Grief For Heart: The Vincent Du Maurier Series, Book 4
Page 21
She knew he wanted to return home before he spoke the words. “Ja muste ga hem.”
“I will take you,” she said. “We will go back together.”
He’d said his father’s name when he first opened his eyes, a meaningless utterance Saba intuited as more. She made arrangements with Lucia and Veor, taking Freyit’s warning to heart.
“Be off this land by morning,” he’d said, “or there’ll be no escape.” She was grateful he’d run into her on her way to Hannah’s. Only after she left her sister’s did she understand the implication. She’d seen the fate of her bloodline etched in Hannah’s veins.
She left Netta the butterfly pin Finn had rescued for her, but wouldn’t say goodbye to the only one who mattered. I was heartbroken in the beginning, but soon understood why she avoided seeing me. The goddess had shown her what lay ahead, a season into the future. My daughter knew she’d see me again.
Drifting beneath the turquoise cloak of the heavens, Saba steered their sloop toward Finn’s land. The compass and the stars were useless, for Diomedea guided the helm, her heart knit with Saba’s. The water about the vessel glowed with electric jellyfish, swimming past, almost lifting their hull above the waves. The sea is peaceful, Saba thought, the world too.
Come see, Diomedea whispered into Saba’s ear, making her eyes heavy, her hand on the tiller loosen. When she could no longer keep herself upright, she toppled over to the side, curling up against Finn, who’d been sleeping like the dead for hours.
Come see.
Saba walked through the darkness, her feet heavy with each step.
Comb the sea.
She followed the voice inside her head until she reached the ray of light in front of her. The scope widened as she moved toward it, and soon she crossed over into the brightness, to stand in a field of golden stalks. She moved through the stalks, her arms outspread touching their tips. The light above her seemed to move with her and when she looked back she saw the darkness she’d come from.
Come to me.
She and the goddess had merged, one in body and mind, so she wasn’t startled at the looming figure before her. The god bent to one knee, as he watched the approach of his goddess.
“I have been looking for you, sister.”
She recognized the voice, and the face of the one looking up at her. His aspect was magnificent, like something Saba had seen in a dream long ago. His eyes marked her, scarred her forever, from the beginning of time till its end. He’s the one who’s been searching for me, she thought.
“For many lifetimes, I’ve sought the body that carries your soul to me again,” he said.
“Galla died for me,” Saba said.
“Galla died for herself.”
“I am come, brother. I am here now.”
Saba couldn’t look away from the god, standing before her as a statue in the museum of her mind. His body gave off a glow to match hers. She held her arm out, her hand stretched to meet his, the two skins radiating with the warmth of the sun. He rose, as he touched her hand, standing taller than her. He gazed downward, his head bent to study her. Saba looked at where their hands touched, admiring the way their substance seemed to bleed into one another. They looked like two halves of the same figure.
“Her body is forged from your line, brother. Her make-up yours, too.”
“The choice was mine,” he said. “A fine carrier for you, sister.”
“A warrioress made in your image.”
“A huntress as you once were.”
The voices of the two gods spoke without speaking, and Saba witnessed the reunion while at the same time being at its center.
“Silenus has risen,” Saba said. “So now you must rise, too.”
“The mind of my avatar sleeps. Only my chosen one can wake me.”
“I shall prepare the way, brother.”
“You must ease into it. I will not know my counterpart in the skin she wears. Her cravings for blood may frighten me. She must temper her desire. Use your body to bridge the gap.”
Saba understood he was speaking of Evelina. She was to mediate, to bring the two together. The god before her now wasn’t only Diomedea’s brother, but Evelina’s counterpart, too. She was meeting Vincent Du Maurier before he came into flesh.
“How can I make her understand her place, brother?”
He reached up with his other hand and touched Saba’s chin, pulling her eyes to his. “You already have,” he said.
The two embraced, the god pulling the goddess inside him, their contact creating a combustion that made Saba’s legs throb and her loins ache. She felt this great love for an instant, then fell cold and lonely on the deck of the sloop, Finn’s sleeping body next to her. He shivered in the darkness and she put her arm around him, wanting to share some of the gods’ heat with him.
