by Dan O'Brien
“When are you not thinking of her?”
“Is that a riddle?”
Sarge laughed, his booming voice drawing panicked looks from some lower-ranking soldiers. “It might be, Ash, it might be. I have a feeling that any question I pose to you might become a riddle of dizzying proportions. That being said, what precisely were you thinking?”
Aeschylus rested his chin on his outstretched hand and drummed his cheeks with his fingers. “Did you hear about….?” He paused to hiccup and to lean on his other hand. “Did you hear about all the perdo in the court? A delegation from beyond the Arcadians?”
The guardian burped emphatically as his hands slid from beneath his face, removing the only support for his head. With an ungraceful bounce, Aeschylus’ head came to a rest on top of the table. Without lifting his head from the table, he turned to face Sarge.
“It appears as if you have,” retorted Sarge with a chuckle. Tapping his wide and blistered hands on the table, he continued. “Doren, son of Dominus, came to talk about trade I imagine.”
Aeschylus raised a finger and grinned wildly.
“Precisely. And you know what that means don’t you?”
“Enlighten me.”
As the guardian slid closer to Sarge, the size difference between them seemed more pronounced. Sarge, a head taller and twice as wide, dwarfed the guardian. “They want to give Aurora to Doren.”
“Give?”
The guardian made wild gestures with his hands.
“Not give, but give. A child, a bond between the two Empires.”
Sarge’s smile dampened. “Sounds like good news. No call for war, me and the boys don’t have to bloody other men for the white city.
“Right, good news,” repeated the guardian somberly.
“I do not understand why you worry about losing your charge. You are in bondage, as I am. You serve Pa’ngarin until you are ground underfoot. Why worry about which of them you are indentured to? A prison is a prison, no?”
Aeschylus felt some of his drunken stupor fade away.
“She is not a prison. She is a reason.”
Sarge laughed again, though it was not as authentic as it had been when he first sat beside the guardian. “That is the vinum talking.”
The guardian slammed the jar on the table with such force that every head in the room turned to face him. The jar shattered around his hand, its broken shards wedged in his flesh as blood ran down his arm. Brushing them away, he spoke. “She is my reason. I cannot imagine life without her.”
Looking around the tavern Sarge barked. “What are you looking at? Drink, you fools.” He turned to Aeschylus and matched the guardian’s serious tone. “There is no life that the two of you can share. It was always going to turn out this way: you are a slave and she is the heiress. You must abandon your feelings.”
“I cannot.”
Sarge moved closer, his shadow covering Aeschylus. “Then you will suffer. The Lordess Ascendant and the Council will not allow her to share her life with a man. You know that they only take women as partners. They do not want their title and wealth to pass to a man. Do not be a fool, Aeschylus.”
“I do not know how to be any other way. If she is to bear a child for the son of Dominus, then she will have to take her First.”
Sarge leaned back, his voice softening. “I understand now. You are hiding here because you cannot be there to see what happens next. What did you think would happen? That she would choose you? That you might be her First and fade into ash?”
The guardian did not answer.
“She is the heiress to this realm. There was never going to be a happy ending. Aurora will bring about the last age of men, you know this. It was prophesized long before either of our miserable lives began. If she has ascended this night, then we are that much closer to the end of this bondage, of this life.”
“To fade away.”
Sarge lifted his jar to his mouth and drained the liquid in one quick movement. Wiping the froth and excess liquid from his mouth, he stared ahead. “We are not the present, Aeschylus. We are ghosts of a distant past.”
The Praesto
Aurora looked up as thunder echoed in the distance. Flashes of lightning hovered and danced above the tree lines south of Pa’ngarin and the rhythmic drone of rainfall battered the walls of the city.
From the comfort and safety of the doorway that separated her sitting room from her garden, she watched as a gentle mist fell from the skies, making the rows of brilliant green and red bulbs of her vegetables glisten. Suddenly, a cold wind whipped through her garden, rattling the vine-covered lattice against the walls and making her rows of overgrown vegetables and blossoming tress sway and bristle.
Wrapping her amber shawl more tightly around her shoulders, she wondered about the man she had set free. Would he make it beyond the walls of the white city? What would happen to him if he were caught? To her?
The rain intensified, heavy sheets beating the soil. Animals and insects hopped and slithered in the mud and rapidly-growing puddles. Staggering forks of lightning streaked across the sky and the thunder grew louder.
It sounded like the footfalls of giants stampeding across the dark sky.
Aurora stepped inside and closed the wooden door to the garden. Helius was asleep on one of the lounging chairs. He was wrapped tightly in heavy sheets and blankets, such that only his head was visible from his fabric cocoon.
She stared at his peaceful face, his quiet, secure slumber. The events that had transpired in the past weeks had been trying. The attack on Duedonia had forced her mother’s hand. Doren would be expecting a child. Having turned away the slave, she could not provide the heir to the Crimson Throne what was commanded of her.
A loud knock at the door drew her from her introspection. She approached the door, wondering who would call on her at such a late hour.
The knocking continued, rising in intensity with the rainfall beating thunderously against her roof.
Aurora paused just before the door––momentarily frightened by the strength and vigor of the knocking. She looked around for a weapon.
But there was nothing in her vicinity that could easily be used as one.
Summoning her courage, and with a deep breath, she grasped the door handle. She opened it and spoke in a brash tone. “Who is there?”
