Authors: Vera Nazarian
Just before noon, she left through a small private gate of the garden, without notifying any of her (yes, her own!) servants. It was but a short walk through the vast lush Outer Gardens to the Vaeste Villa.
She was informed that Elasand Vaeste was in a small room on the second floor. She ascended the stairs, her boots clicking softly, the neck of her shirt somehow feeling tight about her throat. In the corridor around the corner, she nearly collided with a man with sun-hair, and then stopped dead in her tracks.
“
You!” It came out of her stupidly, involuntarily. “What are you doing here?”
Elasirr may or may not have been startled. But the only thing he did was stop in all silence and block her way. Then, he stood aside. His eyes were impassive.
“
I now live here,” he said. “Remember, I am the Lord Vaeste.”
“
Oh. . . .” The word tumbled out of her. Again, she was stupid, stupid.
“
You’re going to see him,” said Elasirr, watching her with calm eyes. “If so, he is in this room behind me. I was just leaving. We’ve spent a good deal of this morning talking, he and I, as two strangers who are now brothers should.”
“
Good,” said Ranhé. “It’s as it should be. Trust has been missing between you. Maybe now—”
Again, stupid. . . .
But he did not seem to think her words were inappropriate. “Thank you,” he said softly, “for everything—
Lady Ylir
.”
And the way he said her name made her tremble. Secretly, so far and deep in her mind. . . . Her name. . . . She heard it being pronounced like a precious thing.
“
Well, go on,” he said. “Go on to see my brother. He is waiting for you.”
Ranhé took a step forward. And then, again she stopped, and looked directly up into his eyes. “And do you know, by any chance, what this might be about? What does the new Chancellor Vaeste want with me?”
Elasirr’s face was unreadable, like smooth pale stone. “I would think you know already.”
“
I may know. But I still ask. I ask you.”
“
Why? In this, I’m not of any consequence, Ranhé. If you must, I am merely the brother of the man you love. There, is that what you’ve wanted to hear? Go to him.”
Something flickered along the features of her face. “Yes,” she said. “That’s possibly what I’ve needed to hear. And yes, I go to him now. Only, no. One small correction. I go to speak with the brother of the man I love.”
And with that, never looking back to see Elasirr’s reaction, she stepped past him violently, stepped forward, and opened the door.
E
lasand was looking through the window at the gardens below. His face, as he turned to her, his silk ebony hair, was highlighted by the changing shadows of yellow, then green, then blue, as the sun continued its pulse.
“
Ranhé!” he said with a quick smile, which made his face light up.
“
My Lord Chancellor,” she responded, entering, and involuntarily slamming the door behind her. And then she stopped in somewhat awkward silence. “You told me to come. And I am here, as I promised.”
“
Ranhé!” he repeated, and then came forward, and stopped right before her. “Yes, of course you’ve come. You always keep your promises. In fact, I now take this moment to ask your forgiveness for that one time when I doubted you, just before the battle—”
“
Please,” she said. “Let’s not remember that. None of that.”
He looked at her intently, and continuing to smile, whispered, “Why did I never think you were fair to look at before? Maybe because I had been obsessed by the violet goddess of love herself. And yet—I’ve been cruel to you, my sweet loyal Ranhé. I had known for some time now—since that moonlit night when you stood with me in the garden, and you cried. I had known for some time of your feelings.”
“
What feelings?” she said, looking at him with earnest pale eyes.
“
I know,” he said, “what you feel for me. It is not mere loyalty.”
And then Ranhé smiled. She continued looking directly into his eyes, as she said, “And what is it that I feel for you?”
Elasand’s own look took on a moment of uncertainty. Just an instant. And then he continued, “Before I say anything else, you must know this one thing. It’s something that I had been discussing with Elasirr earlier today. It concerns a matter of trust. And a long-standing misunderstanding between the two of us. And, it has something to do with my cousin Lixa.”
