To Please The Wind

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To Please The Wind


Chapter Five (Part 1)

“Don’t Say A Prayer For Me Now
Save It Until The Morning After”
--Duran Duran

After leaving Kynthia, Lethe discovered that Kaj’s horse seemed to appreciate a change in masters as much as he did. The grey mare, which Lethe had renamed “Smoke”, was so eager to please that it hardly needed to be guided at all. As a result, the next two days passed like a dream. Lethe felt as if the rolling hills were actually waves, washing him toward the mountains along with the rest of the bandits -- bits of driftwood tossed across a vast green ocean.

On the morning of the third day, a shout from Baruch announced that their destination was in sight. And, a few moments later, Lethe caught his first glimpse of Taran. Nestled into the mouth of a rocky pass, the city’s white buildings seemed spill down from the mountains like an immense river. Beyond the main city, smaller structures dotted the mountainside, tucked into crevices or precariously balanced on narrow ledges. Then, beyond them, barren stone stretched upward uninterrupted, until it vanished beneath the snow crowning each mountain peak.

Lethe twisted his head, intending to ask Melanthe about the city. And then remembered, with a sharp stab of regret, that she was not behind him. He owned Smoke now, and she rode her own horse. Lethe sighed. He was glad that the bandits, especially Hesperos, considered him to be more of an equal. But he missed Melanthe.

“Lethe!”

Glancing toward the voice, Lethe saw Oria pulling her horse up alongside his. Her dirty brown hair bounced in the air behind her.

“Lethe,” she repeated. “We’re having a race! First one to reach the city gates wins the best bottle of wine that the rest of us can afford to buy. Are you in?”

“I’m in,” Lethe assured, urging Smoke forward.

Unconcerned with exact starting points, the race participants thundered toward Taran in a rough mob. Lethe pressed his body down along the line of Smoke’s spine, until he could feel each of the horse’s muscles straining beneath him. Until he could feel the exact instant when each of its hooves smacked against hard ground. Bits of grey mane whipped into his eyes, making them water, but Lethe ignored the discomfort. Instead, he focused on his breathing. Focused on trying to make even his heart match the beat of the creature carrying him.

“I am not weight,” Lethe whispered. “I am the air in your lungs, the blood in your veins. I am wind. I am wind.”

One by one, the other bandits fell behind him. Grinning, Lethe grew more confident of his victory, and began to anticipate inviting Hesperos to share his newly won bottle of wine. But just when Taran’s open gates grew closer, Lethe heard the crash of hoof beats coming up from behind. Then a black blur entered his peripheral vision. A horse, with flecks of spittle dripping from its grimacing mouth. And, mounted on its back, a woman with eyes like an unholy huntress, chasing her prey straight to hell. Melanthe.

Lethe crushed his body against Smoke’s, until the smell of horse sweat clogged his nostrils. But the mare was already giving all that it could. Slowly, Melanthe gained on him, and then they were racing neck and neck, neither of them quite able to pull ahead.

However, just when Lethe resigned himself to a tie, something strange happened. Melanthe brought her mount so close to his that the horses’s sides brushed together as they ran. Then she reached over, letting strands of Lethe’s trailing hair coil around her outstretched fingers. Reflexively, Lethe’s grip tightened on the bridle, afraid that she would try to pull him off, as Kaj had done. But Melanthe only smiled -- a slightly sad, slightly crazy smile. And Lethe felt something jerk within him, like the fragment of a nearly forgotten dream, yanked to the surface so quickly that the transition destroyed it, leaving only a puff of vague recognition. I should remember this, Lethe thought to himself. I should understand it. But I don’t...

With a laugh, Melanthe released his hair. “Prizes belong to the bold!” Then, to Lethe’s complete amazement, she swung her legs up, and bent them beneath her, until she was crouching on the back of her horse. Lethe bit his lip. The man who had taught him to ride was one of the best, and Lethe had never seen him attempt anything like this. But Melanthe seemed utterly confident.

