Michael stepped back from the shore and motioned for Ariana to come forward. Duncan reached over and squeezed her shoulder as she moved through the crowd. Her heart fluttered as everyone parted, but it was something she needed to do. Michael had explained to her what would happen during the Torradh; when he mentioned a song that was sung in remembrance of the dead, she had offered to sing it.
Michael spoke a short prayer as she came to stand beside him, instructing all to kneel at the end. She was relieved when Michael had told her earlier that they would stay facing downwards until she was finished. Every time her father returned, he always asked her to sing to him, even when she was little. While she loved music, it had always been difficult for her to sing in front of others. She wondered how many times her father had heard the Torradh sung in his lifetime and if he’d ever imagined that his own daughter would one day stand before their people for that very purpose. She took the book from Michael’s hands and took a deep breath, hoping she would remember the tune.
Upon the waking hour, I shall think of you
My heart grown still in sorrow
Till the setting of the future sun
When there shall be no morrow
Then we will meet again.
Upon the waking hour, I shall speak of you
Your memory etched in stone
Till the setting of the future sun
When all shall then be known
Then we will meet again
Upon the waking hour, I shall weep for you
My soul in longing waits
Till the setting of the future sun
When Adoria dances with Fate
Then we will meet again
Upon the waking hour, I shall sing for you
My voice grown weak in sound
Till the setting of the future sun
When victory resounds
Then we will meet again
Upon the waking hour, I shall wait for you
My home no longer here
Till the setting of the future sun
When I shed a final tear
Then we will meet again
She’d learned Adorian as a child, but the words, now sung from her lips, felt unfamiliar. When she finished, she knelt down as he’d instructed her. She could feel the chill from his body as he stood above her, shivering in the coolness of the night air.
“Go then, and speak unto our brethren who have left us. May the ancients bless and keep you.”
Everyone then rose to their feet in reverent silence and came to the water’s edge, lighting small candles from the torches the elders held. Ariana watched as all down the shore, tiny flames flickered to life like a thousand fallen stars. It was something to behold for certain, but more than anything, it broke her spirit to know that she’d caused their deaths.
Michael leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Had you not already stolen Garren’s heart, I think hearing you sing might very well have done it.”
She felt his absence as he left her to join the elders in their own private ceremony. Michael had told her their father used to lead them in the Teirlith Eisla, the old prayer, when he was alive. Michael now led the prayer.
Still kneeling, she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer that her father had taught her. She could still hear his gravelly voice reciting the words to her, before she was old enough to articulate them herself. She hadn’t said anything to Michael about it, but wondered if it was the same prayer.
After a time, a hand on her shoulder pulled her from her solitude. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but when she looked up, she saw the landscape was dark, the candles having long blown out, the shore deserted. She hadn’t heard Koen approach either, but he had come to her side while she prayed.
Garren leaned down and said, “The night grows much colder, and I don’t want to leave you out here alone.”
He reached out and helped her to her feet, then wrapped his cloak around her.
“It is chilly,” she whispered, pulling it closer to her.
“You sing beautifully.”
She looked at him and smiled, the darkness hiding the depth of her expression. “Thank you for the compliment, though I wish it were a different occasion.”
Garren nodded. “As do I.”
They stopped as they reached a gate that opened to a steep stairwell, edging its way up the mountain. She looked to the castle, and then to Garren. “I’m not quite ready to end this night. Walk with me?”
He reached out, taking her hand in his. “What are you thinking?”
She kept her head down as they walked back down to the shore of the lake, Koen following beside them. “I was thinking about my father.”
Garren’s hand felt solid against hers, as she shivered, both from her remaining grief and the cold. He placed his other hand on top of hers and brought it to his mouth, absentmindedly warming it with his breath, as if it were something he had done before.
Suddenly he paused, realizing his actions. “I never truly breathed, nor opened my eyes before I came upon you in the woods. I don’t understand it, but I am hushed in its presence.”
“I saw it in your eyes,” she said. “And I saw the same fear and confusion in your eyes as I stood before you at the gate in Eidolon.”
“The dream,” he whispered, “I thought you’d cursed me, yet was terrified for you all the same.”
She started to reach up to touch his face, but withdrew her hand, remembering his response when she had done so in the cell.
He grabbed her hand before it reached her side, and pulled it to his cheek. “I wanted nothing more than for you to be by my side. Had I been executed, I would have spent my last hours wishing, quite pathetically, for one last kiss, for one final glimpse of your face.” He grinned. “And you, my lady, damn well know it.”
Ariana ran her fingers over his skin, tracing every line until she came to the scar her brother had left on his face. He cringed and started to open his mouth to apologize again for the past when she interrupted him.
“Hush,” she whispered. “Perhaps you should stop fretting over the life you’ve left behind and pay a little more attention to the one ahead you.”
“You say that with an invitation in your eyes, yet wasn’t it you who told me I’d have to do something akin to saving your life if I were ever to be granted permission to kiss you again?”
