“Jarik? Jarik? Please be here,” I wished aloud. Leiset held a lantern behind me as I walked into the bedchamber. “Jarik? Please tell me that it’s all a terrible mistake, please …”
As Leiset entered with the lantern, I saw that there was no one in the bed. Jarik was not in the room. My hands begin to shake.
Then I noticed the black cloth hung over the mirror, which I knew to be a Kydren tradition to inform a dead person’s spirit that they are being mourned and must no longer reside in this room.
The sight struck me as a blow to the chest, and I fell to my knees in physical and emotional agony. When finally I managed to suck back a breath, I began to sob loudly. As Leiset spoke to me in panicked tones, I crawled on my hands and knees back to the receiving room and pulled myself up onto the couch where my beloved Champion had once held me in comfort. My entire soul poured out as tears as I longed for him to return and hold me that way again.
Suddenly Kurit was beside me, putting a gentle arm around my sobbing shoulders. “Aenna? Aenna, my love, you shouldn’t be up. Come, let me take you back to your room.”
I shook my head as I wept, but I turned around enough to let him embrace me. His arms were loving and warm but could not replace Jarik’s. I sobbed desperately into Kurit’s shoulder.
I suppose I ought to have felt guilty, for there I was in my husband’s arms, mourning another man whom I loved. So filled was I, though, with sorrow and heartache that there was no room for guilt as well. My only thought at the time was a prayer to bring my Champion back to me. My mind kept calling out, I want my Jarik back. Please, Jarik, come back to me.
After some time of sobbing, fatigue slowed my mourning down to a much quieter stream of tears. My head pounded so that I thought it might split open. I actually wished that it would.
Kurit pulled back and tried to lift my face towards his. I soon let him, but I could not look at his eyes. I was too ashamed of loving Jarik with such intensity.
Leiset handed Kurit a handkerchief. He gently dabbed my puffy and sore cheeks and then kissed my forehead.
“I know how much he meant to you,” he said, his voice rough with sadness. “I loved him too. He was as a brother to me, my only friend and companion my whole life long. I know it hurts, and I feel the same emptiness at his loss that you do. But he didn’t want this, Aenna. He wouldn’t have wanted you to make yourself ill again weeping for him.”
Tash burst into the room and began to chastise everyone in sight. I leaned to Kurit so that my mouth was near his ear, and I whispered, “Keep that ghoul away from me. I shall banish the next person who drugs me against my will.”
Kurit kissed my cheek and rose from the couch, leaving me hunched over in mourning. He took Tash aside and quietly spoke with him. I could not hear what was said, and I didn’t care. All I knew was that the most noble, kind, and wonderful man I’d ever known had taken his life because of me. A thousand ways that I could have prevented this tragedy entered my mind to torture me further.
I glanced up as I saw Tash step around Kurit to approach me. Kurit grabbed the physician’s arm and declared, “If she’s strong enough to walk here, she’s strong enough to mourn. I’ll take care of her.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head on the back of the couch. I heard Kurit ask Tash and Leiset to leave us alone and close the door behind them. He sat back down beside me and took my hand in his.
For a long time he said nothing; he simply sat by my side, and I was grateful for it. I thought about what he had said, that he had loved Jarik as well, and I grieved for his loss along with my own. It crossed my mind that such a thing might turn him back to his drunkenness, but, unable to deal with such a notion in that moment, I pushed the thought away.
My eyes still closed, I whispered, “Are you angry with me?”
Kurit caressed my cheek and replied, “No. Why would you think such a thing?”
After a moment, I opened my eyes and looked into his. He looked so pained, and I didn’t know if it was because of my question or if he had borne that expression since finding me in Jarik’s chambers.
Tears welled up in my eyes again as I said, “Because you must know that I loved him deeply.”
“Oh, Aenna,” he whispered sadly as he pulled me into his arms. He cradled me, stroking my hair softly. “I’m not angry with you at all. I know you would not have sought his embrace if I had been there for you, if I had not been causing you such grief. He told me that you were not unfaithful to me. He told me about your great pain, and how my foolishness wore away your independent resolve until you needed someone to be there for you. I’m actually thankful he was there.”
He kissed my forehead. “I’ll be honest with you,” he continued. “Had it been any other man, I can’t say that I could be so fair-minded. Not that I’d have been angry with you, though. I don’t think I would have been, because I’d like to imagine that I would still have the sense to accept my own fault in all that has happened. But any other man who would take you into his heart in such a manner … I think that I would have been furious with him. I would have loathed any other man. But not Jarik, my cousin and friend. He may have been quite the scoundrel before we knew you, but I am all too aware of how abruptly his life changed when you entered it. He was never a man to steal the love of another.
“I think that I always knew that he loved you, but I ignored it. I was too wrapped up in my own feelings for you to consider his. I saw how he doted upon you, worried for you, and desperately wished to protect you from all harm. And he was my dearest friend. I suppose I couldn’t bear to think that I was hurting him by having you when he did not.