“
Lixa Beis? An interesting woman. I admire her courage before all to petition the Monteyn for a dissolution of the marriage. What were her reasons? Was she in love with someone else, my lord? Could it be possibly that all along she had been in love with you?”
Elasand stared at her in surprise. “Your insight is remarkable, Ranhé. Indeed, that is so. In fact, she had talked to me later last night, and she confessed not only her feelings, but the fact that she was the one responsible for hiring a band of cutthroats disguised as Bilhaar, to waylay us on the road on that day when you and I first met, Ranhé. Her plan was to delay the Wedding as much as possible, and to beg her mother to call it off, together with Harlian Daqua, who incidentally was long besotted with their mutual friend, Lady Yllva Caexis.”
“
I see,” said Ranhé with a thin smile. “So, I had unfortunately interfered and ruined her plans—quite clumsy plans, don’t you think? Did Lixa realize she was risking lives in the process? Or is it possible that she was willing to have you dead, rather than not having you at all? Incidentally, do you love her, Lord Chancellor?”
Her last question came unexpected as a knife blade. Elasand could not immediately answer, and began to pace the room. Finally, he gathered himself, and turned to her in intense silence.
“
No.” he said. “I do not love her at all, not in that way. How can I, when I finally opened my eyes to the truth, and realized that I love you?”
A long silence in the room. The sun continued its pulse. Violet, red, orange. . . .
“
You cannot imagine how long I’ve wanted to hear that,” she said in a whisper. “To hear those words from you. I’ve lived this scene over and over in my dreams.”
“
Ranhé,” he said, nearing her. “It’s true, I know it only now. It is you that I love—”
“
No,” she said suddenly, in a loud cold voice. “Enough, my lord. No need to force your mind into this new and latest convolution. Truth is—you love and have loved no one. First, there was the impossible excuse, the love of a Tilirreh. Who could compete with that? Then, you had known Lixa’s feelings—any idiot would—but pretended ignorance, and
chose
to let her play out her little sad attempt at rebellion. It suited you, and you chose to believe that Bilhaar had been sent against you, and thus perpetuated your reasons to distrust your brother. And then, myself. You chose to ignore me, because I, a commoner, was so far beneath yourself, and instead used my loyalty to maintain this game. Why do you continue to surround yourself with such aloof emotional relationships, Elasand? Why do you choose to have people who could truly love you kept at a distance? Is it because you cannot face us, any one of us? Is it because you cannot face the idea of love in yourself? Think, Elasand, maybe that is the real reason
Laelith
had been calling to you, trying to awaken you from within?”
She fell silent, like a broken emptied thundercloud. She looked at his face, stark with emotion, highlighted with hues of green, blue, and violet. . . .
“
We had a conversation, Elasand-re, about loyalty, once, when you were hiring me,” she said, in a softer tone. “Remember, you asked me to swear to you, and I refused, saying I could only give you a simple promise, not an oath? That I was loyal to no one, ever? That I would be unpredictable, that you should never fully count on me, that I would leave you, all of a sudden, out of the blue?”
“
Yes,” he said, “I remember. It’s what drew me to you in that moment—your elusiveness. It was your lightness, your lack of commitment, that had attracted me.”
“
Exactly. We both enjoyed that fleeting sense of noncommittal dealings, the loose bonds. And unfortunately, Elasand-re, we are both alike, in that way. Thus, my lord, I am now leaving you. Out of the blue, and for no reason at all.”
“
I see,” he said. “You choose to wound me now, in revenge for being ignored.”
“
Ah . . . Poor Elasand-re. Still without trust. Still seeing ulterior motives. No, I take no revenge upon those I care about. For, not only do I care, but I still love you with all my very soul and breath, even if you don’t understand or believe me. A part of me died alongside you on that battlefield, when you died. Even now, that one part of me will never return, that easy joyful lightness—it slipped away as I watched your blood run upon the ground that day. I care for you in a way that will never make sense to you, proud foolish man. But I leave you now, as I promised once long ago. Because at last you no longer have any true need of me. And because I keep all promises, even to myself. I go now, in goodwill and gentle silence.”