She stood dumbfounded as she saw that it was Aeschylus waiting outside her door. He shivered slightly from the cold. His hair was plastered against his face and head and his clothes were drenched.
“Aurora,” he spoke.
Without thinking, she lunged forward and hugged him. She buried her face against his wet neck and shoulders as he remained motionless, allowing her to hang on to him as if he were a statue. As she pulled away, the heiress could smell the vinum on him. “Have you been drinking?”
The guardian nodded.
She pressed her hands against her hips and scowled. “Why were you drinking? And why are you standing in the rain?”
“I….”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.
He allowed her to do so.
His shivering redoubled as she shut the door. The water from his rain-drenched clothes began to form a puddle beneath him. Leaving him next to the door, she disappeared into the bedroom. Her voice carried through the relative darkness of her house. “What would compel you to drink? And then to walk through the cold rain?”
She returned, carrying a large, black blanket that looked as soft as a bed of feathers.
He had not moved, the puddle beneath his feet seeping into the cracks and edges of the floor. His cerulean eyes seemed to haunt his face.
“I thought that you would be occupied.”
She stopped. “Occupied?”
He cleared his throat. “I heard about the meeting at the Court of the Nine Blossoms, about what the Lordess has offered the heir to the Crimson Throne.”
Aurora blanched, dropping the blanket on the floor.
“And you thought I w
ould be….”
The guardian nodded somberly.
She stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest. Looking deep into his eyes, she never felt as strongly for him as she did at that moment. His strong hand grabbed her arm delicately.
“I knew that you mother, the Lordess, would want you to ascend.”
“I did not.”
Aeschylus looked hopeful. “You did not?”
She smiled. “I sent him away. He fled the city.”
The guardian took a step back, his position restored.
“You let a concubinus leave the city? Whose House did he belong to?”
“My mother. What is the matter Aeschylus?”
“You have placed yourself in great danger, Aurora. Your mother will not be lenient about what you have done.”
The heiress took a step back and looked at the guardian with concern. “I thought you would be relieved to know I did not take a man’s life for my ascension, that I only love you,” she spoke gravely.
Aeschylus paused at her words. “You love me?”
Aurora smiled shyly.
“I did not mean to tell you like this, but yes, Aeschylus, I love you.”
Drunkenness forgotten, Aeschylus was suddenly in motion. He searched the apartment frantically, stopping when he saw the slumbering figure of Helius. “We have to leave, Aurora. Right now. We cannot stay here. We cannot waste a single moment.”
Aurora walked towards him, hugging herself with her arms as she swayed slightly. “Leave? Where would we go?”
“You will not be going anywhere, heiress,” called a voice both Aurora and Aeschylus knew too well. Stepping out of the rain, Athena entered Aurora’s house with two, tall Curators trailing behind her. Their braided, black hair dripped onto their bronzed skin and vicious features.
Aeschylus took a step forward and put himself between Aurora and Athena. He glared at the Magister.
“How valiant, slave,” mocked Athena, her gaze fixed on the guardian. “You wish to protect your charge? She is not yours to protect from her family, from her kind.”
With a cruel smile, the Curators stood waiting, their piercing, hazel eyes watching the guardian intently.
“What is the meaning of this, Athena? Why did you bring your Curators?” challenged Aurora.
Not taking her eyes off Aeschylus, Athena spoke. “Did you turn away a concubinus that was sent by your mother?”
The heiress stood very still.
“Did you send him out into the night to flee Pa’ngarin?”
Aurora took a step back, pressing a hand to her face.
“I will take your silence as an affirmation of those charges. Are you going to take your guardian as your First?”
“Why are you doing this?” whispered Aurora.
Athena ignored the question.
“Do you plan to take him as a lover?”
“No,” replied Aurora breathlessly.
“Then this cannot continue. We do not love these men.” Waving over her shoulder, Athena directed the two Curators to take Aeschylus into custody.
As Aurora stepped between the Curators and her guardian, Aeschylus touched her shoulder gently. The heiress looked deeply into his blue eyes and it gave her pause.
He was not resisting.
She wanted him to resist.
The Curators, one on each side, ushered him from the sitting room, while Athena remained, blocking the entrance to the heiress’ home. “How did you think this would end, Aurora? You wished to be with him, but you cannot. You have a destiny, a purpose that you cannot escape. If you were unwilling to take one life, so that you may have a life with your guardian, you do not deserve happiness.”
Aurora could feel her anger rising; bile seeped into her words. “We cannot all be whores like you, Athena. I will not take an innocent life.”
The slap caught the heiress across the cheek and forced her to her knees.
Athena loomed over her. “There are no innocents, no guilty, Aurora. There are choices and consequences. You have made your choice, now you must suffer the consequences,” snarled the Magister.
Aurora did not rise.
Instead, she sat on the ground, the long fabric of her house dress sopping up the dark puddle left by Aeschylus’ drenched clothing.
Helius poked his head above the arm of the chair; the peaceful look on his face turned to one of horror as he beheld the Magister of the Inquisitors.
Athena marched over to him. “You have made many mistakes, Aurora. This child and your guardian are among the most glaring. We will rectify them for you.”
Aurora watched helplessly as Athena snatched Helius, who struggled for only a moment, until he saw the dark look in the Magister’s eyes. The Magister did not turn to look back at the heiress as she exited the house and stepped into the downpour.
Aurora shuffled to the door and watched as Athena carried the child into the stormy night.
Aurora sunk to her knees.
She was all alone.