Eyes in the Water (23 page)

His cheeks streamed as meaning dawned upon
him. It was as Preifest and the Genesifin had stated. The maralane
were no more.

It’s like the sky is weeping,
he
thought.
Weeping for our loss.

The shower of light continued. He watched
somberly, placing a hand quietly to the air to honor the fallen
people. When the racing stars ceased, he lowered his hand. The sky
appeared desolate after the surge, and he wished the beauty back;
the sadness of the spectacle was better than the hollow rawness
that followed in its wake.

Colette’s betrayal appeared even more glaring
before the tragic fate of the maralane. They had given Massada a
chance for life even while facing their own death, and she had
stolen that chance for her own gain. Brenol’s face wrenched in
knotted grief.

Colette, why’d you do this? Can’t you see
what you’ve done? You’ll be lost forever now.

He closed his eyes and waited for dawn to
wake him.

~

Colette woke in the night. It was a gentle
awakening, as if her mother had quietly caressed her cheek and hair
to rouse her. She breathed in softly, tucked the hos into her
pocket, and rose. The room was chilly, and her skin felt
uncomfortably cool. She drew up the bed’s blanket, wrapped it
securely around herself, and padded to the window.

Cautiously, the lunitata peeled back the
window coverings and peeked out. The forest was black and
foreboding. No movement, no sounds.

She stared, fondling the hos in her pocket.
She knew she was not a good traveler. It would take all her wits to
get to Veronia without being found, but she would do it. She
must.

A sweep of white suddenly filled Colette’s
vision, and a shower of stars burned across the sky. Silver rockets
blossomed through the night and turned the whole forest bright.
They looked so close. Colette gasped at the startling power and
beauty.

She released the hos and rose to touch the
glass.

“It’s like you said, Bren,” she whispered.
“The heavens will shower light.”

The deluge ebbed until finally a single
burning blast streaked down, leaving the sky empty and black.

She recalled the small maralane girl, and
tears spilled down her cheeks in streams.

“I will remember you,” she whispered. “I
will.”

~

Colette slept most of the day. The emotional
toll of the maralane’s passing had drained her. That, and the idea
of the terrible eyes and faces hunting for her made her eager to
wait another day to ensure that she was alone in Limbartina.

When she woke, Colette nibbled anxiously at
some of the stores she had swiped from the soladrome cafeteria. An
apple and one small cake were all that remained. She stripped and
donned new garments from the house. They hung upon her frame with a
foreign looseness but warmed her with surprising speed.

Would that I’d changed earlier,
she
thought, but greed and fear and grief had driven reason from her
the previous day. It felt like several septspan since she had last
seen Brenol.

Bren,
she thought with an ache.
Am
I giving him up now too? For this?

She peered into the small looking glass on
the wall. Her emerald eyes stared back. They no longer housed the
hard determination that had driven her from the soladrome. No, they
held grief. Her vision swam with images of the maralane girl, and
her mind swirled with memories of Brenol’s kindnesses to her.

“But I can’t go back now,” she said
desperately.

In the glass, a strange image replaced her
own reflection. The lunitata gasped, and it vanished.

It had been a frawnite—without any doubt—and
the winged woman with a short crop of mottled silver hair had
stared at her with large gray eyes. It had been the briefest of
moments—a breath—but she had pierced Colette’s vision with a
terrifying glare.

Colette shook her head, attempting to dispel
the image, and returned her eyes to the mirror. The picture
flickered once more. The frawnite’s wings extended out to where the
lunitata could no longer see them in the glass. The image of power,
menacing power, rattled Colette to her toes. The image disappeared,
and the reflection did not alter again.

One thought filled her:
Bren.

She glanced down to the stolen hos, resting
warm in her palm. Self-loathing filled her.

“What have I done?” she whispered.

~

The lunitata paced for several minutes, but
she knew she must abandon her original intentions. Somehow, the
startling reflection in the glass had reinforced her musings over
her relationship with Brenol and dispelled the greed’s dark hold.
Colette’s lips whispered his name, her face beamed out in light,
and she knew what she would do.