“We spoke before he left, and I told him myself that I did not begrudge the love you shared, because I understand it. Perhaps if he had lived and in days to come I was to witness you being so emotionally close, I might have felt a hint of jealousy. I am human, after all. But I should like to think that I could trust both of you, had he lived.”
I wondered how much Jarik had told him. I was not angry, for I suspected Jarik spoke only because he thought I was dying. But I wondered how much Kurit knew. I wondered if he knew that I had begged for Jarik to make love with me. I prayed that he did not and that he did not know how Jarik had brought me to ecstasy. I could not bear to have Kurit condemn me in that moment.
“I love you, Kurit. I love both of you. I know that’s wrong, immoral—”
Kurit put his finger on my lips and gently said, “Hush. It’s never immoral to love. I loved him too, albeit in a different way. Aenna, I know this is poor comfort right now, but I want you to know that you shall never have to turn to someone else for solace again. Not as long as I live.” He took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. “I swear it. I shall not let you down again. I want you to be able to count on me to hold you when your own strength isn’t enough. Even if Jarik were alive and well, I would say this to you. Nothing can replace that good man in our lives, but I want you to understand that no man, living or dead, shall be needed to replace me again.”
I began to cry again. Kurit held me and many times kissed my forehead.
As my tears began to grow quiet once more, Kurit unexpectedly chuckled softly. I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked at him in surprise.
Kurit smiled at me a little and said, “I’m sorry. I just find myself remembering the oddest little things from our childhood that I haven’t thought about for years. I was just recalling the time when we went swimming in the lake at the cottage without permission and had swum across to the other shore, leaving our shoes and shirts on the main shore, and were chasing each other in the trees, so we didn’t notice when our nurse came looking for us. She found our shoes and shirts at the edge, with no sign of us in the water, and she started shrieking, ‘They’ve drowned! They’ve drowned! Somebody help!’
“We slipped quietly back into the water, and Jarik, the rascal, he went underwater and swam fast to the other side, surfacing quietly behind her, then crept up to her and tapped her shou
lder as she wept hysterically. She turned, saw him, and screamed so loud that it echoed over the lake. Then she fainted dead away, and he stood there, dripping wet, with a mischievous grin upon his face.”
I found that I was smiling incredulously. “Jarik did that?” I asked.
Kurit nodded and laughed, though his eyes were still sad. “You have no idea what a rascal he was before you inspired him to grow up. Oh, Aenna, I could tell you such stories you wouldn’t believe.”
“Tell me,” I whispered. “It would help me to hear of him in happier days, even if he did deserve to have all privileges removed for at least a week for such a prank.”
So Kurit began to tell me stories of jokes and mishaps and adventures the two boys had shared. We wept often as he spoke, but some of the stories were just too ridiculous to not inspire a laugh. My heart ached, but I did not feel as empty as I had before. Jarik’s life had been cut brutally short, and for that I will always mourn, but his life had been a good one. I took what comfort I could from that.
Kurit spoke until the light of first dawn could be seen under the crack of Jarik’s bedchamber door. My dear husband kissed my cheeks and forehead and then said, “I should take you to your bed.”
He rose and lifted me up from the couch. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he carried me to my bed. As he laid me there, he said, “You’re as light as the air, Aenna. Please don’t let this tragedy prevent you from getting well. When we thought you were dying, the people heard of what had happened and gathered all around the palace, singing lamentations, weeping pitifully, bearing flowers and candles in hope and prayer for your life. There are so many living people who love you and need you. Please don’t let yourself waste away for one who is dead.”
I nodded, unable to think of anything to say.
“Shall I stay with you here?” he asked.
I nodded again, and he slipped under the blankets with me. As I lay in my husband’s arms, I saw again that last terrible image of Jarik’s anguished face. Before I could begin to weep again, I forced myself instead to remember how my Champion had kissed me just before we arrived back home. Remembering his soul-lifting kiss gave me the peace I needed to finally sleep.
* * *
A few days later, when she thought I would be able to handle it, Leiset gave me the sealed letter that Jarik had asked her to put in my hand when I was dead. She wept as she handed it to me and then offered to leave me alone to read it.
“No,” I said. “Stay with me. This is going to be awful. I can feel it already.”
She sat beside me on the bed so she could read along with me. I broke open the seal and unfolded the letter. Just seeing Jarik’s handwriting made my heart heavy. His words almost made me wish I had died after all:
To my dearest love Aenna,
These words come too late, as you are dying of a wound I should have prevented. I beg for your forgiveness in failing again to protect you from harm. Your life since knowing us has been filled with such strife and pain, and yet through most of it you remained strong and resilient, and I am so proud of you for that. My heart breaks to remember when your strength failed you, and although I am glad you lived through it and found some comfort in my arms, I cannot help but feel guilty for sentencing you to live only to meet such a gruesome end. But Kurit says that you embraced him, and I take some solace in knowing you and he were back on the path to love and happiness before this tragedy.
And oh, dearest love, it is a tragedy! Your name shall be sung by the bards throughout time as the Good Queen Aenna who loved her people and was strong for them. The people already weep for you as you are dying, and I do not doubt that the generation of daughters born in the next several years will be full of girls bearing your name, in your honour. Life shall go on for them without you, but already you are a woman of legend, and your story touches their hearts and inspires them.
