Wing & Nien

by Shytei Corellian

  The following day of work on the house was hit and miss as Wing, Nien and Monteray’s minds were all elsewhere.

  After dinner, Nien being more than sufficient help with the clearing of the table, Wing excused himself and Carly so that he could take her to the bank of the river in time for the sunset.

  They arrived just as the great luminous orb slid behind the mountains, splashing the sky with a hundred vibrant colours from the deepest blood red to the palest blues. Kojko now reigned upon the land and the evening shades were growing darker and richer.

  But Wing and Carly took in more of the sunset on one another’s faces than over the mountains.

  “It’s still hard to believe — ” Wing started to say.

  “That I’m real?”

  “Yes.”

  “For me, too.”

  Carly took one of his hands in hers and caressed it, loving the smoothness of it, tracing a blue-green vein here and there with a light touch of her finger. She could feel Wing watching her as she stroked his hand. Raising her face, he met her eyes and she kissed him deeply, desperately, clinging to him as if he might evaporate.

  “You taste of the fields in early Kive,” she whispered.

  Wing pushed his nose into her hair and breathed deeply. “To be holding you, it’s something out of a distant wish, some longing that I could only realize in those moments before sleep.”

  Carly shivered at his breath upon her neck. “Day and night, I imagined you alive. I’d run it through my mind, how you escaped, what you might be doing.” She touched his jaw gently with her fingertips. “Made love to you a thousand times.”

  Wing shuddered a little and Carly guessed he might have done so as well.

  “It’s funny, I guess. I didn’t really care if I survived or not — that just didn’t matter much. It only mattered that you did. And so I made it real in my mind.”

  Wing lowered his head to her shoulder. “My head told me you were gone — as gone as Nien, my family, Commander Lant, all of our people. But I, too, made you live again in my mind. I imagined you had escaped, I told myself that if anyone could have, it would have been you. Eventually, though, it became too painful and I spoke with you as I did with Nien, as if you had already crossed over. All I wanted was to die, and to join you. Assuming you would have had me.”

  “What?” Carly asked, taken aback. “‘Assuming we would have had you’?” she asked.

  “There were moments I had my doubts that I could find relief, even in death. That if I were to meet you there, our people there, still I would have felt the burden, the guilt of having done nothing.”

  “You mean that you weren’t in the castle?” Carly didn’t wait for a reply from him, feeling a sudden urgency to dispel his belief. “No, Wing. No.” She took his face between her hands. “You said it became too painful for you, forcing yourself to believe I had somehow survived. It was easier for me, I think. I mean, knowing you were not in the castle meant, in my mind, you had a greater chance of escape. I thought maybe, you really had been spared…”

  Carly caught herself, unable to believe what she had almost said. But it was too late.

  As if she’d pinched out a candle’s flame, Wing stiffened. His features hardened. “Spared?”

  Carly knew, instantly, she’d said something wrong. But what else could she say? It was true, all those turns alone in the mountains and in the homes of strangers, knowing she could not go home, knowing her people were gone, knowing that she may not recover from her wounds…

  It had changed her. She’d begun to think about many things differently, including Wing, and the prophecy. She began to wonder if he was Merehr. She began to wonder if his decision, long ago, to refrain from going to the triannual festivals had been to assure that he would not be there on that night.

  In silent, painful moments she watched Wing’s face alter as he searched her own.

  “You thought that?” Wing said, his voice low. “Why?” His tone nipped Carly’s heart. “If you’re going to believe that anyone was spared, you should believe it was you and Nien. You were both there.”

  With effort, Carly said, “You’re saying you didn’t deserve to?”

  “I’m saying that I wasn’t spared. I was simply not there.”

  Unable to look at him, Carly turned her gaze out over the river. The crush of emotions from his accusation, the memory of her own struggle those horrifically long nights after she’d escaped the castle that night, began to overwhelm her.

  “The people. Rhusta. And now, you,” Wing said. “Only Nien — ” He did not complete his sentence.

  Only Nien had never said it, Carly knew he’d meant to say.

  Bitterly, Carly found her voice, and said, “Don’t blame me for needing hope when there was none.” She swallowed hard. “I love you, Wing. Always have. And back, before that night, I never cared about the prophecy, I never cared about what our people had to say. You know that. But after that night, and then all those nights alone, those long horrible nights…”

  There was so much more Carly wanted to say, but forced herself to stop. Though he’d wounded her by judging her to be like all the rest, rebuking him was still hard for her. They had ever been each other’s source of comfort not conflict.

  She drew a pained breath and closed her eyes. The silence between them was unbearable. It felt as if something were about to break.

  Don’t let this happen, she told herself.

  Staring fixedly across the river, she dug down through her pride, her hurt, she found something unexpected.

  Who was she? Who was Nien? Why were they the only two of their people to have escaped the castle that night?

  And then she understood something she never had before: How Wing felt. How it felt to bear the responsibility and burden of being looked upon as special without any specific evidence that it was true.

  Though she didn’t like what Wing had said, he wasn’t wrong. If there were evidence for any sort of divine intervention, it had been for the sake of herself and Nien.