“I will give it back,” she said quietly. The
resolution was both terrifying and galvanizing, and in those words,
a sweep of knowledge rushed upon her.

Her entire frame quivered as the intuit
filled her. It took no longer than a second, but awareness coursed
in every span of her and left her stammering.

“The hos… It must go in Ziel,” she whispered.
“It must.”

Colette paused, perplexed. Taking the hos to
the lake had been so clearly forbidden, so expressly opposed to the
maralane’s instructions. Attempting to make sense of it, she closed
her eyes and sought to breathe in deliberate slowness. The silence
only filled her with more surety.

I am supposed to take it out on Ziel. I
am.

The sense was one of peace and enlightenment.
It was nothing like the voice of greed that had been choking her
will and mind.

Armed with the certitude of her intuit, she
exhaled slowly, accepting the truth. The lake-people could no
longer be hurt. They were no more. Those previous directives must
have only been intended to be followed while the maralane
lived.

I will. I will do it.

A flicker of optimism jolted her heart.
But wait! Could there be hope for the maralane now? Health from
the hos after death? Was that their plan all along?

Fortified in her purpose, Colette found her
discarded clothing in a shadowed corner, collected Brenol’s knife,
and raised it in the air. She blinked with hesitation at its
evident sharpness.

I will make this right.

She inhaled shakily, her whole body dancing
with adrenaline.
Nothing can stop me,
she thought as she
raised the knife. She barely had to exert any pressure but still
cringed as her luxurious dark plaits fell softly to her feet. Her
vision was obscured by the night, but her sorrow in parting with
them seemed to almost illuminate their presence on the floor.

Soon I will move in the darkness. There’ll
only be the half crescent to reveal me, and then they will see a
man.

I will make this—

The knife clattered to the ground as a strong
pair of hands descended upon both her shoulders. She felt her
insides sag in cold despair. Her whimper emerged with the immediacy
of a reflex, and just as readily her mouth was covered with one
firm hand while the other wrapped tightly around her chest.

She fainted, for the realization that all was
lost was a reality too heavy to bear.

The waters shall fall still; the maralane will be no
more.

-Genesifin

The morning light woke Brenol, trickling in through
the trees and casting its warm beams upon him. His skin and clothes
were damp from the night’s fog and morning’s dew, but despite his
discomfort and the present circumstances, he found that his dark
mood had mysteriously lifted. He drank and ate and utilized the
shift to drive him back over the trails of Brovingbune and Selenia.
He progressed with less haste and more care, searching more
meticulously for any clues as to Colette’s whereabouts.

When other travelers approached, Brenol
concealed himself in silence. He did not want to draw any others
back to the soladrome if the princess was somehow there. Listening
with pricked ears, he found a small comfort in realizing that the
search parties held no news of her, although his jaw clenched into
stone when they boasted of their plans for the missing nurest.

By nightfall he had covered much of Selenia
but was still hours from Limbartina. He was amazed by how much
ground he had covered on his flight from the city.

But now he could go no further. He sunk into
a cold bed of leaves, too tired to seek further shelter. He wrapped
his heart in hope and prayed.

I will find her. She’s safe yet. She must
be…

~

Colette shivered under her cloak despite the
heavy layer. The night was cold, and the wind careened through the
woods with a fierce, bitter edge. Her breath rose in tiny clouds,
and she had to squint to discern the trail before her, often unable
to make out Arman’s pedasse in the dense shadows.

Her cropped head rested under a thick hood,
and she sought to convey a masculine stride within loose pants and
heavy boots. Her face, neck, and hands had been smeared with a dark
oil to subdue their glow, and while it could not be erased
entirely, now the lunitata beam appeared more as a ruddy
tan—however out of season.

