“At last you return!” She cries, holding her arms out as the twins leap from my embrace and run back to sit in the corner, ignoring the tapestry and watching us intently. It is as though they can sense that something big is coming, they are always so attuned to the world for two so young. Before our father died, they kept closer to him than usual. They finish each other’s sentences. It is as if they possess some demonic sixth sense.
“Indeed I have mother, how have you been?” I finish, feeling my nerves grow in my belly like a ball of butterflies. I embrace her, feeling the bosom that fed me for what I know is perhaps the last time.
“All the better now you are home. I need that gate fixing out the back again!” she exclaims, looking hopeful.
“Mother, I have something to tell you of where I have been.” I confess and I see the twins grasp each other’s hands out of the corner of my left eye. The candles flicker in the wind, which has slowly gotten increasingly more violent. I take in a large breath before saying the words I have been dreading.
“I am off to war tomorrow, mother; I have been to the mainland to enlist. I will be fighting for Cyprus.” Her face crumples and a tear rolls down one of her cheeks all at once. I reach to my leather belt pulling a fabric drawstring bag loose and hand it to her.
“This is the money I was given for my enlistment, I will send more when I can but this should be enough to look after you, Azure, and Starlet until then.” She nods, grasps the purse and turns back to the stove, stirring with a large wooden spoon, silent.
I mount Philippe later that night, ready to journey to the mainland before shipping out at dawn tomorrow. My sisters stand in the doorway and my mother behind them, a hand on each shoulder. She says not a word, nor has said a word since I told her, that I, her only son, am off to war.
“I fixed the gate.” I announce from horseback, the moon rising above us and leaving a white melancholy glow over the world I have grown in.
“I love you.” I hear my mother whisper and my sisters burst into tears. I cannot stand it any longer and I click my heels against the underside of Philippe’s black belly. He whinnies and we turn, galloping away at full speed, away from the village in which I was born, away from the house in which I grew up, away from the bed in which my father died, and toward a world of almost certain death. As we climb away from the edge of the cliff on which I have grown up, I look out over the water and I see the stunning reflection of the moon in its glassy surface. The stars for which I was so named twinkle from its reflective depths, and as a tear rolls down my cheek involuntarily and I breathe in deeply, I swear I can hear a psiren call somewhere in the distance.
CALLIE
I am crying; the images in my mind so clear it is as though Orion projected them from his own. He takes his gentle fingers from the temples of my forehead and I gasp as the images fade away, a distant memory that is not my own.
“How?” I stutter, shocked, sorrowed at his tale.
“It’s our connection as soul mates, a mer gift. I can show you my memories, and in time, you will be able to show me your own as well.” He whispers and strokes my cheek, pulling my head against his chest as tears, denser and milkier than those of a human, roll down my cheeks slowly, crystallising and falling as diamonds. He kisses my hair and strokes his expert fingers across my scalp. I groan, feeling more relaxed and cathartic, this is the first time my mind has stopped racing since I left the Lunar Sanctum. His fingers trail up and down my spine soothingly and I calm a little more, the slits in my neck opening and closing more slowly, filling my lungs with air more deeply.
“Do you want me to continue? We can try again if you like. Please remember though, this is my recollection of events, it doesn’t make them accurate. They’re subjective.” He whispers huskily into my hair and my stomach ties into knots. I had been dying to know about his very long life since we had met, but now, when I finally discover the key to the lock on his past, I have discovered not the wonderful life I was expecting, but rather one of pain and loneliness. The thought of hearing what I know is the next part in the story, where Orion dies young, and far from his family, is too much to bear in this moment, especially as he has the power to turn my mind into his very own surround sound cinema.
“No. I’m good for now.” I reply hastily, looking up at him and he sighs a little, looking at me as though I am hopeless.
“It was too much, wasn’t it?” He looks guilty and I nod slowly.
“I don’t understand. You said you wanted to know.” He is right to be confused. Hell, I’m confused. Then I have an idea, a way to make him understand. I trust in my instincts and sit up, brushing the diamonds from the bedspread. I want to ask about the tears but my mind is so full and I know I need to focus. I kneel, curving my tail beneath me as though it were legs and find the position surprisingly comfortable.
I place my hands on Orion’s temples and he looks a little surprised, but stays still none the less. He closes his eyes and then I focus on the memory I wish to show him. I see his eyebrows raise and while focusing on the memory I am projecting, another pops into my head, and another, and another. Orion reaches up and takes my hands from his head after a few minutes, looking troubled.
“What did you see?” I ask as he sighs and sits up slowly against the pillow on the bed.
“A montage of your worst moments.” he admits, looking grim and running a hand through his tousled mahogany locks. His eyes freeze, just beneath their surface, turning colder than I have seen them in a while. I shiver.
“Oh, I’m sorry; I was trying to project just one memory.” I confess, thinking of the past and grimacing internally.