The gates of Taran were almost close enough to touch, reaching out to enfold them like a pair of immense white wings, when Melanthe jumped. Launching herself up over the head of her horse, she hung in the air just long enough to complete a single flip, before her feet smacked down against the ground inside Taran’s gate, mere seconds before Lethe’s own horse crossed the finish line. Amazed, Lethe could barely tear his eyes away from her. Only a frantic, last minute jerk on his reigns kept him from riding into a wall.

Cheering and hollering, the rest of the bandits rode through the gates, and gathered around Melanthe, congratulating her on her win. Lethe wanted to join them. But some lingering shyness held him back, some sense of still not entirely belonging. Instead of approaching the others, Lethe swung himself off of Smoke, and gawked at Taran.

The city was bigger than anything he’d ever imagined. A wide road ran from the gates, and it was crowded with people, livestock, and carts. One woman carried a basket of grapes on her head, while another man shouted a speech in some language Lethe had never heard before. Goats brayed, pottery clattered, and the air was filled with so many smells that the mixture made Lethe dizzy.

Lethe was so absorbed in these new surroundings that it took him several moments to realize a shadow had fallen over him. Glancing up, he saw Hesperos beside him, still mounted on his horse. For a moment, the bandit leader looked like he wanted to say something. But all he did was reach down, and run his fingers through Lethe’s hair, like he was trying to find some secret hidden within the golden strands. Whatever it was, it seemed to elude him. Shaking his head, Hesperos muttered something under his breath, and then rode over to join his followers.

They found an inn on the edge of the city, and a stable for their horses. Then the group broke up. Hesperos had several contacts in Taran, whom he wanted to consult about various unspecified issues. Other bandits wanted to find alcohol, gambling, sex, or food, depending on their personal priorities. Baruch and Oria both invited Lethe to join them, but he declined, claiming exhaustion. The truth was that the city frightened him. Lethe knew that his acceptance among the outlaws was still on shaky ground. He was afraid that the city would reveal his naivety, and remind them of the truth -- that he was just boy stolen from his life in a maze made of chimes.

So, while the rest of them dispersed, Lethe went up to his inn room and sat down on the bed. Despite the sprawling strangeness of the city around him, the room seemed very normal. White walls, and a simple wooden bed, with a feather mattress. A room much like the one that had been his home for sixteen years. If he took a deep breath, and ignored the noises coming in through the window, he could almost imagine that he was back there. He could almost believe that, at any minute, Rasmus would walk through the door, and tell him what today’s lessons would be.

Rasmus. The man who had betrayed him, the man who had saved his life. The man he had loved. Grief wrapped itself around Lethe in an embrace that brought no comfort. Over the last week, he had spent so much time fighting, so much time struggling for simple survival – he hadn’t had time to mourn. He hadn’t had time to even think. Now, alone, with no one to impress, no one to hide his emotions from, Lethe dug his fingers into the mattress and bowed his head. The first strangled sob felt like something slitting his throat. But after that, he stopped trying to hold them back, and they no longer hurt. One final time, Lethe wept for the home he would never return to.


Chapter Five (Part 2)

Melanthe waited until the noise had subsided before raising her hand to knock. And even then, she couldn’t quite make her knuckles rap against the wooden door. Damn it all! She had just risked her neck for a bottle wine. Why was this so much harder? Because the thing at stake was worth more than wine, worth more than her own life.

“Prizes belong to the bold,” Melanthe muttered under her breath. Then she forced herself to knock.

“Yes?” Lethe’s voice sounded casual and controlled. If she hadn’t just heard him crying, she never would have guessed.

“It’s me. Melanthe. Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Pushing open the door, Melanthe stepped inside. Lethe stood by the room’s single window, staring out it, his fingers absently toying with the broken poison vial he wore like a necklace charm. To Melanthe, he looked as if he couldn’t quite decide whether he wanted to cling to it, or whether he wanted to hurl it down into the street.

“Hey,” he greeted, without glancing at her. “I thought you’d have gone off with the others.”

Melanthe shrugged. “They all got away before I was ready. Besides. No one ever wants to go shopping with me.”

Lethe’s mouth curved into a smile, although he still didn’t turn his face away from the window. “Why? Do you make them carry your purchases?”

