Chương 460: 17.3

Jewel was starting to think a wedding once a year was far too often. The crowds, the strangers, the suffocating pageantry, the only thing that made this second one tolerable was Jewel did not have to do anything but be a guest. If she had to organize this affair like the Lady Czobor did she would have refused to allow the betrothed to go through with it possibly until next year, maybe even longer. Thankfully Imre's mother had it well in hand despite her husband's infirmity.

And thankfully Thurzó was not anywhere near as bad in his wasting as Mathias had attained, he was merely too greatly bothered by the cold to risk traveling. Through the entire ceremony and celebrations he had remained seated but otherwise her old friend seemed in fine spirits! But then again Gem had been capable of sparring and leaping around right up until she suddenly wasn't. It made all their exchanges bittersweet.

This wedding might very well be the last time that Jewel saw her friend, at least it was interesting to see how the rituals and diviners enacted a wedding in Arva. Rather than calling down the sky in a litany of gods they 'invoked' the patron star of Imre and House Thurzó, which was obvious in hindsight, Mokosh, namesake of the fortress, a goddess of fertility and spring. It all involved significantly less actual divine presence than the alternative but seemed to satisfy everyone around.

The arrangements and vows were much the same as Alexander and Monika had received. Healthy assured heirs born of both their blood lines (two this time) in exchange for a veneration to the House Thurzó star at their births. The joy in the man's face when he saw his son kiss Gwenn was obvious for all to see, a lined face creasing deeply with the smile, his eyes shining with barely contained tears. It had been another moment which sung in Jewel with joy and pain.

Now late into the evening they had gathered for a 'private' audience in the Mokoshbork feasting hall.

"Tomorrow morning I shall be abdicating, young Imre is a fine man and old enough for the position. It is better he starts to stand on his own feet as Count while I can still offer advice then wait until this malady finally claims me." Jewel hums and nods, trying to ignore how his breathing was such a disturbing echo of how Gem had struggled for air the morning that had been her last.

"My sister Gwenn is very fond of him, and between the two of them Arva will not be wanting for martial nobility, I dare say their children will likely be terrors in the bouts and on the field of battle as well." Her friend sighed heavily and shook his head, he had the touch of miracles through his body soothing the pain but Jewel could see he was still suffering.

"I fear that they will struggle because of that, Arva is not so used to the ways of Martial Ladies as Viznove." Jewel heaved a heavy sigh.

"I remember many of Imre's sisters looked poorly upon it when you first visited, but I'd hoped that age would see them finding clearer eyes." Thurzó laughed again, clear without coughs this time, only the slight popping bubble betraying the sopping nature of his lungs.

"I must apologize for all mankind Jewel, but it is I've found the nature of mortals to more briefly take the reins of wisdom before letting it slip as they age. I love my daughters but if anything I think they have grown more certain in their convictions in their older years." He hummed a bit, scratching at his chest, the sound almost buzzing to Jewel's ears for what she could hear within him.

"Still I trust that dear Marta and her husband will make fine councilors to bring balance to Imre and Gwenn's fierceness. Stewardship cannot always come from the point of a blade." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Jewel nodded to him, shifting her belly and chest along the fine mosaic of colored stones and brick that made up the floor of the dining hall.

Along with the fine glass in the windows it really had made for a fantastic space to hold the feasts of the wedding. Her tone became more sombre.

"Your absence is felt in the Capital György, I fear for what will be wrought in Mathias' desperation. Have you received word of what has been found by the temples?" The rosy hue of her friend's cheeks from the night's wine paled, before he nodded to her.

"That the spirits of the ever after are lost, unkept by the gods we thought protected them... yes I've heard, it is disquieting, but also a relief honestly." Jewel boggled at him, eyes wide, jaws slightly parted in shock, in private she could allow herself to rear back, the claws of her wing thumbs brushing the arches of the ceiling all that stopped her from going further." You are relieved?!" Her friend, the soon to be former Count of Arva nodded.

"Mathias may have the face and the charm to lead the Realm, but he has never been the wisest or most well read, despite how his mother strived to see him learning from the riddles of that sphinx. He sees an ending to life as a horror. But as I see it, if death might truly be the end? To be nothing at all after? Not kept like a dusty scroll on some god's shelf in the depths?" He took a heavy breath then nodded.

"Yes that sounds like a relief, Mathias has not gone anywhere near deep enough into the texts of what exactly being 'kept' was said to mean with the gods, a forever living in darkness eating dirt as our food and drink?" He laughed again, with a tone that Jewel had heard in the sombre fields of corpses after battle. It was not a joyous laugh, it was bitter and painful.

"So, yes Jewel, I am relieved to find that we are assuredly not 'kept' by the gods. That my fathers and mothers before me do not stand lost in darkness at the table of some god or goddess, fed clay and muddy water for all the rest of days to come. Or perhaps something even worse." He leaned back gazing up at her grimace of confusion.

"Ah, but that does not comfort you? For that I apologize." György Thurzó took a deep breath that made Jewel's ears perk with the sound of a horrible soppiness in his chest.

"I've thought a great deal about what it is the gods have done for us which we mistook for calling forth the dead, and I think I can't blame them." the words were like spears in her chest, Jewel blinked her eyes hard, finding water had been filling them, she looked down and saw that her tears had been splashing upon the mosaic, a rivulet shifting to her upper lip as she turned her head down to stare at the slowly growing splatter below her. She felt smaller than when she had spoken 'as' Gem." You don't blame them?"

Her voice was so soft, nearly all breath, whispering and hardly even a hum. Yet her friend still seemed to hear and understand her.

"No, it is a kind thing that they do for us, for the living that is, I read your priest's notes, only that which the bereaved knows of the dead fills the god's facsimile doesn't it? Is that not a great kindness? To show you all you know of a loved one and let them bring you peace, If you truly knew and loved them is that any less of them?" He smiled, looking down at where her tears fell.

"Does that not mean that when my father told me he was proud, that he held no ire for my failures, that I was allowing myself to be forgiven? That I knew somewhere in my heart I deserved that?" Jewel shuddered, her breath whistling past her teeth. She could not meet his gaze as he looked up to her, at the tears flowing down her cheeks incontinently, shamefully.

"It's a terrible cruelty that the gods could not give you that absolution Jewel, But I've talked with my son, and your sister, take it from a father who will soon meet his end, your Father would not hate you for his." Jewel's heart felt like it snapped inside her, she felt the roiling pain mingling with her flame, it was only by the greatest force of will that she merely howled her misery and grief into the halls of Mokoshbork.

Her skin rippled in involuntary shivering at the touch of an old and calloused hand upon her shoulder. Her senses nearly blinded to his presence despite the weakness and pain that wracked the figure standing beside her. A gentle stroke of fragile fingers upon her scaled shoulder. Muscle harder than stone, scales stronger than steel, feeling fragile as a newborn lamb under her friend's aged touch.