Chương 31: Chapter 30: The Second Heartbeat

The road unwound beneath us in silence. Not the silence of the first four hours, when I'd walked alone with nothing but the hiss of warm stone and the ache in my shoulders. This silence had two people in it. It was heavier. But not unwelcome. The car rolled forward at walking speed. The push-core rested on the queen's lap, glowing with its steady silver light. She kept it active without even looking at it, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the windshield, lost in thoughts that had nothing to do with the road.

I kept both hands on the wheel. Still sore from hours of pushing dead metal. She sat in the passenger seat with her cheek against the glass, watching the mountain. She had not spoken since the tear. When someone's entire world has disappeared while they were gone, you just let them find their way back to words on their own. The first sun had set long ago. The second was a faint smear on the horizon, barely a suggestion of light.

Ahead, the darkness was absolute except for where the headlights carved their narrow path. She stirred.

"You control it from this side."

"Mm."

"That seems inefficient."

"It was designed for one person to be able to drive it." She considered this.

"I see... Makes sense." I nearly smiled. She was still in there, even now. The gravity of what she'd lost hadn't erased her. It had just put everything on hold. The silence returned for another stretch of open road. Long enough that the rhythm of the road's warmth beneath the tires became almost like music. Then: "What is your name?" She asked it the way she'd asked everything since arriving. Direct. No preface.

"Arcene." She repeated it to herself.

"... Arcene." The syllables landed differently in her mouth. Rounder. The 'r' softer, the 'e' held a moment too long. She was testing the weight.

"And yours?" The silence this time was different. Denser. Longer. Her breath fogged the glass before she answered and for a moment the only thing moving inside the car was the battery indicator on the dash.

"... Ella. Ella Meladze" A pause. Then:"... That hurts." I understood.

"I'm sorry." She did not answer. The village rose out of the dark without ceremony. No lights in the windows — my house didn't know it was supposed to welcome anyone. But the road held, as it had for millennia, and the barrier accepted us both without argument. The fact that it admitted her told me something I filed away. I parked the car in the garage. The battery had recovered enough charge since the push-core began its work, but I plugged it in anyway.

By the time I looked over, she'd already stepped outside, her eyes moving slowly over the house and the property as if trying to understand what she'd just found.

"What is that?"

"My house."

"What?" She gazed at the modern front door, the sliding windows that faced the main street.

"That building was not constructed by my people."

"Correct. It came with me."

"That —" She paused.

"Also I'd like to recover a small stone someone stole out of my pocket now." She smiled. Full. For the first time since arriving.

"You have many stones."

"I had many. Well not even many, I had five." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I popped the trunk, grabbed my bag. The rest could wait. She stood in the cold air without complaint — just looked at the dark silhouette of the town behind her. What she looked for, I couldn't tell. But she was looking for something specific, the shape of a street she once knew, and whatever answer she found was hers alone. Inside: the house was quiet. The hallway dark.

I flicked the switch. Yato on the couch. That look in his eyes. That expression that said: you left again. I had. A small movement caught both our attention. The cleaning golem stirred from its corner near the back door. Its eyes brightened for one moment, took in the room again, decided whatever it was mapping was still the same house, and went dark. She had been watching it.

"What manner of construct is that?"

"Cleaning golem," I said.

"It settled here on its own when my house moved in."

"I don't know this type."

"Your people invented them, right?"

"Yes, but not that type." she corrected quietly. I didn't answer. There was no answer that didn't feel wrong. It was Yato who broke the silence. He stood. He looked at her. She looked at him. Then the jump. The little tap across the floor — a couple steps — and he pressed his forehead into her shin. He pressed in, not just a tap, like he'd done a hundred times with the edge of a door. Warmth. Purring. He'd never, not once, done that with the golem, the golem was an ennemy.

"The cat."

"He's Yato."

"So he's the landlord?"

"Yes, he does whatever he wants around here. He's old."

"Haha, I get it." She crouched with enthusiasm, one that could not be faked. One hand under Yato's chin, the other behind each ear, and he melted immediately. The purr rumbled. I stared. I'd lived with that cat for twenty-four years and he'd never done that for anyone but me.

"... Traitor." She smiled again. This time mischievous.

"He is simply discerning." I set my bag down.