“I tried that once,” Melanthe admitted, laughing. “With Hesperos. Sometime after the first few shops, I turned around to hand him another package, and there was a miserable stranger carrying my stuff. Apparently Hesperos had bullied him into taking over.”

“While Hesperos escaped into the nearest drinking house?”

“Very probably.” Melanthe’s tone turned wistful as she remembered the early days of her romance with Hesperos. They had both been so desperate to please each other back then. “I’m surprised that he lasted for even a few shops. He wouldn’t now. He wouldn’t even try.”

Lethe turned from the window, and looked at her, a strange sort of understanding burning in his amber colored eyes. “Well, I guess you’ll just need someone else.”

“Yes,” Melanthe whispered, wondering if he could hear the pounding of her heart. Wondering if he could feel the way that the room seemed to be shaking. “Yes, I guess so.”

Lethe took a step toward her, but then hesitated, as if waiting for a sign. “Not someone to replace him, of course. Just someone to...”

“Someone to...” Melanthe echoed. Someone to understand her weakness. Someone to show her something worthy of her belief. Someone to whisper her name in their prayers. Reaching out, Melanthe touched Lethe’s hair, letting it slip through her fingers like the trails left by falling stars. “Someone to...carry my packages.”

“Yes.”

Lethe matched her gesture, and as her black hair brushed against his pale skin, Melanthe thought how much they resembled day and night, light and darkness. Two opposites bound together, and yet in danger of destroying each other if they ever truly met. Then she noticed that Lethe’s hand was trembling. As was hers. Frightened by the intensity of their joint vulnerability, Melanthe pulled back. “So. Do you want to go check out the market?”

If her abrupt withdrawal startled Lethe, he gave no sign of it. “Sure.”

Like most places, Taran held its market in the agora, a large open space which formed the heart of the city. Elbowing her way through the crowd, Melanthe scanned the first few booths. A woman selling dyes fussed over her precious powders, set out in small tin boxes, and beyond her, a sandal craftsman traced the shape of his customer’s foot onto a thick piece of leather. But the first thing that truly caught her attention was a display of swords and daggers. Like a hawk swooping down on her prey, Melanthe started toward the weapons. But a cry from Lethe jerked her focus elsewhere.

“In the name of Aeolus, what IS that?”

Spinning around, Melanthe saw Lethe gawking at a fisherman’s catch. He seemed particularly disturbed by the centerpiece, a rubbery creature that was almost all head, except for its eight legs, which draped over the sides of the basket in which it rested.

“That’s an octopus.”

“An octopus.” Lethe repeated the word carefully. Then, as if knowing its name gave him courage, he reached out and poked it. “Ugh! What do you do with it?”

“People eat it.”

The look she received from Lethe clearly conveyed his suspicion that she was having fun at his expense. “No, I mean really. What’s it for?”

Amused by his obvious skepticism, Melanthe couldn’t hold back her laughter. “People really eat it. If you fry it in some olive oil, with just the right herbs, it’s delicious.”

Lethe made a face. “Ugh. I don’t think I could ever be that hungry.”

Melanthe almost told Lethe that there would be days when he might consider eating his own horse, but she decided against it. The realities of a bandit’s life would make themselves apparent in time. Instead of bringing up any harsh truths, she took Lethe’s arm and pulled him over toward the swords. “You said that you fight with two weapons. But at the moment, you only have one. Let’s see if we can fix that.”

Together, they found a dagger that was a good match for the one Melanthe had given him. And even the smith seemed amazed by skill with which Lethe gripped its handle while testing it. Such deadliness masked behind such beauty. This boy, who they had nearly sold to a slaver, was turning into something none of them could have imagined. Maybe something none of them were really ready to deal with.

Lethe wanted to pay for the dagger. Unfortunately, the coins Baruch had given him weren’t nearly enough. At first, he resisted Melanthe’s efforts to buy the weapon for him, but when she explained that the sale of his bridal robe would more than cover the cost, he acquiesced. And they resumed their journey through the market.