“You will be able to eventually, it just takes practice and control.” He explains and I smile a little at his face, so gorgeous, so stunning, and mine.
“So, I’m guessing you didn’t see what I was trying to show you?” I guess, annoyed that my plan failed. I flop back on the bed.
“I saw you waiting for your dad and crying when he didn’t show up because your mom lied to you. Then it becomes glimpses of you crying, you and your mom fighting, your step dad putting you down.” He lists the events that compile the worst of my life and I realise I have forgotten my family in all of this. How worried must my mother be? I feel guilty as Orion continues, a hard lump forming in my throat. “I see why my past is hard for you … we’ve both known pain, and loneliness.” He says placing a massaging palm on my belly and I relinquish a slight smile.
“The worst kind of loneliness is the loneliness you feel even when you’re surrounded by people.” I conclude feeling reflective. “I’d like to see some other times from your past though, times when you were in good company, even if that’s female company.” I request and he looks suspicious. I don’t care though, I’m burning with curiosity about his other conquests, and in the back of my mind it’s slowly consuming me not knowing.
“I’m not showing you memories of myself with other women, Callie. You can forget it.”
“But –”
“No.” His jaw is set square and his eyes blaze with stubborn resolve.
“I’m probably imagining much worse than anything that actually happened. It would put my mind at ease.” I plead with him.
“I’m not letting you see me that way, Callie. You don’t understand. Those years of solitude, they made me angry. I didn’t handle it well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, feeling my heart beat like a bird frantically trying to escape my rib cage.
“Look, can we just drop it please!” He snaps and I recoil, scorned by his temper.
“I just want to understand what you’ve been through. I want to try to take away the pain.”
“You do that just by being here next to me Callie. Please don’t feel sorry for me. My life isn’t so bad. Come, let me show you something.” Orion commands and we both float from the bed. I swim into the main room and perch on the sofa, turning over its arm to view Orion as he places himself in the middle of the room. He places hi
s hands out in front of him and shuts his eyes. I see the water ripple almost immediately between them. Instantaneously, heart shaped bubbles appear and float towards me before ascending, their density less than water. I clap unconsciously, how on earth did he do that?
“I have control over the air; it’s the gift the Goddess gave me. I’m known as an Aeromancer,” he says proudly and I wonder how useful this gift is. I watch him displace the water and realise that this kind of ability, plus an ocean full of water to displace and use, could be really dangerous. I then reason that this is a pretty darn useful ability and smile at my own stupidity. Of course the Goddess would never give Orion, the crowned ruler’s son, a useless gift.
I tilt my head thinking over the night I was murdered. “Is that how you saved me? How you killed that demon today?”
“Yes, I’d never done something so powerful before, you brought it out in me. The need to protect you is … overwhelming.” He confesses looking nervous.
“How did Azure get on land?” I ask, realising in order to stab me she must have gotten pretty close to me. Orion and I had kissed half way up the beach. It didn’t make sense that she could have hit me from the water.
“I don’t know. There’s no record of the Banished being able to walk on land, even when the moon is full, but there they were and in the sun no less. They’re evolving all the time. It’s troubling at best.” he breathes looking astonished and then continues on in his explanation. “It could be that she wasn’t human at all, but rather levitated out of the ocean while Caedes gave the illusion of legs so she wouldn’t alert us to her identity.” He theorises and in an instant I have another hundred questions.
“So Azure is Starlet’s twin sister?” I ask, flexing my tail on the leather.
“Yes, Azure passed first, I’m not sure how. She never talked about it. The loneliness of being separated from her sister drove her to the darkness. It’s been hard on Starlet, Azure being her soul mate and all.” He admits and I unwilling, begin to see Starlet a little more clearly. Orion had a soul mate coming, sure he had to wait, but I was always a certainty. Starlet has a soul mate that chose evil, death, and murder. She sort of now seems a little less bitchy and a little more misunderstood. I smile a little as Orion comes and sits at the other end of the sofa, turning his tail to wrap around my own, connecting us both.
“Maybe it’s her link to Starlet that allows her to walk on land still?” I muse, and his eyes widen a little.
“Maybe, but that would mean she’s not as far gone as I thought. She still gets the visions I suppose. I don’t want to get my hopes up. Losing her once was enough.” Orion’s forehead takes on a divot. “Family, it’s complicated, don’t you think?” He says, shrugging and I nod, chuckling at the seeming unimportance of all my mortal problems.
Something inside me rises from the depths of denial, and as I contemplate letting go of all my mortal problems, I say the words I don’t know if I’m ready to say.
“Orion, tonight … I want to go and see my Mom and sister.” I confess and he frowns, looking concerned and a little sad.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Callie. This won’t go the way you hope, I promise you.” He warns me and the longing to see my family ignites, burning even brighter, almost an ache within me.
“I know it won’t be easy, but I need to do this, Orion.” I reason with him, widening my eyes and leaning forward.
“What are you going to tell her, Callie? The truth?” he asks, cocking his head sideways, his starry eyes incredulous.
