of it.

"We are in desperate need of something fitting—and I must be hiding myself from strangers on the road. Food, clothing, whatever we desire can surely be borrowed. Sirens simply take what they need."

"Well I'm not a siren, and we'll not make thieves of ourselves," he said firmly, frowning at Ky for the first time since she had appeared before him clad in nothing but her hair. She finally looked up at him, and he glimpsed once more the impudent sprite who had craftily lured him up the mountain trail.

"If we are telling them a few true things, they might be giving us what we need in exchange for our swiftly leaving again." Ember relented, taken in by her confidence.

"Or they'll be throwing rocks at us."

"If that, then it is as I am saying before: we borrow in secret, and bring them nice things later! I will gladly do this thing for you, and you need never know where I got them from, if it bothers you so much - perhaps one thing from each nest we find, to be kind." He scoffed gently, but couldn't help returning her soft smile. She grabbed his hand, tugging him upright. He obliged with a grunt, grasping the makeshift bandage.

It had held together well, all things considered, and the knitbone would need but a few days to work the most of its simple magic. Magic. Ember could almost hear those rushing voices again, and he sighed as they slipped through his fingers once more. It was senseless, to wish for that crashing knowledge to sweep over him again.

Senseless, and annoying in its constant evasions, for he had the distinct impression that if he could only grasp it and hold onto it for half a moment, he could understand and access it again. Perhaps even work a bit of magic myself? Lundr's grandmother would sneer at him for his nonsense. Isabel would have tossed her hair in a silent dismissal. Alden surely would have told him to put his head to things that mattered. Hunter would merely laugh and regale him with tales of ill-fated spellweavers from long ago.

Indeed, his own mother would have cursed him out for daring to speak the word 'magic.' But Ember had encountered so many ancient weavings, known so much hardship, and endured so many nights alone in a mountain full of fraying enchantments that he was a different man, here on the other side. And he was no longer afraid to ponder such wonders as lay beyond his comprehension. For they did not seem so far out of reach as they once had.

"Perhaps I can earn a bit of coin in town, whatever town that might be. I suppose Ridgefell is the nearest from here... if only I had a map." He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his trousers, sighing wistfully.

"Wish I'd thought to grab some of that gold from Sisters Mountain when—""No." Ky's voice was firm and melodic.

"It is for the better. Let the Sisters be keeping what is theirs." He squinted up at the two-headed mountain, blinking rapidly in the sunlight, and then turned back to Ky. She stood before him in her tattered dress, chin uplifted, thorns and burrs clinging to the torn hem and her clean, messy hair hanging loose around her shoulders—a queen in peasant's raiment. Then she rose up on the toes of her bare feet, so that she did not have to look up at him so steeply, and returned his open-mouthed smile.

"I think I know the meaning of your word, 'contentment,' now."

"Do you indeed?" Ember replied, drinking in the sight of her with his roving eyes.

"We ought to leave just as soon as I am well enough to walk short distances; the weather will be starting to turn, and I want to be out of these hills when the frosts come." Her fangs glimmered in the flashing sunlight.

"Where are we off to?" A thrill swept through him, borne on the late summer breeze that whispered through the trees, carrying with it a hint of autumn and the promise of color and cozy nights. Together, they could keep warm in a bed of rustling leaves, and he would kindle them a flame when the harsher winds came down from the north. But first...

"There's something I need," he confessed, a pained grimace already tugging at his smile.

"Anything," Ky sniffed, gathering up one of his hands and pressing it to her cheek. Her breath cooled his wrist.

"Tell me, sweet Ember, and it shall be yours."

"I... I need to go back to the lake." Her smile flickered and dimmed, and she blinked rapidly.

"Why..."

"Because I need to," he said, a bit louder, and she tightened her grip on his hand.

"I don't know why, exactly. I'm sorry. I've... been trying to make sense of everything that happened, in my head. Things I felt... things I heard, that I don't understand. You... don't have to come with me. You can wait for me here, by the bridge—""No," she growled, and cast him a look he didn't quite know how to interpret.

"I will not be letting you out of my sight ever again." His heart beat faster; a short while ago, those words would have compelled him to run. Now there was only a warmth and whispering desire to bring her close and kiss the mouth that spoke them.

"Ever again?" he pressed, amused.

"Mmmh..." Ky relented, the look softening slightly.

"Not for many days, no. If you go today, I follow." Ember nodded gratefully.

"We go together, then."