At the far end of the agora, they discovered a court case in progress. A middle-aged, overweight man was attempting to bluster his way through a speech describing the crimes his neighbor had committed, but the crowd kept interrupting him with skeptical shouts. For understandable reasons, trials made Melanthe nervous. Her first instinct was to hurry past. But Lethe seemed curious, so she allowed them to linger until the water clock ran out, marking the end of the time allotted for the man’s testimony.

“Melanthe?” Lethe asked, as they walked away from the hearing. “What will happen to the neighbor? If they convict him of stealing the pig?”

Melanthe shrugged. “He’ll have to pay a fine, or buy the man another pig.”

“I see. And what about bandits? What happens if they convict us?”

Something sharp and cold pierced Melanthe’s heart. For a moment, she couldn’t even look at Lethe. “Us. Us, they hang.”

“All of us?”

Melanthe’s gaze jerked sideways, and she found Lethe staring at her with that same strange understanding, which looked far too old to be in the eyes of one so young. Make no mistake about it, he was learning. He was starting to put the pieces together. “Maybe not you. If you told them who you were, what we’d done to you. And maybe not me.”

“Because you come from a noble family.”

“Yes.”

“But you wouldn’t tell them that, would you? Not even to save your life.”

“No,” Melanthe admitted, echoing a decision she’d come to a long time ago. “If they sent me back to my family, it would just be another sort of death. I’d rather hang.”

“That’s very brave.”

“Is it? Sometimes, I think I’m just afraid. What if I went back to my old life and discovered that I love it? What if I discovered that I could have been happy?”

“What if I discovered that I should have married the wind?” Lethe shook his head. “Maybe happiness is death. Because once we’re truly happy, we stop trying to change.”

“And change is good?”

“Change is life.”

Absently, Melanthe traced the scar that ran down her cheek. And she knew that he was right. “What about you, Lethe? If we ever go to trial, will you tell them who you are?”

“No.” Lethe’s fingers curled around the hilt of his new dagger. “It’s like Hesperos said. I’m one of you now.”

And Melanthe could tell that, for the first time, it was a position he truly accepted.

Soon, dusk started to color the sky, painting wide stripes of pink and blue across the horizon. Throughout the agora, merchants began packing away their wares. But as she and Lethe drifted through the thinning crowd, Melanthe felt a pang of reluctance when she thought about returning to the inn. “Would you like to get some dinner?”

Lethe seemed to consider, before answering her with a decisive nod. “Octopus. I’d like to try octopus.”

“Really?”

“The world is so much bigger than I ever expected it to be. And now I’ve been given a chance to live in it. I might as well take advantage of that.”

“Well, then. Octopus it is.”

After making some inquiries, they found themselves at the door of a small building not far from the agora. There, a young woman in bright yellow robes greeted them with a bow, and led them through what appeared to be her house. As they passed one room, Melanthe saw a pair of girls whispering to each other while they worked on their weaving. Glimpsing Lethe, the whispers turned to giggles, although a sharp word from the woman in yellow quickly silenced them. However, Melanthe noted, even such a harsh rebuke couldn’t banish the blush from their young faces.

Their hostess led them up a wooden ladder, and then they were on the roof. A day’s worth of sun had warmed the flat white stone, and the rising heat made a nice contrast to the cool evening air. Smiling, the woman in yellow pointed to a blanket that had been spread out, and then she vanished back down the ladder.

Melanthe settled down on the blanket, but Lethe remained standing. Behind him, light from the setting sun illuminated the mountains, turning their snowy tips into fields of sparkling pink jewels. “I think you had some admirers back there,” Melanthe teased.

“Did I?” A smile skittered across Lethe’s lips. “I’ve never been with a woman.”

Melanthe blinked. She felt like the breath had just been knocked from her lungs. But then, why should she be shocked? Aeolus was a male deity. Why should the priests have bothered to teach Lethe anything about women?

“Well,” she answered, forcing her tone to remain playful, “it can’t be any worse than octopus.”

“I suppose not. Melanthe?”

“Yes?\"

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Melanthe lowered her eyes, suddenly fixated on the pattern of the blanket beneath her. “I’ve killed a great many people.”

“Do you...do you ever stop seeing them?”

“Eventually,” Melanthe confessed. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. But after awhile they start to blur together. And then, one day, there’s not even a blur. There’s just darkness.”

