Page 38 of The Moon Blessed King
Over thirty-seven thousand…No wonder he had slept for days, wading and swimming and lapping at the shores of a river that neverlet him go.I’m surprised Ididwake up, he thinks, this time catching the thought before it falls from his traitorous lips.I’m surprised Death let me. ‘I’m glad,’ he tells his sister. ‘And you…? You’re okay?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve been here, watching over you. Cat comes in at night to sleep, but otherwise…I’ve been here.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s…fine, I guess. There were these pendants that were stopping him from using his powers right, so the soldiers were still fighting even though he was trying to get them to stop, and then he overdid it and…It doesn’t really matter – I healed him and he’s all right now. Promise.’
‘He couldn’t stop the army?’ He doesn’t remember that. Doesn’t remember anything of the battle at all. He had reached out, reached with everything he had, and – there had been water. Water, and all the souls of the dead. ‘Where is he?’
‘I can get him?’ she offers. He nods, and she leans down to hug him once more. She kisses his cheek, then hurries from the room.
Perhaps they should have waited together for Cat to eventually find them, though. Because, left alone, his bones seem to weigh more than they did before. His eyelids sink shut. He breathes in too deep, then falls back to sleep.
Who am I?a voice asks. It’s familiar. So familiar. Like the skin around his body or the kiss of wind on a cool day.
It is neither feminine nor masculine. And yet he knows it.
Who am I?it asks once more, insistent and firm.
Where does he know it from?
The water swallows him whole.
Elician wakes and the room is even darker than before. He cannot make out the ceiling. He cannot hear the gentle sounds of life from beyond the room’s window or beneath the room’s floor. He shifts and tries to sit up, but there’s a weight at his side. ‘Cat,’ he murmurs. The head springs up from where it was resting on Elician’s hip. ‘Could have slept on the bed properly,’ Elician slurs. There should be enough room. The bed is not too narrow for that. ‘Can’t see your face…’ Cat leaves his bedside; Elician whines at the sudden loss of contact, but then an orange light illuminates the room. He has lit a lantern. The colour is wrong. Elician slurs, ‘Oh…s’not blue,’ as Cat retakes his place at Elician’s side.
‘They’re only blue in Alelune,’ Cat tells him, taking his hand in his.
‘Why is it blue in Alelune?’ His tongue trips on the alliteration, but Cat seems particularly smart to his muddled brain. He understands Elician perfectly well. How nice, to be married to such an obliging individual.
‘Because we do not use phosphorous, and our wicks are coated in the ground powder of blue stones. When heat is applied, they spark on their own and create a self-sustaining cycle of oxygen consumption and oxygen regeneration. They burn hotter as a result, and the flames are always blue.’
‘Did Elena teach you that?’ Elician asks.
Cat shakes his head and says, ‘My father.’ Elician should have guessed. Cat’s knowledge about blue stones has always come from one place. He squeezes his hand around Cat’s fingers. Not quite an apology, but perhaps he didn’t need to offer one in the first place. ‘We were worried about you,’ Cat says.
‘Were you?’
‘Yes. We didn’t know what news to send back to Himmelsheim.’ Elician does not envy Cat the position he has been in.
This time, he manages the apology. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It is not your fault.’
There are deep, dark circles under Cat’s eyes. Elician’s heart achesat the sight. He reaches for Cat’s face, cups it with his palm and rubs his thumb beneath one beautiful sea-green eye. ‘Fen said you were hurt.’
‘Only for a little while.’
‘How?’
‘Our powers are not meant to work against others of our kind,’ Cat explains simply. ‘Our bodies maintain a level of homeostasis with relative ease, so to force this to stop, to reject that…’
‘It’s like building a dam in the middle of a rushing river,’ Elician muses.
‘Yes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold my fellow Reapers like that for long, but…I thought I would be able to manage with the army. Something stopped me. It took more from me than I anticipated.’ He laughs. ‘The river pushed back, shall we say.’
Elician thinks of a boy smashed against the rocks, held down by a current too strong to fight against, lungs spasming uselessly, eyes rolling back in agonized defeat. He pulls Cat in. He holds him, cheek to cheek, shoulder to shoulder. He feels Cat’s skin against his own, Cat’s heart beating against his chest. Cat shifts on the bed, turns to lie more naturally. One leg slides innocuously between Elician’s. One arm curls up across Elician’s chest. ‘Stay here with me,’ Elician wishes.
‘As long as you want,’ Cat swears in turn.