  Her anger began to slowly drain away, and she said, “I’m sorry, Wing.”

  Reaching across the emotional gulf between them, she placed her hand tentatively upon his own.

  Wing tensed briefly at her touch.

  As Carly waited, heart pounding, Wing slowly turned his hand over and accepted the small hug defined by their intertwining fingers.

  Flooded with relief, Carly swallowed and said softly, “The truth is, I never once considered myself lucky for having survived. So many times I’d wished I’d been killed, too, or that I’d die from my wounds. I actually thought I was cursed for having survived.” She felt the familiar cold, blank space inside of her chest whenever she thought about that night. “But you’ve got a point. Who are Nien and I that we escaped? Why were we spared?” Carly shook her head. “I guess it’s easier to believe someone else is touched with the divine. A lot less pressure being normal.”

  Waiting for him to look at her, she offered him an apologetic wink when he did. But rather than a softening she saw that something terrible and profound had changed in Wing’s face.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Wing swallowed and blinked, his mouth moving slightly as if to speak. But it seemed he could not find the words and, in the end, took her into his arms instead.

  Surprised, Carly put her arms around him. Holding onto him, she muttered, “I’m sorry, Wing. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it while we were in Rieeve when I didn’t care about the prophecy, and I still didn’t get it in the mountains all these past turns. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.”

  “No,” Wing said, shaking his head against her shoulder. “I am sorry. It was wrong of me to judge how you felt, what you went through out there. None of us had any hope. None. I only just survived the mountains. I don’t know how you and Nien did, wounded as you must have been. I don’t…”

  He didn’t say any more, but his arms tightened around her.

  The wounded restraint between
them melted in a wave of longing, relief, and long-remembered devotion. The love she had for him, pressed through, dispelling any other consideration. Nothing else mattered but that they were both here, now, alive. Carly shook in his arms and kissed his neck again and again as if impressing with each one the depth of her feelings.

  When they drew apart at last, she looked at Wing’s emerald green eyes, bright with emotion. She placed her hand upon his thigh —

  A question.

  Wing’s eyes shifted briefly to her hand. He then got to his feet, took her hand, and pulled her up. Without a word, he took her hand and led her to the cabin. Blessedly, it was empty and quiet, cool in the shadow of evening.

  Wing had barely shut the door and Carly was undressing him. She’d been too ill and too weak her first night at the Monterays’ to think of anything but food, bath, and sleep. Now, feeling as if she’d just stood on the edge of losing him again, she could not bear another moment without his skin against hers, to make real what had only, for so long, been alive in memory and imagination.

  Tugging at his shirt, Carly was about to step into him when his shirt dropped to the floor and she saw his body. She had spoken of the wounds she and Nien had taken that night in the castle. She had never expected what she saw now. Wing’s chest was covered in a shocking array of corded scars, standing livid beneath the firelight, bearers of a story she could not begin to guess at.

  “Wing,” she whispered, her voice choked.

  Wing glanced down at the weals of heavy scars. He took her hands in his. “It’s all right,” he said softly.

  Tears had begun to roll down Carly’s cheeks. “No,” she whispered, tears spilling over her lips. “No, this is not all right.” She looked up into his face. “What happened?”

  Wing smeared the tears across her cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m all right,” he said gently, and pushing her shirt up, took the comforting weight of her breasts in his hands.

  Not liking having her question unanswered, the feel of his hands on her body succeeded in dragging her mind back to other things. Tugging her shirt off over her head, she unlaced Wing’s pants. Stumbling backwards toward the bed they fell upon it, kicking off shoes, pants, and finally toeing-off socks until at last they lay naked and unsorted, a collection of strokes and longing, sighs and hitching breath. Wing took her mouth in his and placed his weight upon her — reassurance that he was real, that he was not about to disappear. Carly thought she would break with joy, with disbelief, unsure she was big enough to hold the feeling rushing through her. She sobbed and dug her fingers into the flesh of his back.

  His entry into her was so sharp and clean that she gasped and convulsed. He was gentle but also unrelenting, leaving no doubt in her mind that he would take her but, also, that she was safe. She thrust her hips against him, bringing him on, and in sweat and a vague sense of incredulity they met each other and peaked, realizing in flesh that which had lived alone in fantasy.

  Wing’s weight came to rest upon her again, this time languid and sweat-soaked, heavy in a different way, like water rather than earth and fire.

  They lay for a long time, spent, as Carly tenderly caressed his neck under his hair, pushing her fingers along his skull, tracing lines and spirals, easing herself as well as him into a place of pure sensation, leaving their minds a blessedly empty space beyond thought.

  They lay for a long time, passing into and out of sleep. At last, Wing pushed himself sideways, and they curled into one another, breathing softly, aware for the first time of the world without — the sinking of the sun outside the cabin window, the rising sound of insect chatter.

  “Wing,” Carly said, “will you tell me what happened? Those scars…”

  She expected him to be reticent, to avoid her question again. To her surprise, he said, “Lucin’s mother. Rhusta and I were walking along the top of a large talus field. I felt her presence. I stopped and knew she was there though I couldn’t see her. I urged Rhusta to move on ahead…”

  “Like you did that day with me and Nien and the shy’teh on the ledge.”