Lethe didn’t answer. When Melanthe looked up, she found him staring out over the city. Stillness seemed to hold the entire world as night kissed each mountaintop, and then blew away its rosy glow, like a lover blowing out a candle. After a moment, Melanthe realized that Lethe was praying. And the sound of his words filled her with such sadness and longing, she felt sure that her body was too weak to hold so much emptiness.

Rising up on her knees, Melanthe extended her hands to Lethe. “Show me,” she pleaded. “Show me what you believe in.”

Even the encroaching darkness couldn’t hide his surprise. “What I believe in? You’re so strong. Why do you need my beliefs?”

“Strength.” Melanthe laughed, sharp and mocking – the laughter of ravens pecking out a dead man’s eyes. “Strength is a cage that lures you in with promises of safety, and then never lets you out. Strength is a wall I’m sick of hiding behind. Tonight, Lethe, I’m weak. I’m up on a roof with a young man that I want so bad, it’s making me sick. I’m scared, and I’m vulnerable, and I think I deserve a little goddamn belief.”

“Yes.” Gently, Lethe took her hands in his. “I believe in the wind. I believe in every drop of rain that has ever fallen, every flower petal that has ever unfurled. I pray to the beauty of the world. Even when all I see around me is ugliness.”

“You’re not a child anymore, are you, Lethe?”

“No.” Lethe shook his head as he helped her to her feet. “But you’re still a woman.”

Again, Melanthe touched her scar, thinking of the beauty she had left behind. “Am I?”

Instead of answering, Lethe pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. Locked in his embrace, Melanthe could feel herself shaking. But she had already confessed her weakness to Lethe. So she no longer needed to hide it. Instead, she yanked him to her, smothering his mouth with hers, tearing his breath from him before he could breathe it. All around them, the world seemed to collapse. Like a house of cards, it came tumbling down, pressing them closer and closer together as it buried them beneath the rubble of their passion. Buried them alive, with nothing but the heat of their bodies, the blur of their skin, and the echo of their heartbeats, pounding in their ears like the sound of racing horses.

Then, a polite cough broke them apart. The woman in yellow had returned with their meal. Clutching Lethe to her, Melanthe rested her head on his shoulder and laughed, her emotions a wild mixture of joy and relief. “Well, Lethe. It looks like tonight you get your first taste of octopus.”


Chapter Five (Part 3)

Cautiously, Lethe lifted a piece of octopus. The legs had been cut into small ringlets, and came served on a silver platter, along with a pile of sticky grain. Prepared in such a manner, it didn’t look nearly as disgusting as it had in the market. So, without further hesitation, Lethe popped the piece into his mouth and chewed.

“Well?” Melanthe inquired, smiling.

“It’s good. Not rubbery at all.”

“I guess things aren’t always as they appear.”

After that, they didn’t talk much. Words seemed like toys they had outgrown. Instead, even the briefest glance conveyed more than could ever be spelled out by all the letters in the alphabet. Emboldened by his success with the octopus, Lethe attempted to pick up some of the grain, but most of it slipped between his fingers. Without speaking, Melanthe took his hand in hers. Then she showed him how to roll clumps of the grain into balls, which could be easily eaten.

When the woman in yellow had brought their food, she also brought a lantern, and Lethe watched Melanthe in its flickering light. She looked five years younger. The way she laughed, the way she blushed, the way she flirted by winking at him from behind strands of her dark hair. For the first time, Lethe could imagine her as the true child of a noble family -- a privileged daughter, promised in marriage to the prince of some foreign land, destined to be bartered away for the sake of her family’s political allegiances. And he began to wonder what it would be like to touch her, to hear her prayers tangle with his. He began to wonder what it would be like to make her happy.

After they finished dinner, the woman in yellow brought them a bowl of rose scented water for washing their hands. While Lethe rinsed his fingers, Melanthe spoke to their hostess, eventually giving her several coins. Again, the woman led them back through her home. But not to the door by which they had initially entered. Instead, she guided them to a room in the rear of the house, and pushed aside the piece of colored silk hung like a curtain across its door. Inside, Lethe could see a dimly lit bedroom.

