Don’t cry. You’ll never stop if you start crying now.
“And every time I close my eyes, I’m back there with all those bodies,” I managed to force out, though it felt like my throat was trying to close up.
“You are the Chancellarius of Karalia. You can’t just walk away when things get too hard!” I admonished him. And even though he looked so unbelievably bewildered by my outburst, I just couldn’t get myself to stop.
“We needed you! Your people needed you!” I screamed savagely until the tears choked me. “I needed you,” I forced past my tear-clogged throat.
And then I sunk to the floor, my eyes so full of angry tears that I could no longer see anything. “I still need you, Daddy. I can’t do this all on my own,” I sobbed as I hung my head in defeat.
I heard movement and then he crouched down, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me close.
“Oh my dear, brave, brave chisaya astari. I didn’t mean to push this all onto you so soon,” Alex apologized as he smoothed my hair back out of my face and kissed my forehead. “I just— Can you ever forgive me?” he asked as he tipped my chin up so I was looking into his face.
“I’m not brave,” I mumbled like a defiant child.
My father gave me the most dubious look I had ever seen him give anyone. “Nualla Galathea, you are by far one of the most fearless people I have ever known.”
“I’m not brave,” I insisted, sniffling as my father helped me to my feet and lead me toward the couch. “I’m just too stubborn to be afraid.”
Alex barked out a laugh. “That may be true.”
When we had been sitting on the couch for awhile I asked, “So why didn’t you want to see Mom?”
Alex let out a heavy sigh before answering, “The day before I left for the summit, Loraly and I had an…an argument.”
I just kinda gaped at him, because I didn’t think I had ever heard my parents argue…like ever.
Alex looked at my startled expression, and sighed again. He looked off across the room to the city beyond. “You have to understand that when Loraly agreed to marry me, she asked me to promise her just one thing.”
“What was the one thing?” I asked hesitantly.
Alex’s jaw clenched as he answered. “That no matter what, I would always keep her safe. Always keep our children safe…and I failed her.” Alex’s head dropped in defeat as he said the last words.
“What do you mean agreed to marry you? Wasn’t she—isn’t she your One?” I asked, my heart beating faster.
Alex’s head jerked quickly back in my direction. “Of course she is. But being married to a chancellarius isn’t easy, and it isn’t for everyone,” Alex replied, and I couldn’t help but think he was talking about Patrick at the same time.
My dad looked at me for a long moment before he sighed, “Mai chisaya astari, I think you and me are long overdue for a talk.”
I flicked the fringe at the end of my scarf, and didn’t look at him. “You haven’t called me your ‘little star’ since I was a child.”
“Would you like me to stop?” Alex asked in an uncertain voice.
I looked up at him, my eyes still watery with tears. “No.”
A smile spread across his lips, and he put an arm around my shoulder. “So, mai chisaya astari, where should we begin…?”
We left the hotel suite the next afternoon, Alex’s hand wrapped around mine, just like when I was a child. Just like when I thought he could hold back all the horrible things in the world. Like the Kakodemoss hiding in my closet.
And even though I knew that he couldn’t, that he was just as vulnerable as me, I still felt safe. That safety that had always made me feel fearless. Because we were Galatheas, and whatever the danger, we would stay the course to the bitter end.
When Words Are Not Enough
Sunday, December 23rd
NUALLA
“I hope you’re ready to become the Chancellarius,” Alex said as we reached the front door of our SF estate. His umbrella still held above us even though we were now under the overhang of the large Victorian porch. As the sun had slid behind the tall buildings and hills on our ride home, it had started to rain.
I just stared at him in startled disbelief as he clarified, “Because your mother might just kill me.”
I gave him a look and took a step out of the pathway of the door. “Well, I’ll be right over here in case she starts throwing things.”
My father looked at me and rolled his eyes, and I realized—for quite possibly the first time in my life—that he had been young like me once, before he became my dad.
Alex reached for the door and then paused, his finger nearly brushing the metal. He sucked in a deep breath of air, and then he let it out slowly. Pushing open the door as the last of it passed his lips. He walked into the foyer, his eyes tracing his surroundings as if they were both unmistakably familiar, and yet strangely foreign at the same time. And I couldn’t blame him, because somehow, in the two days I had been gone, the interior of our estate had been transformed into a holiday wonderland.
Elaborate wooden lanterns hung at intervals above the stairs, their electric candles flickering and dancing convincingly. Strings of silvery beads hanging from the curving, horn-like ends of each of their eight sides. Real pine garlands lining the railing of the stairs, twinkle lights strung through, blinking softly like city lights in the distance, completing the dreamlike quality of the room.
Our normal mail table had also been removed, leaving a clear view to the Astari Tahara shrine on the opposite end of the foyer. Of the statue of Reshawn holding his hand out in a welcoming gesture, calling the stars home. More strands of the silvery beads behind him against the wall, looking like a waterfall of falling stars. The metal lotus bowl sitting out in front of him, waiting to accept our messages to our ancestors.