She shook her head in mild protest. “That wasn’t what I meant by what’s before you.”
He closed the distance between them. “Isn’t it?” he whispered.
Ariana cleared her throat and tried to appear disinterested, despite the heat in her cheeks. Why did he have to make this so awkward? This apparently amused Garren more than a little bit because when he laughed, it brought tears to his eyes.
“Your bark is so much worse than your bite. You can kill trained warriors, walk fearlessly into a room full of high-ranking Ereubinian elite, sass an Adorian sovereign who most wouldn’t consider even inconveniencing, tell the High Lord of Eidolon to his face that you could care less who he is, then go to him, alone and unarmed, pretending to be a ghost come to torment him and yet,” he lifted her chin with his knuckle, “you don’t know what to do with yourself now, when things aren’t on your terms.”
“Perhaps you’re stretching to say that things aren’t on my —”
He framed her face with both hands and before she could say a word, he pressed his mouth against hers with enough passion to silence even her soul from thinking about anything but the warmth of his kiss.
Garren moved one arm to her waist to press her body closer to his, wrapping the other around her shoulders to caress the back of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat as she moaned against him, against the feel of his tongue teasing hers with gentle strokes.
He held onto her for a brief moment after she pulled away, lifting his head to kiss her brow. His once-steady hands trembled as he enclosed her hands once again in his. “I know not where our souls have met, but I have never
loved another. I am more certain of it than I am of anything in this life.”
Ariana closed her eyes, breathing in his scent. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak, finding that she’d lost the words.
Garren lifted her face to his. “It was not chance that led me to follow you into the woods, nor could it be an accident that you were hidden away in Palingard.”
He reached up, brushing a strand of her hair aside that had fallen loose from the hood of the cloak. “You really didn’t have any idea that you were Adorian?”
She shook her head. “I thought they didn’t exist, that it was man’s way of inventing something to have faith in, that the darkness had grown so great that even false light would illuminate it.”
Thoughts of her father, words he’d said on the subject, came back to mind. “My father, who abhorred any mention of Adoria, left Palingard ten years ago and didn’t return. I set out in the path that I watched him take when he last departed, not knowing where it led. I can still remember running barefoot in the night, following him as far as I could go. He never knew I was there. We’d argued and I wanted to apologize. He left sooner than he had expected to, and didn’t say goodbye. Michael disagrees, but I think he chose to leave early because he was angry with me.”
Garren shook his head. “Michael is wise, believe him. He treats you as if he has never been separated from you, so I doubt that he would outright lie to you, even to spare your feelings.”
She leaned her head back against the warmth of his chest, her body shaking from the cold.
He leaned down and whispered, “It is too cold out here for you, let’s go inside.”
“I’m alright,” she murmured. He was right, it was freezing, but her desire to be alone with him and away from the earshot of others kept her from agreeing.
“Shall we walk farther?”
She nodded, keeping her hand held in his, and they started back down the shore. “I saw a bandage on Sara’s hand. I assume Aiden didn’t put it there.”
“I did. I hadn’t seen Sara since … it had been quite a few days. I came across her when I entered Aiden’s chambers. She wasn’t supposed to be there.” Garren’s eyes went unfocused as he recalled it. “She faced the floor as she sat curled up along the far wall, near the window. When I lifted her face, I saw the bruises. She had a cut on her hand as well, and I tended to it with what I could find in his room. He came in before I was finished.”
Garren exhaled sharply. “I want to — I have, but I can’t rightly call him cruel, because of my own transgressions.”
She squeezed his hand. “There are moments in your life prior to now that contain traces of the man who stands before me.” She stopped him again.
He didn’t immediately respond. “Maybe when I was a child. When I was still an Innocent, but none after that. Ariana, you have such a gentle spirit. I pray you never fully understand the weight of the blood that I have spilled.”
“I watched my mother die before my eyes, and not a kind death. Michael told me earlier this afternoon that it was your mentor who took her from us. Do you not think that being raised by such a vile being would affect you?” Garren did not respond. “The human who was chosen for you to marry — were you unkind to her?”
He shook his head. “No. But I can’t promise you that I would have been kind had I married her prior to Palingard’s fall.”
“I don’t believe you would have treated anyone like Aiden has treated Sara. Your response to this girl is proof enough.”
Garren brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “No, but some wounds go deeper than the surface.” He glanced at the now motionless waters of the lake.
“Michael said you are leaving at first light?”
He nodded. “Don’t be offended by what I am about to say. I just need you to know that Sara will be changed.”
“I know that,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “You know that she will be different, but what none of us can know is how long it will take her to heal from all of this, or if she will at all. I saw the blood on her gown. There were more wounds than I could tend to, Ariana. When we return, her hands will be bound and she will probably be under the influence of whatever the healer can provide to dull her senses. I didn’t want that to take you by surprise.”