With a surprisingly shy smile, Melanthe took his hand and pulled him into the room. Behind them, the woman in yellow let the curtain fall back into place. And then they were alone.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Melanthe murmured. “I didn’t want to go back to the inn. If I saw the others, I might snap shut again. And I don’t want to snap shut. Not yet.”

“I understand,” Lethe assured. He understood that some moments could only survive in the places that had birthed them. He understood that what they were about to share would not last forever. But then, when you grow up expecting to die on your fifteenth birthday, you don’t plan your life around “forever”.

They undressed slowly. And when Lethe saw Melanthe standing naked before him, vulnerable as a sprout that had just pushed its way up through the frozen earth, a deep longing filled him. Not lust. Not a carnal desire for the flesh. But gratitude, and tenderness, and compassion. Ever since the bandits had stolen him, she’d been his warrior maiden, doing her best to protect someone she didn’t fully understand. She had given him her strength, and she had given him her weakness. And he wanted so much to find some way to repay her. “I love you,” he whispered.

“No,” Melanthe contradicted, trailing her fingers down the side of his face. “That’s your tragedy. You want to love me, but you belong to Hesperos.”

“And what’s your tragedy?”

“I’ll always love both of you.”

The bed lay hidden beneath a canopy of silk. By itself, each piece was nearly transparent, but where one piece overlapped another, they formed delicate layers of color, which rippled and changed every time the canopy moved. When Lethe pushed through them, the cool material brushed over his body like fog. Then he was inside their shimmering shelter, sitting on a soft mattress. Cushions of all shapes and sizes surrounded him, each one decorated with tiny bells, which jingled softly whenever he shifted his position. A moment later, Melanthe joined him.

“It’s beautiful,” he sighed.

“You’re beautiful,” she answered, and kissed him.

They lay down facing each other, still barely touching. Only occasionally reaching out to let a caress skim across the other’s skin, quick and light, like a dragonfly dipping down against the surface of a lake. Then Melanthe slid closer. Exhaling, she blew patterns of warm air across his chest. Lethe groaned. Her breath seemed to seep into his pores, filling his blood with fire, and he felt his senses dissolve into a fever of desire. He wanted her. And when he looked into Melanthe’s eyes, he saw his hunger reflected back at him.

“Teach me,” he begged, kissing her throat. “Show me how to please you.”

“Yes.” As gentle as when she’d demonstrated how to eat the sticky grain, Melanthe took his hand and placed it on her breast. “Touch me here. And here...”


Chapter Five (Part 4)

Even when the weaving had been completed, and she’d been sent to bed, the image of the two strangers remained with Tedra. And her sister must have felt the same way. Barely two minutes after their mother had bid them goodnight, and blown out the light, Semele sat up, her voice trembling with excitement as she whispered to her sibling. “Did you see the weapons they were carrying? They must be mercenaries. Or outlaws!”

Tedra, however, rarely allowed herself to be carried away by her sister’s flights of fancy. Her own thoughts moved in neat rows, down logical paths, like soldiers marching in formation. “I don’t think that Mother would let them stay here if they were really outlaws.”

“I don’t think Mother cares, as long as they can pay. We’ll probably all be murdered in our beds.” The prospect seemed to thrill Semele. “Maybe they’re plotting about it right now.”

“Semele—“

“I’m going to go listen.”

“Semele!”

But it was too late. Semele was already out of bed and heading toward the door. For one wild instant, Tedra considered following her. Considered risking her mother’s wrath, in order to steal another look at the beautiful young man with gold hair. But mischief like sneaking around after their bedtime was sure to earn them a beating -- especially if they were caught disturbing any of their mother’s guests. Beatings hurt. And, Tedra reasoned, Semele would get nothing for her trouble. The woman and young man had retired to their room over an hour ago. Surely, they were asleep by now.

So Tedra remained in bed, ready to fall over and feign sleep in an instant if she heard any sign of her mother’s approach. But, after Semele’s departure, the hallway outside their room remained silent. Tedra expected Semele to return quickly, inventing wild tales to cover the failure of her quest. However, as minute bled into minute, there was no sign of her sister. Disturbed, without quite knowing why, Tedra stared into the darkness, and tried to make Semele reappear by sheer force of will.