Her disguise was far from perfect, but she
breathed easier the closer she drew to the lugazzi. The half-moon
of Stronta hung as a tiny guide in the black expanse, and night
seemed to embrace her with its concealing curtain. Soon, Arman
would be visible, or at least transparent, and it soothed her angst
knowing that the masses sought a single woman—not two men.

After another fifteen minutes, the juile came
into her vision, although the clarity of his person made him seem
like a dream. He slid smoothly across the terrain and, with a quick
gesture back, beckoned her to continue. His stride was long, and
for every step he made, Colette panted hard to manage three. She
was, however, loath to beg him to hold back. The juile had made
their great need for haste more than clear—as if she did not sense
the pressing fate of the world upon her already. Colette gasped for
air, hugged her arms tightly against her body, and continued to
attempt to match the grueling pace.

The looming figure slowed at last. He led her
to a boat moored in a tiny alcove beneath a waterside oak. The
recessed area provided the perfect pocket for a small craft, and he
cautiously stepped into the murky waters to unlace its bonds. The
juile tugged the rickety boat behind him, and Colette peered at it
with skeptical but resigned eyes. It was weathered and worn and had
seen many orbits, but it would have to suffice.

“You are certain, then?” Arman asked in a low
voice. His eyes caught hers questioningly. She saw the spark of
calculating discernment flash in them.

“Yes,” Colette said with a small nod. “I
don’t understand it, but yes. I am supposed to take the hos out
upon the lake… I want to doubt it, but I cannot. My blood
practically screams it.”

Arman pressed his lips together in silent
consideration, then answered decisively, “I trust your intuit. I
have no insight myself in this, but I trust yours.”

A warm comfort filled her stomach at the
words. Arman did not bestow trust flippantly. She nodded
gratefully.

The juile assisted Colette with a transparent
hand, and the lunitata stepped softly into the small craft. Her
feet echoed lightly upon the boards. She paused to look about with
darting eyes, but no other noises stirred alive in response.
Colette placed herself on the seat before the bow and looked
expectantly to the juile. He did not move. He merely peered back at
her with his strange, mismatched face.

“Are you not coming?” Colette whispered. Her
voice was barely audible but still noticeably cracked with tension.
She thrummed with adrenaline at the thought of completing this task
alone.
No, not like this. I’ll cringe with every dip of the
paddle.

Arman stared back blankly. “It is
your
journey,” he stated simply.

“
Please,
” Colette said. She wrung her
dark cloak between tensed fingers. “Come with me?”

Arman smiled broadly, eyes twinkling, and his
face evened into handsomeness. She loosened within; even now, in
the hollow of the boat with the sweet air pressing and mob’s fury
looming, Colette found herself staring at his face with
fascination. The simple expression was like a door opening into his
soul.

“It would be my pleasure, your grace.”

She sighed, letting out a soft thanks to
which Arman bowed.

“I would have gone alone, but knowing you’re
here… It…”

“I understand. And I know you are capable. It
is
your journey, but I am honored to assist you.”

Colette permitted herself a moment of relief
while peering into the glittering charcoal eyes. She smiled,
releasing a deep breath. “Let’s go, then.”

~

It was well into the night when Colette
lifted her paddles with weak arms and boarded them upon the hull’s
floor. They had alternated in the labor, but her small frame was
unused to such strain. She sucked air in greedily, but the humid
cool failed to satisfy her need, and she was left gasping.

Arman looked to her with a raised brow.
“Here? You think we are far enough in?”

A night breeze brushed across the screen.
Goose bumps awakened on Colette’s bare arms—still slick with
perspiration—but she gave little heed. The lunitata nodded with
pursed lips, her cropped tufts of dark hair bouncing. Her face was
a lovely bronze under the pale glow of Stronta; despite the oil, it
beamed out softly.

This is a beauty not many have seen
,
Arman reflected.
Most only see her face. But this woman of
grace? Her will of benere?
His lips quirked up into a tiny
smile as he thought of Brenol.
Yes, a beauty indeed.