“When … I mean, will you not return her soul sooner?”
“I won’t even attempt it until we’re well past our borders.
She smiled as he finished his sentence. As he looked at her, it was clear by his expression that he didn’t understand the sentiment behind the gesture. “You said, ‘our borders.’” She said the words slowly, each syllable precious. She wanted nothing more than for him to loosen the burdens that he carried, and while this was not a promise of such things, it was a hint of what could be.
“I didn’t mean …”
She silenced him with a kiss. “You are one of us,” she whispered, her lips still touching his. He smiled, but remained still. She leaned back, met his eyes, and found a trace of mirth in them. “If you would prefer your own company, I’d be happy to turn around and — “
He grabbed her just as she’d looked away. Then, with such tenderness that it made Ariana weak, he traced her lips with the pad of his thumb, as if to memorize every inch. When he kissed her, the world fell away beneath her.
The sensation was strong enough to make Ariana feel as though her heart were no longer beating. Her eyes were closed, but visions were before her. They were no longer in front of the lake, but in the temple in Arcadia, haunted by faint images of another embrace, another kiss. She heard both of their voices, hushed in the darkness, at first unable to understand the words, just that they were laden with sorrow and weighted by fear.
Then, Garren’s voice, though she could still feel his lips unmoving on hers, said soothingly in the darkness, “I will find you.”
She pulled away and looked at Garren, searching for any trace of what she had just experienced. He tightened his grip, letting one hand slide through her hair, and leaned down to rest his cheek on the top of her head.
She couldn’t speak, hearing the echo of his words in her mind — the looming feel of darkness like the swell of warmth before a spring storm trailing along her skin.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
HOLLOW
A
iden was too afraid to move. He stood frozen, his eyes searching the crowd. He reached to his belt, fingering his dagger lightly to assure himself that it was still there, though if he … were out there, it would do Aiden little good.
After several minutes, he started to wade back through the humans to the castle. He couldn’t look at them for fear of seeing him again so he kept his eyes to the ground until he reached the wall. Everything appeared as it should have; nothing out of place, no glances, no whispers. He laughed under his breath, having convinced himself that he’d been hallucinating. To consider anything else was ludicrous.
After he entered the south hall, he returned to his room and paused. Something was wrong. He couldn’t quite place what it was. There was a stillness in the air, an absence of something perhaps, the lingering of something that had been there, but was now gone. He glanced at Sara, her eyes no more focused than her voice sounded whenever she spoke with him. Hollow. His head hurt, anger swelling inside him. He pushed his fear to the back of his mind. He had other things to consider. Things like Garren’s sudden shift in perception. Aiden had been so angry with Garren that when he saw the girl Tadraem had described to him, he felt nothing but blind hatred.
Now, in the quiet of his room, Garren’s absence became real. He felt discomfort in his chest and rubbed the tightness away with the heel of his hand. The room spun and he felt uneasy in his stance. He leaned over onto the bed, lowering himself down to rest on the very edge.
He looked at Sara. “I would never have suspected him of treason. Not him. When we were children we would talk of when everything would come to fruition, when the realm of man would finally fall. How weak h
e was to betray his beliefs so easily.” His face warmed and he felt his eyes sting. “I hate him still, even as he lies dead and rotting in the ground.”
His voice trembled as he spoke, his hand shuddering as he brought it to his face to wipe the sweat from his brow and the tears as they fell from his eyes. He rose from his seat and walked to the window, suddenly smelling the horrid stench of burning bones and flesh. Their cries had been drowned out by the sound of the all-consuming flames. As much as they deserved it, such a thing was not something he cared to see, the death of the very same men who’d just ridden with them into Palingard and had stood by Garren’s side. They knew better. Garren had told them on many occasions that were he ever to falter in his decisions, to do what the faith would have them do —had he not faltered?
Then, hesitantly, he sat beside Sara. He leaned sideways and looked into her eyes. “There is hatred for me in those eyes.” He gripped her chin with his hand, pressing his fingers into her skin and turned her face to his, truly looked at her for the first time since he’d met her. Her hair was dark blonde and fell thick at her shoulders. Her eyes were light in color, not quite blue or green. Her face was bruised in places, several cuts still healing along the outer edges of her jaw from where he’d hit her, not remembering to remove his metal-adorned gloves.
Sara’s lip was cut at the lower right corner of her mouth. He watched her chest rise and fall with breath, the nape of her neck move where her blood flowed just beneath the surface of her skin. She was by far more beautiful than any of the other breeders he’d seen. He ran his hands through her hair, something that had never crossed his mind before now. It felt soft in his hands, sliding between his fingers. It reminded him of a moment that was nothing but a vague memory now, standing in the darkened hallway, resting along the wall next to her. He was but eight years old at the time. He’d kissed her. It was brief, but he remembered her hair more than anything. It was dark, like the color of night. It was nothing like Sara’s, but it felt the same.
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