When Semele finally did return, it was in a manner markedly different from her departure. This time there was no giggling, no eager padding of her feet, no breathless speculations about outlaws. Instead, Semele moved slowly. Without speaking to Tedra, she climbed into bed, pulled the covers up over her body, and then sat in the darkness, as if pondering some strange puzzle. Her manner seemed so serious that Tedra began to wonder if she really had overheard the man and woman plotting to kill everyone in the household.

“Well?” Tedra demanded, when she could wait no more. “What did you see?”

Usually, Semele savored any chance to relate her adventures. The words could scarcely wait to leap from her lips. This time, however, she spoke carefully, as if she was groping around the edges of an experience she still didn’t full understand. “They were sharing a bed. I couldn’t see details, because of the canopy. But I could see shapes. She was kissing him all over. And then, she put her face between his legs.”

“What? Why?”

“I...I don’t know. But he started to make a noise. Like he was crying, except not the sad sort of crying. And I...”

Frustrated by her sister’s hesitation, Tedra leaned forward. “Yes?”

“I felt strange. Like part of me was on fire, and part of me was freezing cold. Like there was something I wanted someone to do to me. Something I wanted to do to someone.”

“Did you want to do what they were doing?”

“I don’t know!” In the darkness, Tedra could hear Semele shake her head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Tedra frowned. Semele’s report, while heartfelt, lacked crucial details. No conclusions could be drawn from it. So, she would either have to live with her curiosity, or she would have to go find out for herself. Resolutely, Tedra got out of bed.

The hallway was a maze of shadows as she crept down it. And, alone in the darkness, Tedra began to question her motivations. Why was it so important to know what Semele had seen? No rational reason came to her, no neat procession of facts. Instead, she remembered the tilt of the young man’s head, and the light passing through the broken vial he wore around his neck. For the first time in her life, emotion triumphed over logic. This scared Tedra more than she wanted to admit.

But, before she had more time to dwell on it, she reached her destination. Pushing just enough of the curtain aside, Tedra peered into the bedroom. Moonlight poured through the open window, piercing the canopy’s veil, and delineating the shapes of the two people moving behind it. The young man still lay on his back. But now the woman was on her knees, straddling him. As she bounced against the young man, his hands clutched at her thighs, his own hips rising to meet hers.

“Like that,” the woman gasped. “Oh god! Just like that...”

Beneath her, the young man bucked with such force that he knocked a cushion off the edge of the bed, and it fell to the floor with a soft jingle. Tedra caught her breath, afraid that the noise might draw attention to her spying. But neither the man nor the woman took any notice of it. Instead, the woman tore at her breasts, and emitted a wild shriek. At the same time, the young man matched her cry. And then they collapsed into each other’s arms, like pair of marionettes who had finished their show.

Tedra shivered. As she let the curtain fall back into place, she knew that what she’d witnessed had awakened an odd chaos within her, and the world would never again be a neat, orderly place. Walking back to her bedroom, she felt like she was walking through a dream.

“Semele? Can I--?”

“Yeah.” Semele pulled back the covers, allowing Tedra to crawl into bed next to her. And all through the night, the two sisters clung to each other, lost in premonitions of a future that seemed to hold such strange mysteries.


Chapter Five (Part 5)

“What if we don’t go back?”

Lethe’s words caught Melanthe with her mouth barely an inch from the curve of his hip. But his question made the kiss go cold and shrivel on her lips. Not because of the question’s intent – Melanthe knew that Lethe meant for it to offer hope, to reveal a path that might lead them both to safety. But she was older, and she understood better than he ever could, and she knew where that path really went. “Go back?”

“What if we don’t?” Lethe persisted. “Would Hesperos come looking for us? Would he drag us back? Would he care?”

Melanthe sighed. All around her, morning’s first light shone into the room, igniting the silk canopy with fiery colors, as if they were surrounded by a curtain of flame. “Would he come looking for us?” She shook her head. “No. Would he drag us back? No. Would he care? I don’t know. That’s a mystery I can’t answer.”