“I don’t know yet. I just can’t leave her not knowing. I know what that is like.” I argue, feeling trapped again by the enormity of this new body I have evolved.
“Okay, if that’s what you feel. But you need to prepare, you may end up getting a reaction you don’t want. It may make your last memory of your family an unpleasant one. Trust me I have first-hand experience with this.” He leans forward and places his hands on my temples again, possessing my mind, and taking me back.
ORION
“But mother it is me!” I cry out and the woman I have known and loved so much slaps my face hard. A tear releasing from my eye, my cheek ringing with the pain. The girls are sleeping in the other room soundly and I want to see them. I miss them. I begin to make my way into the sleeping room and my mother grabs my wrist pulling me away and hitting me as hard as she can, sobbing.
“Demon! Demon! LEAVE THIS PLACE!” she cries as I hear the girls stir in the next room.
“You are dead! Now get out! Leave my daughters and me in peace! Haven’t you taken enough from me, first my husband and now my only son! GET THE HELL OUT!” She screams as I have never heard her scream before and I now know that I shouldn’t have returned here. I run from my home into the moonlight that shines down like that of the night I first left this place, devastated and now knowing that my place is with my father, in the depths of the ocean we loved so much in life.
CALLIE
“Do you see now? Do you see what you are asking; you are asking me to willingly let you go through that rejection. You’ve been through enough.” He says firmly, grasping my wrist gently as he takes his hands from my forehead. I am crying again and through my tears, I choke out the words:
“I am not asking you to let me do anything. I am going. Come or don’t, but they are my family and I am not ready to let them go.” I stand my ground, fierce and strong as I had been in life. Orion rolls his eyes and pulls me in a hug, whispering into my hair.
“Okay princess. If it makes you happy, we leave tonight.”
I smile into his chest as he holds me, but I can’t help but feel dread seep into my core. What was my mom going to say when she saw me for the first time in days? What was she going to say when I returned a ghost? What was she going to say, when she learned that the daughter she raised was now involved in a mythic war she hadn’t started? What was she going to say? More importantly, I think to myself as my mind falters at the impossibility of the task ahead, how can I bring myself to look upon the almond shaped, deep brown, doe eyes of my baby sister and leave?
After I’ve made the decision to go and visit my family, the day passes quickly. I stew and I know what would help if I was human, so I ask a question I was too distracted to ask any sooner.
“Can I sleep?” I enquire, feeling stupid.
“Yes, but you don’t need sleep. It’s a choice, I often do it as it helps me organise things in my mind. Everything gets so jumbled after a while.” He confesses and I nod, heading through the shell-lined archway and into the bedroom to sleep. I pray it will stop my mind from racing. I lie down on the mattress and find it not like falling asleep at all, but rather like flicking a switch that shuts down my mind. It is a whim, rather than need, and I find that in what feels like seconds Orion is shaking me awake.
“Callie, wake up, princess. We need to get going.” He whispers and instantly I am awake like the switch has been flicked back on, I don’t feel groggy or sleepy. Just as awake as I was a few hours ago right before I fell asleep. I see that the light coming through the patio doors leading to the balcony has turned pink and realise that a small chunk of time has disappeared. It is as though sleep has turned my mind into a cinema though. I can pick and choose any memory I wish to see and instantly I can remember it in the finest of detail.
“Whoa.” I say as I turn myself upright and Orion smiles.
“The memory thing finally kicked in then?” He asks and I nod, cocking my head suspiciously.
“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” I ask accusatorily, if I had known, I’d have slept earlier. I can remember the night Orion and I spent together in glorious detail, my stomach muscles clench deliciously at the thought; now on repeat in my home cinema of a mind.
“Well yes, how did you think I managed meeting you and then not seeing you for a month? I locked myself in this apartment and replayed our conversation, repeatedly, in my mind. My family found it quite amusing actually; there were jokes … something a
bout mental masturbation.” He laughs and I pity him internally. He must seem such a teenager to this society, having to wait so long for his other half, and yet he is probably one of the oldest among them.
“Anyway, are you ready, princess?” He prompts, smiling gently and placing his arms around my waist, angling for a kiss. I stand for a moment taking in his face, a memory for me to keep just in case I wake up and this life has been a dream. I start with his stunningly ice blue eyes, wide and beautiful as ever, his tanned skin that stretches over his amazingly angular architecture and then the mahogany tousled hair that defies all gravity but somehow seems as though he has not a hair out of place. I smile not wanting to forget this face ever.
“Please don’t call me that.” I plead with a shy upturning of my lips.
“Too late. I think it’s stuck already.” He leans in and takes my lips in his; kissing me passionately and I can’t help but groan. I hope this trip to visit my family resolves itself quickly; perhaps I can fit in some time with Orion before the sun rises. I pout as he releases me and he grins cheekily before taking my hand, his face alight with the magic we share.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 23