  She felt Wing nod behind her, his chin moving between her shoulder blades.

  “Except this time, it was a female and she was anxious over a cub; she was in no mind to talk. As Rhusta unknowingly approached where the cub was hidden, she sprang — at me. We went over into the scree field.”

  Carly felt her body go cold. She shivered and Wing pulled her into himself more tightly.

  “Yosha, Wing. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe you survived.” She squeezed his arm to her chest. “How did you?”

  “Rhusta. He shot the mother with an arrow and somehow managed to get me out of the scree field and back to his cabin.”

  “Who’s Rhusta?”

  “Do you remember the man Rhegal, the one the people thought might be Merehr, back when we were very young?”

  Carly nodded.

  “Him.”

  Carly stared blankly at the cabin wall a moment and then shifted around so she could see Wing’s face. “Honestly?”

  Wing smiled lightly. “Honest.”

  “Unbelievable. How did you find him?”

  “I didn’t. Exactly. I came upon his cabin one night. I had no idea whose cabin it was nor that it was him. Actually, I stayed with him many turns and it wasn’t until the day I left that he finally told me who he was.”

  “Wow,” Carly said.

  Wing agreed. He reached up and caressed her face. “I’m sorry, Carly,” he said, his voice soft but heavy between them.

  “For what?”

  “I’m sorry I was not there…I should have been there with you and Nien and my family. I was a fool. I cared more about avoiding what the people wanted from me than what my family and friends needed from me.” His confession squeezed Carly’s heart. “I’ve never been comfortable with a sword,” Wing continued, “but I fought, Carly, I fought every day to understand what the prophecy meant, to make sense of the Ancient Writings, to fathom what might have been done…” His struggle to explain made Carly want to tell him it was all right, that she didn’t need an explanation… “But every road I tried came to a dead end. Darkness. Immutable.” He looked at her. “I should have stopped trying and listened to Lant and joined the Cant. I would have been there that night, at your side, at Nien’s side.”

  Carly stroked his cheek and kissed his mouth. “You’re here now. I’m here. That’s all that matters.”

  Wing traced her face and she could feel his green gaze upon her like a touch. “You are a miracle,” he said.

  Carly hunted her brain and could find nothing there that could adequately answer him. So, she kissed his beautiful mouth again, relishing in the pressure of their mouths and bodies, wondering how the whole world could pass away and she wouldn’t care, not as long as she was here like this, with him, listening to his voice, feeling his breath, looking at the sweet, inspiring sight of his face.

  Laying back, she tucked her head into the crook of his neck and rested as he stroked her hair.

  “I know you tried to make sense of it,” Carly said. “I do.” She felt Wing’s chest rise, his breath pausing briefly. She closed her eyes and snuggled into him. “I love you,” she said. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  Wing breathed out again, relaxing. “Every night in the mountains after I left Rieeve, I went inside my mind to find you. I’d say good night to you, and I’d come to this place where we are now. It hurt but it was better than nothing.”

  Carly felt tears burn in the back of her eyes, her heart too full to speak. Wriggling in closer to him, she pressed her lips to his chest, shivered, and reached down to pull the covers up over their naked bodies.

  Chapter 67

  They Are the Key

  “S iQQiy,” Monteray said happily, seeing her appear in the doorway to his and Kate’s bedroom.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  “Of course not, come in.”

  SiQQiy entered the room and sat down on the large bed. “It’s so
good to be here. Being in this room is like being home. It’s how my mother and father’s room used to feel — back when they were in it.”

  “They would be proud of you,” he said.

  SiQQiy raised her impossibly beautiful face and looked at him. “I’ve not let it show, but there is a shadow in my heart, and I wish my father were still alive. I don’t feel adequate to what lies ahead.”

  Monteray nodded slowly and placed his arm around her shoulders. “I know.”

  “As I ever have since his death, I’m grateful to take counsel with you.”

  “Then let us do so,” Monteray said kindly. “How is the situation in Quieness?”

  SiQQiy’s face grew solemn, and her exquisite features tightened. “The people are going about their lives. The mood that took Cao after the disappearance of our three merchant ships subsided. Rumours of the taking of Lou and Tou flew through Cao City, and also subsided. The people feel Quieness could never come under any real threat. The smaller cities and outlying villages and towns go about their lives as they always have. All in all, life seems perfectly normal and safe...”

  “But?” Monteray said.

  “After the loss of the merchant ships and two of my war galleys, I felt that something terrible was coming, that those seemingly independent acts of piracy were harbingers of something much worse. But I kept such feelings to myself. Now that Lou and Tou have been taken...” SiQQiy paused. “There are those who stand in wonder at how quickly, how easily those two valleys fell. But I had a feeling, Monteray. I suspected, but did not act soon enough.”

  Monteray’s head bowed. “I share your regret. More than any of us, Commander Lant did the most, acted on his instincts, tried to prepare us all as best he could. He did this knowing that what he attempted was futile, that his small valley and people could never withstand the Ka’ull.”