“Oh, Colette.”
He scooped up her smooth hands within his rough ones and drew them to his still-cold lips and then to his chest. She inhaled sharply at the movement, and he could see the fear melting away like the spring’s thaw. He stepped closer.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Brenol whispered into her ear, breathing in her life. Her hair still smelled like honey to him. He tarried close for another moment and allowed her fragrance to intoxicate him with comfort—but even more, for she awakened his memory to love and another lifetime.
Colette’s eyes welled quietly. “And I thought we’d lost you,” she whispered back.
Brenol nodded, but as the words drew meaning, his face jerked to the side, and his dark jade eyes flickered with a wild hope. “We?” His voice quavered despite himself.
Her face scrunched in disbelief. “Arman didn’t tell you?”
Brenol did not even breathe as he stared at her with a desperate greed.
I don’t understand, she thought, but she realized she did not care.
Colette smiled broadly. She had ached for this moment for over two orbits. She lit her hand upon his forearm to offer a consoling touch while her wet cheeks glistened.
“Arman did not tell you… Yes. Come, meet your little girl.”
Brenol, already brimming with emotion, collapsed to his knees, weeping.
CHAPTER 32
The blue shall sweep over all
-Genesifin
The following septspan passed in both bliss and hardship. It was no easy adjustment for either Colette or Brenol, but their love blazed with a new fire, and the power of the soummal union helped to draw out the poison of a long absence. They each disclosed their story of the time apart and set to wrestling with unsettling truths—Brenol with the confusing turn of events regarding Gere; Colette with the knowledge that the lands had soaked up Jerem’s poison so she might one day save the Massadan people.
Their reunion was not the only aspect requiring adjustment. The crowded life of the bethaida pressed upon Brenol after his long-held silence. He was overwhelmed by the foreign world of dimmed corridors, pale faces, hand signals, and piercing glances. But Colette walked with him to help soften the culture shock and open his perception to the beauty and utility of Tindellan ways. Colette marveled at his integration, for the man applied himself with greater patience and ease than she had ever done. While their situations had been strikingly different, she knew his was neither simple nor painless.
“The Tindel are hard. But I expected them to be more resistant to my coming,” he mused to her one afternoon. They had been walking the gardens with Mari, her tinny voice singing a Tindellan tune. They were soon joined by other children who had come to harvest the early crops, and she had run off with them to play, leaving the soummen hand in hand in the wash of green. “You’ve won these people well.”
Colette pressed her lips together. “Not entirely.”
Brenol’s eyebrows raised in question.
She leaned in under the pretense of a whisper, but then remained there, for she only wanted to be close. “Yes, I’ve found my place here…but I think you do not realize how long it took. And really, it is only because of Mari in the end.”
“She has done what no one else could,” he agreed, nodding. His face lit in sudden recollection. “I have something to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how it even escaped my mind ‘til now.”
“What?” she asked.
“When you handled the tiny spherisols, what did they look like?”
Colette peered quizzically at him. “A little smaller than an egg. Black and reflective. It was just a miniature version of the large spheres. Why?”
Brenol shook his head, laughing. “As I was walking to the gardens just now to meet you, a group of clansmen cornered me and asked me to handle a variety of spheres. They were exactly as you described. They didn’t explain anything, but I made my own assumptions.”
Colette’s face emptied of all but desperate hope. “Bren, tell me. What happened?”
He smiled, understanding her reaction. “Turned green and melted in my hands like chocolate.”
Colette sighed and felt her shoulders dip down in release. “Thank goodness.” She met his eyes earnestly. “You can do it then. It’s you. And your line. You turn the spherisols. You.” She nodded with evident relief. “That certainly eases my mind about Mari’s future here. I’d feared the pressure and claim they might place on her.” She breathed in slowly, savoring the moment.
After a minute, a spark ignited in Colette’s eyes and she playfully poked him. “Although you will undoubtedly become their slave.” Her laughter leaped above the gardens like a song.
Brenol’s mouth stretched into a wide smile. “If it so pleases you, my queen.”