Alex paused to take it all in for a moment before he wandered over to the large Christmas tree in the living room as if in a daze. And then he just stood in front of it, staring, which was where Loraly found him.
She walked into the room carrying a box of decorations, and then stopped dead when she saw Alex. The box hit the floor with a muffled thump, but neither of them moved—they just stood there frozen for a moment staring at each other. Then Alex slid his hands into his pockets, and said gently, “Merry Christmas.”
“You’re two days early,” Loraly replied indignantly, her eyes glassy with tears.
“Actually, I think I am a bit late. Eight weeks late in fact,” Alex said shyly, and I was reminded once again that he had been young once. That before he had been the Chancellarius, he had been just a boy desperately in love with a girl. And there was something about the simplicity of that that was comforting. That if even he sometimes screwed up, there was still hope for the rest of us.
I walked up the stairs slowly, leaving my parents to figure things out. Because as much as I wanted to see just how exactly Alex was planning on making this up to Loraly, I had a date with my bed.
Feet dragging, I finally made it to the fourth floor and was about to push open my bedroom door when I stopped. I turned back, and looked down the hall. There was something taped to Patrick’s studio door. Something small and white that I had almost missed because it was nearly identical in color to the door.
I dropped my purse onto the floor, and walked slowly down the hall toward it. When I got to the door, I saw that it was a simple white envelope with a single word scrolled across it in Patrick’s handwriting.
Nualla
I pulled the envelope free and turned it over to slide out the card from within it. The card was plain white with no decoration at all, which was so unlike him that I was terrified. I quickly flipped opened the card and pushed the studio door open in the same moment, my heart beating uncomfortably fast against my ribcage. In the card, there was a single s
hort message in black ink.
There are no words to tell you how sorry I am. So I will ask for your forgiveness in the only language I have left.
As I finished reading the last word, the studio door fell open, and I looked up. There was something covering the wall, something I couldn’t quite make out in the darkness. With numb fingers, I ran my hand against the wall near the door until I found the switch. And then I just stared.
The wall was covered in canvases. Different sizes and shapes, arranged so uniformity was impossible. And between me and them, hundreds of paper cranes hung from the ceiling on uneven lengths of string, like falling rain. But it was what was on the canvases that made my heart stop. They were of us. Moments recreated in front of me, like someone had peeked into my head and laid my memories out like cards on a table. But no, not my memories, they were his.
They were as gentle as a whispered secret and as intimate as a kiss. And the canvas at the center—the largest one from which the others seemed to radiate—was of us in the rain. That day that seemed like forever ago. That day he had asked me to marry him. That day he had promised to love me for the rest of his life.
I let my eyes drift back out, to see the room as a whole, and my breath caught. Patrick had recreated the world the way he saw it. In a way that I could understand. In a place I could follow.
I may not have known a thing about drawing tablets, or what paint brushes were used with which paint, but I knew what art was supposed to do. What it was supposed to be. It wasn’t a decoration to dress up a dull space. No, it was something far more important than that. It was something that was supposed to make you feel. To tell you something—a message, a story—when words were not enough. The language that spoke to the soul in a way words never could. To reach your soul when words were not enough.
And hanging from the ceiling in the center of the sea of little paper birds was another note card envelope. I moved through the room carefully, the little paper birds brushing across my skin like tender, loving fingertips, and gently pulled the card free. Swallowing hard, I looked down at the note in my hands.
Nualla,
I have spent weeks, days, hours, moments, heart beats, trying to find a way to say I’m sorry. That I never meant to hurt you. That I would rather have died than cause you one moment of pain. But I couldn’t find the words, because I don’t think they exist. Not in English, not in Daemotic, not in any known language in this world. Even if you were here right now, and I could show you how terrible I feel about what I have done, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to cause you that kind of pain. So I can only ask for your forgiveness in the only language I have left.
If you can’t forgive me, I will understand. I’ll walk out of your life and never bother you again. But if you can still find it in your heart to be courageous enough to forgive me this one last time, I will be waiting in that place where I first asked for your forgiveness.
—Patrick
Something tapped against the note card and ran down its surface, making the ink of the message bloom and start to bleed purple around the edges. And then another hit the paper, and then another. I looked up, half expecting the paper cranes to have turned into real rain. And that’s when I felt them running down my face—tears.
The Kakodemoss, the world, the gods, and the stars themselves, had taken everything from him. Crushed his soul in every possible way, and yet he still held on. Still fought against fate. Fought with everything he had. To hold on to what he wanted. To hold on to me. And I had just turned my back on him and walked away. Because… Because I had thought it had been all lies and deception. All a fabrication and devious plot by the Kakodemoss. But I should have known. I should have realized, that Patrick was incapable of doing anything other than loving me with all his soul.