"You must be tired." Her hesitation shut around the word: "... yes." After some time, she asked If I had clean clothes and where she could find the bath. Apparently queens didn't take showers. We went to the closet in my room and I found her a white towel. A clean one — the good one, the one I'd been saving for guests. I also picked up the soap from the bathroom. And a shirt from my drawer: loose, old, softened by years in the wash. A faded video game graphic covered the front.

It was cheap, ordinary, and completely unlike anything that had ever existed in her world. She examined it.

"What is this creature?"

"A cat. It's from a game."

"The same cat?"

"No. A different cat." She absorbed this new information without comment. I handed her the shirt, the towel, the soap. Then I pulled out the drawstring shorts. She looked at them.

"They're clean."

"No." I put them back. We walked to the bathhouse in the dark. The main street was empty except for the road's quiet steam. On the way, she looked at the buildings. The roofs. The stone. The angle of the main street. Clearly, everything had changed in this place since the last time she had visited. She still didn't cry. Somehow, that worried me more.

Once we got inside the bathhouse she stopped inside of the changing room, I was still with her to show her around but she was already reaching for the towel I'd brought her, already starting to unwind whatever fastened the dress at her shoulder. Completely unbothered. Like she'd done this in front of servants a thousand times, and she probably had. I looked away.

"Could you wait until I leave?" She paused. Genuinely confused.

"This bothers you?"

"It's—" I didn't have the words.

"Just—yes."

"I don't understand why." She said it matter-of-factly.

"I'm not modest. At court there were nobles who paid to watch the queen relieve herself." I turned back and stared at her.

"... What."

"I don't make this up. There was a ceremony."

"... People actually attended that?"

"I'm telling you people paid vast sums of money to watch me assume the posture and bow their heads in appreciation."

"That's disgusting."

"That's aristocracy." She turned around.

"The laces." I stared at the back of her dress.

"You want me to—""It's a dress. It has laces. I have one pair of hands. You have one pair of hands. Solve this problem." Reluctantly, my hands found the first knot somewhere on the back of her dress. The laces were silk or something like it — smooth, tight, clearly not designed to be undone by the wearer. I pulled. Nothing. I pulled again, harder, and the first knot slipped.

"I can't believe this."

"Come one, hurry up." The second knot gave. Then the third. The dress loosened. I stepped back so fast I almost tripped over the step. She caught the dress at her shoulders before it fell — because she knew exactly when it would fall, because she'd worn it a thousand times — and held it there with one hand. And she looked back at me over her shoulder.

"You're strange."

"I'm strange?"

"Very." I turned around while she drapped in the towel. Soon after, she held the dress and jewelry out — bundled together, shoved at me like a problem that wasn't hers. I stared at them.

"What do you want me to do with these?"

"Put them somewhere."

"They're royal garments."

"They're clothes." Since I wasn't given a choice, I took the items handed to me and I put the jewelry and the dress carefully on the stone bench of the changing room, trying not to fold the dress and doing my best not to damage anything. She walked into the bathhouse. The door didn't quite close behind her. I didn't dare peeking inside. I just stood there until she came out. Inside, through the stone, there was no sound. No sobbing. Not even the water flowing. Instead — a long pause. Silence.

The kind you make when you look at your face in the mirror and think about the awful day you just had. Then the splash. First the water flowing to fill the bath, Then a small one. Bare feet testing water, pulling back. Then an even smaller one. Accepting. She stayed in there for a long time. When she came out, she was wearing my shirt. It was way too large for her, well... It was way too large even for me. Her hair was damp, the towel drapped around her waist. Bare feet. Bare face.

Without the makeup, without the dress, she looked different. Not younger, not more beautiful, but her natural beauty was filling the room in a way makeup and jewellery could never imitate. I looked away before she could notice I'd been staring at her face. When we got home, Yato noticed that we were back quickly. He stood immediately. Followed her. He'd known her for an hour and had already decided she was where he belonged tonight. Just like Yato I followed her around.

She walked upstairs so naturally, and then she turned to face me.

"Look at you, you were so shy before and now you want to introduce in a lady's room?"

"... That's my room."

"I know." A pause.

"I will be sleeping here now."

"Of course..." A longer pause.

"..."

"..."

"Where will you sleep?"

"The couch." A beat. Then: "perfect." She said it the way you'd say something that would made it clear I should have known this was bound to happen. She didn't ask permission. She didn't need to. The couch wasn't particularly comfortable. But for the first time in months, I didn't feel alone. Nothing else had changed, but tonight there was a second heartbeat in the house.