He drew Colette in for a tender kiss before cradling her against his chest. He stroked the silky hair from her weathered face and gazed down upon all her loveliness. His heart swelled with pride. She was strong and had done what no other could do. She had united the worlds and had saved them all. A bashfulness blossomed within him.
As Colette looked up, something about his glance soured her thoughts. She pinched her lips together but found she could not hold back her words; the two had lived with unanswered questions for long enough. “Why do you love me, Bren?”
His dark green eyes met her emerald ones in bafflement.
She held open a palm, and once her eyes had settled upon it, they could not seem to turn back to his face. Brenol considered her carefully. There was a deep furrow creased across her forehead. He recalled seeing it before, and it had confounded him then too. The wrinkle was but a hint of the dark cavity within her heart; Colette could not see the woman she was.
She’s so blind. Blind to the best things… Has my love taught her nothing?
Brenol paused before opening his mouth. She obviously needed more than simple reassurance and affection, and he felt lacking. Yes, he had known this woman in a past life, but her life since their separation had taken her to the foreign and beyond.
As he watched her eyes slide sideways, a new thought bubbled up within him. It nearly made him laugh it was so ridiculous—but nevertheless he voiced it. “Do you think I only love you because of Deniel?”
However unlikely it seemed to him, the truth of his conjecture was instantly confirmed by her expression. Colette’s features sagged hopelessly. Her green eyes pooled but did not overflow.
“Zette—No. Colette. Love.” He smiled and lifted her hand with both of his own. He rubbed the delicate fingers as he spoke. “There are no ‘what ifs’ here.”
Colette met the eyes of her soumme, and he saw the stormy uncertainty that resided there.
Brenol shook his head and began again. “I loved you from the beginning. It is hard to describe what I experienced in the cave when I saw you there. I was so young, untried… But in the midst of my jumbled emotions there was the birth of love. And jealousy.”
Brenol laughed, and his smile flashed handsomely. “It was clear that I could never hold the place he has in your heart, but eventually I saw there was room for something else. That he really was only a brother to you, and I could be more than that.
“Now,” he said, holding out his other palm in gesture, “it’s difficult to separate my emotions and Deniel’s—his affection for you, his desire to protect.” He paused to collect his thoughts and went on. “They were meshed that day in a manner I couldn’t control… But then the question is, why does it matter?”
She remained silent, her eyes flickering between her hands and his face.
“Things are what they are now. I do not love you as my sister, I love you as my soumme. And I love you because you are Colette. There are no ‘what ifs.’ What if Deniel had lived? What if he hadn’t given me his memories? Well, what if?” He squeezed her hands tenderly. “Colette, we’re here, and those things didn’t happen. I love you and have chosen you. My choice isn’t going to be und
one, and I’m going to make the same one every day. That’s what love is.”
“But why? Why me?”
Brenol’s lips spread into a wide smile. “That will take more than my lifetime to explain.” He shook his head, chuckling. “I couldn’t even quit this dying world when I tried because it was where you had lived!”
Brenol glanced around, considering. He smiled softly and said, “But to give you a picture…” He opened his hand to the gardens surrounding them. “This. This is the kind of thing that results from your presence—whether it came easily or not. You tread, and the world explodes with life and beauty.”
The gentle words poured into her doubt-pocked heart like healing oil. His hand reached up to caress her dark hair. She leaned into his touch, and the truth of his love overwhelmed her with freedom.
I am Colette. That is enough.
I am enough.
“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered into her ear. “You united the world. You saved what was left.”
She felt so full, so good, so drenched in love. Brenol was here, Mari was here, she had done what she had needed to do, and Brenol had done so too. And she was loved. She breathed in deeply and sighed in contentment. It was certainly not the way she had envisioned that things would turn out orbits ago, but it was right. Colette beamed, full of newfound peace.
“And I’m proud of you,” she said and smiled, her mind lingering upon the bravery it had required to end Chaul. “You fought that terrible spirit.” Her face twisted in sudden mischievousness and her weathered skin radiated light. “But most importantly, you finally fixed my nightmares.”
Brenol laughed, drawing her face to his. Her lips, soft and tasting of cinnamon, parted with a desire that warmed him all through. He wrapped his arms around her waist and tightened her body against his own. She was his and he was hers; all would be well.