And with that, she turned her back to him, seeing in the last moment only a silhouette against the red of the sun.
“
Wait! Ranhéas!” he cried then, his eyes burning with emotion, realizing in that moment—a second too late—that the loose bonds had grown stretched to the limit, and had snapped at last.
But she was already outside, and the door to the room had closed softly.
And he stared at it blankly, saying something to her, over and over in his mind.
E
lasirr was waiting at the foot of the stairs, so that Ranhé once again nearly tripped over him as she came running down the long flight. He took hold of her arm, and tugged her roughly to a standstill.
“
Just one thing I need to clarify,” he said in an odd voice. “What exactly did you say to me, there, upstairs?”
“
Have you been waiting, all this time?” she countered, unable to look at him somehow, because after her conversation with Elasand a knot had risen in her throat, and she just wanted to be gone, from all of them.
But Elasirr continued gripping her arm painfully, and then he took her shoulder, and he pulled her forward to stare into her face.
“
Do you know,” he said, “that your eyes are silver? Pale, cool gray. Like the world was, before the coming of the Rainbow?”
“
What the hell?” she whispered, while the knot began rising, and she could sense the fullness of tears beginning to glisten in her field of vision. She must not let him see this, she must not blink.
But Elasirr’s own face had taken on a strangeness that she did not understand. He had been pale before, she noticed, but now, a wonder—his cheeks were turning a deeper rose shade. She had never noticed before, but now she knew that skin could turn colors, redden with the presence of blood underneath.
“
You,” he said harshly, his cheeks blazing with the shade of blood beneath the skin. “You’re ugly! Yes, an ugly unnatural woman, with man’s hair on your cheeks and daggers in your boots. You walk like a man, and your wrists are nearly as big as mine. Your waspish tongue is infuriating, and once I wanted to kill you with my bare hands, while I mocked your pathetic stubborn being. I hate you—you, pitiful ugly bitch! And yet—and yet, if I could, I would give my life for you, Ranhé! I would
die
for you, ugly hateful—”
His grip on her shoulders was bruising white agony, and then something happened. She was pushed against him, her entire length, and she too gripped and struck him. And then there was a pressure, unfamiliar and terrifying against her lips—his lips warm and fierce against hers.
The knot in her throat burst, and she cried then, in horrible agony, tears coming down in a stream along her cheeks, while he kissed her, over and over, and her tears were now on his skin, on his cheeks, mingling common tears, and she sobbed, and continued to sob silently, her body, gone limp and impotent, shuddering in a fever, trembling with an impossible vulnerability, a moment of trust and intimate revelation. . . .
I
n the late afternoon, there was rain.
A month had passed, since the coming of the Tilirr, and the pulse of the colors upon the face of the sun had slowed, and the world was illuminated by longer and longer stretches of sky-spanning flares of orange, then green, then blue. Eventually, each day was a single pulse—a day belonging in turn to
Werail, Melixevven, Dersenne, Fiadolmle, Koerdis, Laelith
—the sun being one whole color, slowing like a universal carousel. At last the pulse ended, and the sun was now fixed a steady blazing eternal white.
Andelas’s
sun.
And now, the first afternoon of this autumnal season, droplets of sky water, silver-blue, came hurtling down from the sky. The water continued falling, translucent like diamonds, illuminated by a white sun. The rain splattered, rippling the inky fractured-mirror surface of the Arata Canal. It poured and sank along the gravel paths of the Outer Gardens, and in the Walk of Falls, along the sweet long branches of the weeping willows. It struck and burst into miniature explosions upon impact with the smooth rose-gray marble of the Mausoleum, and its empty dais, missing a casket—in its place was now a large earth-filled garden urn of bright scarlet and persimmon blossoms, upon the King’s request. It washed the cobblestones of the Markets Square, washing the last of the blood that had been spilled. It ran in smooth stained rivulets along the streets and into gutters, and then, through the subterranean network below, into the sewers below the City of Dreams.