“He told me that he loves you. That he could never love another woman the way he loves you.”

“Yes. But what he means by ‘love’ and what I mean by ‘love’ are two entirely different things.” Melanthe rested her head on the pillow beside Lethe. Trailing her fingers across his cheek, she gazed into his amber eyes, and allowed herself to forget what she knew about paths. Allowed herself, for a moment, to become lost in the color of honey. “So tell me, Lethe. Where would we go? If we didn’t go back?”

“We could stay here. Build a life for ourselves in Taran.”

“Learn a trade? Raise a family?”

“Why not?” Lethe challenged. “We could buy a small farm. A few sheep, a few chickens, some olive tree seedlings. The grasshoppers would sing while I worked in the fields. And when I came home at night, you would be there waiting for me, your hair all out of place and your skin smelling like freshly baked bread.” His hand slid down her body, until it came to rest on her belly. “Our children playing around your feet.”

An image flashed inside Melanthe’s head – the reflection she’d seen in one of Kynthia’s mirrors, which showed her gripping the hand of a young girl with golden hair. But she banished the picture from her head, shoving Lethe’s hand away from her stomach at the same time. “No.”

“No?”

Gently, Melanthe kissed him. But it was no longer a lover’s kiss. It was an apology, a farewell, a consolation prize. “We couldn’t. Not either of us. Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s touched us. And we’re forever changed.” Pushing the layers of silk aside, Melanthe slipped out of bed. Then, ignoring the chill of the stone floor against her bare feet, she walked over to the room’s single window. “I’ve been to Taran before, Lethe. Once. When I was a six. My parents brought me here to meet a prince from the southern deserts. The prince they had arranged for me to marry.”

Outside, the streets of Taran had already begun to wake up. A young woman, balancing a basket of assorted cheeses on her head, sang to herself as she walked to the market. The words were too soft for Melanthe to make out, but they still filled her with a deep melancholy. As if she was, once more, seeing the city through the eyes of child.

“It’s funny, but I don’t remember much about him. He was just a boy. What I do remember are the gifts that they brought for me. Dried fruits dusted with sugar and stuffed with nuts. Little windup animals that growled, or tumbled, or spun a ball on their nose. And I thought – what a fine thing it must be to be a princess.”

Behind her, she heard Lethe get up. Somehow, without looking, she sensed him walk forward, until he stood close enough to touch her. But he didn’t touch her. “What changed your mind?”

“Hesperos. Damn him.” Melanthe sighed. Part of her wanted to reach out, to take Lethe’s hand. Instead, she closed her fingers around empty air. “The moment I saw him, something inside me changed, and I knew that I would follow him through storm and stillness, through burning days and bottomless nights. I knew that I would suffer, and bleed, and die in a land hundreds of miles from my home. I knew that I would never be a princess.”

Turning, she looked into Lethe’s eyes. “And you knew, too. Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Lethe confessed.

“You see? You could go back to your chime maze, and I could marry a prince, but it wouldn’t make a difference. We could settle down on a farm anywhere in the world, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Hesperos would always be there. In the shadows, in the things we didn’t say, in the restless dreams of how our lives might have been. And we would never be happy.”

Lethe frowned. “What about last night? Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means a great deal.” Melanthe remembered guiding Lethe’s hands across her body. Remembered the promises they had whispered, the bright, brief flashes of ecstasy he had stirred within her body, and the moments when, even without the help of Kynthia’s mirrors, she had seen fragments of their future. “Hesperos has bound us together, but he’s also set us in opposition to each other. For the love of him, I will betray you, and you will betray me.”

“I’ll never betray you.”

“Yes. You will.” Gently, Melanthe took Lethe’s hand and pressed it against her beating heart. “But whatever happens, whatever comes between us, I want you to remember last night. And know how I really feel about you.”

“And you? Will you remember?”

“For as long as I live.”

Lethe nodded. Then, seeming to understand that there was nothing left to say, he started to turn away. But Melanthe held onto his hand.

“Pray for me,” she whispered.

“I will,” Lethe vowed. “I’ll pray for us both.”

Then they got dressed, and went back.