She’d woken with an intense feeling of longing and sadness, uncertain if she’d dreamed it all. She looked up to the starry sky, watching as one of the fiery orbs jetted through space, drawing a streak across the horizon. She closed her eyes and made a wish, the contents of which she’d never reveal.
When Finn seemed to drift back into a deep sleep, his body no longer trembling, Saba sat up, and rummaged through the satchel she’d packed. She pulled out the first leather-bound book, and touched it with the tips of her fingers. She tried to feel his energy, to sense the god in him, as she’d done in the dream. She felt nothing but the coarseness of dried leather.
“It’s just a book,” she mumbled.
She cracked open the cover and looked at the text on the page, her lessons flooding back to her. Peter had taught her to read Vincent’s original hand.
“For the day you’ll want to meet him,” he’d said. “Your father’s a fine translator, but the original is the only way to learn who Vincent really is.”
“The characters are like a hidden code,” she’d said.
“The language of the gods.” Peter had meant something different, but Saba wondered now if it wasn’t a fair assessment of her forefather’s text.
She read his opening words as though she’d always known them:
Today seems a more fitting day than most to begin this record. With every last drop of blood spoiled by this plague, I am soon to be a relic. My invitation to Hades no longer stands since those gods are dead and gone, but if banished to the halls of oblivion, I want to be remembered. These pages then will bear the account of my survival, and serve as proof of my existence.
Saba didn’t doubt his existence. She’d met the god. All she had to do was find him.
She set to the task of discovering him in the recorded pages of the life he’d lived at one time. It wasn’t all of him, but it was the most important parts, thread together in a narrative that defied time.
The goddess stayed Finn’s slumber until Saba turned the final page of her father’s account, recalling the day he described, the scene she’d witnessed from across the ravine. She pretended to dig for grubs, but all the while she watched her father feed the one they called Evie. She barely knew her foremother then, and yet the creature left an indelible mark on her soul. That their fates were tied now to the same being didn’t surprise Saba. Perhaps she knew it all along, the role she’d play in Evelina’s destiny, to guide her ancestor back to her beginning, and forward to her end, Vincent Du Maurier marking both.
The sun reached its zenith when their sloop crested the shores of Finn’s homeland. She spied the shoreline ahead, as she stood at the helm, guiding the ship to port. The coast was flatter than hers, and looked desolate. As the waves crested and the vessel drew closer, Finn rose beside her, stretching his arms to the sky, his face crushed with sleep.
“Welcome back,” she said with a smile. “Good sleep?”
“Hem,” he said, pointing to the shoreline. His lips rose at the corners, his eyes wide with pleasure. “Mitt hem.”
“Yes, home. Two days, just like Veor …” Saba’s voice trailed off, as the fog misting the shoreline cleared, a zephyr rising to blow
it away.
Saba stared at Finn’s welcome party, the troop of men, soldiers armed with daggers and shields, awaiting them on the shoreline. Their formation was perfect, like a fence, their placement tactical. One man stood out from the rest, sat upon a horse, his dory strapped to his back.
“Finn,” Saba said, “are those your people?” She’d already armed herself with her longbow, her satchel of arrows readied. She looked at him, his posture changed.
He smiled and pointed to the man on the horse. “Däre min far,” he said, letting Saba know they’d found his father.
As the vessel rolled over the waves, several yards off shore, Saba communed with Diomedea, confirming the identity of the man on the horse. He was Finn’s father, as the young hunter said, but he was also another.
Adelfós, the goddess said. He is risen.
Saba studied the warrior, trying to reconcile the mortal man on the shore with the legend in the texts. Surely, they’re not one and the same, she thought.
THE END
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Also by K. P. Ambroziak
The Trinity
The Piano String
Venus Fall
The Banished Ones
The Vincent Du Maurier Series
Book 1: RAGE for BLOOD
Book 2: WRATH for BONE
Book 3: SPITE for FLESH
Book 4: GRIEF for HEART
Book 5: SORROW for SOUL