I am dreaming. I feel the remnants of anger with a ghost touch of power intertwined with confidence. As dreams do, the sensation quickly fades and is replaced with ice. My head feels like a winter lake, and my body is like a hot spring. Either I had not been asleep long, or the pool is marqued. I bet my ceramics it is the latter.
My eyes feel like ground clay. It takes several breaths to unfold them. When they do, they open directly to a blinding time candle, causing my stomach to turn like the Nehemarran Sea. When eyes are no longer being rammed by a Horin and stomach ceases its Three Sister's Jig; I read the time, third yellow. It was half-past white when I entered. A candle and a half had passed since the head maid retreated.
Could she have seen me?
Jumping from the seat, I stand. The room tilts. I fall face-first into the water, and with all the grace of a decapitated fish, I manage to flop myself to the stairs. I ascend on my hands and knees. The marble bucks like an eh'sor in heat, and I crawl drunkenly up the steps.
How much wine did I consume? Could the made have seen me? What's happening?
My thoughts slide down my esophagus to my stomach and are devoured by wine.
Sluggishly, I worm my way out of the water, and my skin breaks like o'sego flesh. My shiver is more like a spasm, and my stomach decides to resume its Three Sisters Jig. Leaden appendage, by leaden appendage, I manage to reach my cloak. I sit, swaying like a drunkard on Dark Moon's Night, stretch for my covering and miss.
And miss.
And miss again.
Frustrated, I close my eyes and reach. My fingers recognize the familiar fabric and snatch. Moons of practice have me donning the garment in moments, and in the safety of my cacoon, the spins and jigs lessen.
With a force of Will, I stand, and the world totters dangerously.
I stagger towards a wall feeling blindly for a door. After what feels like a candle my hand touches the cold handle of a door.
I fumble to turn it; it swings inward on its own and I crumble into a wall.
A very hard, warm wall.
The world stops, and the Three Sisters Jig performs their last step all across the floor.
The Immortal Lord
In his rooms, the Immortal Lord is drying off when the sight of a small azure crystal vile on his feyan nightstand catches his eye.
"Twelve deaths of o'finern!" he swears.
Arantyna's Sleep. He put Arantyna's Sleep in the cup. If one type of sleep wouldn't get her, surely another would. The poison is not fast-acting, and looking at the time candle, the effects will start to take their toll.
As if reading his thoughts, the erratic palpitations of Desolation's heart slither around his own. He quickly dresses when he hears her stumble towards his door.
The knob rattles just as he turns and causes the door to swing open. Desolation's head plummets to his chest, and he grabs her shoulders to steady her. She puts a hand over his heart and heaves the contents of her stomach over his feet. If he didn't look down he could think of the mess as blood and maybe he wouldn't lose his dinner as well.
Just retribution is never escaped.
When Desolation ceases, he lifts her tall form out of the muck and seats her at the edge of the bed.
He skirts around the mess like it would grow fangs and bite him to retrieve the towel he'd been using flickers before. He then walks around the right side of the bed and fetches the washbasin and a pitcher of water.
Returning to Desolation's side, he places them at her feet, dips the corner of the towel into the tepid water, wrings it out, and washes the dark splotches of wine and pieces of adhered fruit off her feet.
It's just like blood, he reminds himself, just like blood.
Desolation does not react. He glances up. She is staring into the distance, eyes vacant of recognition. Lord Jerrath swallows the guilt clawing up his throat. He'd done what he thought was imperative at the time. All he can do in the present is take care of the one he hurt by his actions.
His thoughts wander to Destruction's parting words. If Desolation does happen to die, he'd beg Destruction to inflict the punishment upon his person. He would take the pain for each soul under his care. Immortality did not exempt him from suffering.
When all the retch is removed, he slowly pulls back the hood. She sways slightly beneath his ministrations but gives no indication she is aware.
He examines her face, hair, hands and cloak. They are pristine like fresh flowers.
"Well aimed. You managed to get most of it on me," he says and gently moves hair out of Desolation's eyes.
He sighs and kneels, peering into those unseeing, everchanging eyes, "For what my word is worth to you, I am truly and deeply sorry. I will spend the rest of my life atoning. Anything you desire, you shall have." Encasing her hand in his, he continues, "I am a coward to speak these words when you cannot hear but speak them I must. You have given me something I never dreamed of again, hope. Hope I may break my curse. I promise you Desolation, I will give everything I possess to help you find answers to yours."
Lord Jerrath picks Desolation up and repositions her on the bed and lays her prostrate. He then stands, walks over to the calling cord and pulls it twice in rapid succession.
Gregoire takes longer to reach his rooms but Lord Jerrath can hear his heartbeat from down the hall.
"Enter Gregoire," Lord Jerrath says before his manservant can knock.
"What can I do-," and catching the putrid stench of vomit, he coughs and asks, "Are you ill, my Lord, shall I call a physician?"
"No and no. It is not I, it is the girl-"
A gong of pain strikes Lord Jerrath reverberating through his body like tidal waves and it takes a few strangled breaths to croak out, "Desolation."
"She did warn us, my Lord, we cannot call her by anything else. Though it seems we can use her and she."
"Well, I have obviously forgotten. Desolation is sick, call the maids to clean the floors and we have to be careful with Desolation's name."
"We can simply have the maids refer to her as M.I.S.S." Gregoire pauses, waiting for the pain.
"Have we resorted to spelling like parents not wanting their children to know about a new T.O.Y?"
"It would seem so, my Lord."
"You are way too amused Gregoire," says Lord Jerrath, recognizing the sly glint in those silver eyes.
"I would never be so bold, my Lord, though it would seem she's not an ordinary bride."
The unasked question hovers in the air like a glow globe.
"I am confident she will not," he answers, "I'll explain after you retrieve the maids and I am refreshed."
"As you will, my Lord."
Wasting not a breath, Lord Jerrath strips from his soiled garment. It's the perfect combination of wet and dry, maximizing disgust and it clings in all the wrong places. As soon as the last inch of the revoltingly, nauseating fabric is free; Lord Jerrath all but flies into the pool.
Quiet weightlessness surrounds him and for this one moment, nothing exists besides the space of one breath to the next, the exhale of peace and he drifts in that peace for eternity, and in that eternity, hope, and in that hope is Desolation. After four hundred and ninety-nine years, he can finally breathe.
A heartbeat runs along his skin as Gregorie walks through his chambers and toward the edge of the pool. With the eagerness of a man laying with a toothless crone, he opens his eyes and spots Gregoire standing stone-still by the steps.
"How did the maids take the news?" he asks and begins to cleanse himself in a quick soldier-like manner. He pulls on the coil of his hair, examining the braid; he can leave it to another day. There are more pressing matters to attend to; for example, the subject of his resurrecting wife.
"I am sure all the servants would have heard about the incident and await anxiously to hear whether the. . .Desolation survives. I have managed to avoid Desolation's name altogether. As you well know, the staff have stopped learning your Brides' names. You are the only one who insists."
"It is the least I can do. I bring them to their death."
Mounting the marble steps, Gregoire stoically stands with a towel extended before him. Lord Jerrath wraps the fabric around his trim waist and plucks the second from Gregoire's waiting fingers, using it to squeeze water from his braid.
"None of them are strong enough to resist the pull, my Lord," Gregorie replies.
"Until now."
"My Lord, you mean to say you think she is the one?"
"I know."
"How?"
"Because she is Death's pull. Let's retire to my drawing room, lest our voices disturb my sleeping Bride."