I felt something brush against my leg, and looked down. Denaya looked up at me questioningly. The pupils of her eyes large and black within their pools of liquid gold.
I reached down and picked her up. “Gods, Denaya, I’ve been so stupid,” I sobbed as I clutched her tightly to my chest and buried my face in her soft bluish-gray fur. And cried until there was nothing left inside me.
A Thousand Little Prayers to the Stars
Sunday, December 23rd
NUALLA
I ran through the rain, the icy darts beating against my skin. The lights from the shop windows streaming past me like falling stars. Scared to death that it was already too late.
There was no date on the note Patrick had left me. Nothing that told me how long it had been there. Whether he had left it today or yesterday or a week ago. And so I ran through the rainy night, pleading with the gods that I wasn’t too late.
I darted across the street to Union Square only a fraction of a second after the light turned green. And then I ran up the slick stone steps and into the square.
The place was a mob of holiday activity this close to Christmas. And so I had to push through groups of holiday shoppers crowding around the outdoor ice skating rink, not letting a little rain ruin their plans.
I searched the crowds of people, looking for Patrick. And with every moment that passed without me finding him, my breathing got a little more ragged. My heart raced a little faster. My eyes darted around more frantically.
In a nearly hysterical panic, I pushed past a group of tourists and stopped dead. There was a guy standing in front of the Christmas tree, looking up all eighty feet of it to the star on the very top. One of his hands was holding a black umbrella and the other was shoved into the pocket of a black hoodie. His raven-black hair drifted about in the light breeze, hiding and revealing black-blue eyes every few moments. A set of six-inch dusky-blue horns curving back from just above his ears. Still not full length, but much longer than I remembered.
I just watched him, unable to make my lips form the words to call out. He was here. It wasn’t too late. I wanted to run into his arms and tell him that I was sorry. That I was stupid. That I never wanted to be without him again. But I couldn’t seem to make my legs move. And so I just watched him watching the tree.
What could have been moments or hours later, Patrick turned slowly, searching the crowds as if someone had called his name. And then he saw me, and he stopped searching.
We both stood there frozen for a moment, just staring at each other. Neither of us moving, or even breathing. And then I finally found my legs, and I started to run. And he did too, dropping the umbrella in his wake.
I ran across the wet stone as if my life depended on it, never taking my eyes off his. And when I was only a few feet away from him, I felt my foot make contact with the puddle. I skidded forward and he held out his arms to catch me, spinning me around. And I wrapped my arms around him, and he held tight to me as if I was a life raft and he was drowning. And I could feel his heart pounding against my body, a perfect harmony to mine.
“Don’t let go. Don’t ever let me go,” I pleaded as I buried my face into the damp fabric of his hoodie.
“I won’t,” he promised as he hugged me tighter, and pressed his lips into my wet, tangled hair.
Several minutes later, Patrick pulled back just far enough that he could see my face, and ran his hand across my cheek to push the hair from my eyes. And for the first time since that night, I didn’t flinch at the thought of his touch. Because I knew he would rather die than hurt me ever again.
His eyes darted around my face, searching for what, I did not know. And then I realized what he was looking for in my eyes, permission. Confirmation that we were okay. Confirmation that I had forgiven him.
And I couldn’t help myself from asking, “Are you going to kiss me already, or do I have too?”
His lips spread into a grin and Patrick barked out a laugh that sounded like it had been trapped for far too long. And then he pulled me to his lips, not letting another moment pass before he kissed me.
I would have stood there for the rest of my life kissing him. But I couldn’t stop myself from shivering in the cold rain, and eventually he pulled his lips from mine.
Patrick looked down at me, at my thin shirt that was plastered to my skin and the goose bumps across my arms. “Gods, Nualla, you must be freezing in that.”
“I’m f-f-f-ine,” I stuttered as I shivered uncontrollably.
“Why don’t we get you home,” Patrick suggested as he took my hand in his and started leading me out of the square.
“No, I don’t want to go home,” I said quickly, pulling back on his hand so he was forced to stop walking. I looked around the square at the shops, cafes, and hotels before I looked back at him. “Let’s just go somewhere near here, okay?”
Patrick looked at me a long moment before a small crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Whatever will make you happy.”
“You make me happy,” I said quietly as I stepped closer to him, and looked up into his black-blue eyes. Eyes like captured night.
He wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and grinned down playfully at me. “Well that’s good, it would kinda suck if I didn’t wouldn’t it?”
“Probably,” I agreed, playing along.
He leaned down to nuzzle my nose with his and the warmth of it against my skin made me shiver harder. Patrick kissed the tip of my nose and then released his hold on my waist. He took a step out of the square and held his hand out to me. And I took it, and we started walking toward the street again.
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 27