But life cannot go on for me without you. Not only because I love you and my life would be empty, meaningless, and dark without your bright presence, but because it was ultimately my failing that led to this. I declared myself your Champion, yet I have repeatedly failed to protect you from harm. Now all of Keshaerlan pays the price of my folly.
I hold before me the blade that took your life. It has been cleaned of your blood and that of the cruel woman who committed this unspeakable crime against us. I shall use this very blade to take my own life, for it would be a great dishonour for your so-called Champion to live a moment longer than you. I know that if you were able, you would beg me not to take my life even as yours fades, but it is only right that I precede you into death. I pray that I may be more helpful to you in death than I have been in life. I shall wait on the path to the Everafter for you, and watch over you there in chaste love until it is Kurit’s due time to join us.
I shall ask good Leiset to place this in your hand upon your mournful entombment, that your soul may be aware of its content and know to watch for me on the path.
I await you in love and sorrow,
Jarik
“By the Gods,” I whispered as I dropped the letter and covered my face with my hands. I cried into my hands as Leiset put her gentle arms around me, weeping herself. “Oh, Leiset, if only he had waited a few days!”
“He still would not have forgiven himself,” she said. “You know how guilt-stricken he was when he thought that it was his failure that led to your abduction. This time he was actually in the room. He may well have gone mad, had he lived.”
That awful thought broke my heart all the more. “Still, had he lived …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The crushed possibilities were so many that I could not speak of merely one.
After some time of crying together, Leiset collected herself enough to say, “Aenna, I know this will not comfort you now, but I believe Jarik may have saved your life in his death.”
“Whatever do you mean? How could that be? This has almost killed me itself!” I replied in anguish.
“I think perhaps his soul left his body and went into yours to strengthen you. I know it sounds foolish, but if you knew how close you seemed to death … Aenna, there’s a part of me that truly believes Jarik gave you his soul, and he lives inside you now.”
I tried to smile, but I could not believe the fanciful notion. “That’s a pleasant concept,” I said, trying to sound appreciative, “and one I wish I could believe, but if he is inside me I wouldn’t feel such a dreadful emptiness when I think of him.”
“You need to remember the good things about him,” Leiset advised. “You need to hold your mind to the times when he made you smile.”
I nodded. “I know. When I remember him laughing, rare though that was, or the joviality of his spirit in teaching me to dance so long ago, those things make me smile. But more often I remember that look on his face when he was concerned for me, that tender look of worry coupled with helplessness when he was at a loss as to how to make things better for me. I remember how dearly he cared for me, and how that adoration cost him his life, and I feel responsible.”
“It would break his heart to know you feel that way.”
“I know,” I said, my chin trembling as I tried not to cry again. “That makes it worse, knowing that I am probably making his spirit miserable, if he does indeed watch me from the Everafter.”
“You must stop this cycle of guilt, Aenna. You ought to speak to him.”
“To whom?” I asked, confused.
“To Jarik. You ought to close your eyes and imagine that he is here, for he just may be, and you should tell him how you hurt for him. Imagine him comforting you. Imagine the things you know that he would say if he could put his arms around you. For somewhere, be it within you or on the path to the Everafter, this man who died loving you loves you still, and you must know he is reaching to you in comfort as much as he can.”
She got up from the bed and said, “Speak to him now. You know he can hear you. I shall make sure no one interrupts you.” Leiset locked the door to Kurit’s bedroom, then went into my
receiving room and closed the door behind her.
I turned onto my right side and pulled a pillow towards me. The very idea of speaking to him seemed absurd, but now that Leiset had suggested it, I found that I very much wanted to do so. Still, I felt so silly at the thought that I just remained in silence for a few minutes.
Then I picked up Jarik’s letter and read it again. I savoured every word, gazed over every letter that his hand had written. I ran my fingers gently across it, my heart aching to know that this was the last thing he would ever write. I began to weep again when I considered how awful the poor man had felt when he died.
“Jarik,” I called out softly as I clung to a pillow, letting it catch my tears. “Jarik, where are you now?” I asked. It felt foolish to speak aloud, and I was embarrassed even though no one was there. So instead I spoke silently from my mind, asking, Are you thinking of me? Can you see me? Can you feel my tears? By the Gods, Jarik, I am sorry! I know this must be torture for you, to see that your death has hurt me so and not be able to hold me. I know you did not wish to hurt me. I love you for being so noble, but why did you do this?
I sobbed into the pillow, but as I did so I began to feel angry. “Why did you do this?” I asked aloud miserably, then furiously cried out, “How could you leave me like this? You promised you’d always be there for me!”
I heard my own words and was stricken with guilt for having uttered them. He died so that he could be there for me, and there I was condemning him for his ultimate act of sacrifice.
My cursed mind then wondered if it had been painful for him. I remembered the gory horror of Kasha’s death. Jarik had taken his life in the same way. Had he gagged on his blood as he died? The very thought made me scream into my pillow for him. To suffer so, and all in vain!
Sorrows of Adoration Page 52