Finally, their lips parted, but Brenol continued to hold her securely against him. “You know, I think the maralane knew all along what would pass.”
“What do you mean?”
Brenol kissed the crown of her head. “They knew the world would grow cold.”
Colette furrowed her brow. “Then why did they hate the Tindel so much?”
Brenol shrugged. “I don’t think the maralane knew everything. I think they realized some things were right without understanding why. Like the island. The maralane enlisted the Tindel to carve out those tunnels on the isle. That was where they first learned the craft.”
He traced her shoulder with his fingertips and continued. “The maralane truly believed that the tunneling would bring a unification… So even though reconciliation had nothing to do with an island in the end, perhaps they had much greater foresight than they realized. Tindellan tunnels have united two worlds, certainly.”
“I guess each side was right, in a way,” Colette said softly. “The Tindel had to step back to preserve, the maralane had to fight all of Massada to protect the portals. Both did all they could for the future.”
“And, strangely, they had to be against each other for it to work out.”
“I guess so. It makes my head reel to think about.”
Brenol nodded. Fate and the set course of future events had that effect. After a moment, he sighed. “It still troubles me, though… They kept the portals open and allowed Chaul to enter just so that I could one day come through as well?”
Colette pondered for a moment. “The maralane knew that one day a foreigner would help bring life. And that was what mattered. There’s always going to be messiness with each choice.”
“I suppose. It’s humbling. I don’t feel the great hero. Or worth the sacrifice of so many lives.”
Colette smiled. “Nor I. But it’s probably better that way.”
He gently tugged her away from him to look into her face. She breathed peacefully, but he could see her mind working. “What’re you thinking, love?”
She blushed slightly, opening her mouth for a few seconds as she sought to puzzle together words. “Well, I have this idea that keeps returning to me.”
“Yes?” he asked curiously.
Colette peered up. “I…well, I think that once the bethaidas under the terrisdans have been finished and the Massadans have had some time to adjust… I was thinking that I should name our whole land.”
Brenol’s eyebrow raised. “Hmmm?”
“Well, Massada has always been called Massada as if the world were just the terrisdans. Maybe it is silly…” A trace of bashfulness flickered momentarily across her face before she straightened it in resolve. “The Tindel saved us, and we are really now living in their world. I think I want to name the whole world ‘Tindella,’ to honor them for saving our remnant. For saving us.”
Is the Genesifin ever wrong? he pondered. He smiled and drew her close yet again. “I think it’s a perfect idea. You were made to be queen. I think the Three chose you for this task specifically.”
She contemplated that thought briefly. It was not something she would have considered on her own, and the meaning seemed too great to delve into at this point in time.
Brenol broke her from her reverie. “This isn’t the end,” he said. He pictured the terrisdans, the blue washing over them like an ocean swell. He did not shudder, but rather saw all in hope. The icing would not mean death. The cold would come, but they would live.
“No, not the end… Life has a way of finding a course,” she whispered. “And we will find it.”
“Yes. And Mari will be with us.” The love in his voice was evident.
The mere mention of their daughter’s name increased the glow of her countenance. Her features seemed more light than substance, and her eyes sparkled with joy. “Yes, with Mari.”
A dream from a night so long ago flashed before Colette’s memory, flooding her mind with pictures of children running through gardens, each as freckled and red-plaited as Brenol. It had originally filled her with an ache of loss, but today she breathed in the images with hope.
Perhaps there could be more miracles, she thought. Perhaps.
“I see more,” Bren said softly, as though reading her thoughts. He raised his quiet eyes to meet hers. “I see more children.”
She smiled, feeling as though her soul might burst apart it contained so much joy. “Me too, Bren,” she replied. “Me too.”
Dearest readers,
I have loved sharing the world of Massada with you. Thank you for being part of the magic. It has been a joy and more.
I would be delighted if you would take a moment to post a review/rating on Amazon or Goodreads. Thank you for everything.
It has been bountiful,
Monica Lee Kennedy
The Forbidding Blue Page 42