Next chapter, and a day early too! I was so ecstatic after finishing the previous one (it gave me a LOT of grief, guys...) that I got to work on this one right away. I'm really excited for this chapter also, it's a big moment in this story, and that's all I can say without giving anything away!
Thank you as always to wildhorses1492 for reviewing! It's the best part of updating, seeing a review :)
Chapter 8
(Rose POV)
All seems to be normal. All seems to be well. Yet the world suddenly seems to be all a-haze, as if I can't be sure what's real and what's not. Blindly, I grope for the door behind me. Mustn't leave the door open like that, Darin doesn't like the dust of the streets getting in the house too much…
Everything is moving so slowly; why? I step further into the living area. There are the two sitting chairs that Darin and I saved for months to purchase, with cloth spun by Sima herself covering the red cushions. And there to my left is the fireplace, with ashes still sitting inside. The kitchen table, worn around the edges and covered in that matching mahogany tablecloth, sits exactly as I last left it. That was where Darin gave me his blessing to go help Caspian, to go and find Rilian…
Why is my heart still sinking? Why is my stomach still tying itself in knots? There is nothing to fear here.
Yet, as I shuffle along the packed floor toward the room I share with my husband, I can't completely believe it all. It's too perfect, too presentable, too neat, too…too…
I palm open the door to my bedroom.
And I scream.
Shaking hands fly to my face and I muffle my cry into my palms. Tears sear down my cheeks. Apologies stutter across my lips even as my voice fails me, cracking and breaking in the still air.
The scent of death is everywhere here.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I sob into my hands as my fingers dig trails into my cheeks. The metallic scent of blood floods my nose when I pull my hands away. Grief, horror, the smell, all of it presses in on me, crushes against my chest until I can't breathe for the pain.
Fingertips stained with the blood from my cheeks, I reach toward him with my mouth open, gasping for breath. Perhaps he is only sleeping...
My fingers land on cold flesh. Fumbling, I grasp at his wrist, desperate for the tiny pulse of life under his skin.
There's nothing, so I press harder against his vein. It's got to be there, it's got to be, she had no reason to do this, she didn't have time, there's no reason -
"Darin?" his name falls from my lips like a prayer, a plea for him to open his eyes and reassure me that it's only a bad dream, that I'm wrong, that she never came here, that there's no reason for me to be crying on the floor next to the bed clutching at his arm for a heartbeat.
Shaking, I rise to my knees and grab his shoulders. "Darin?" I ask again. No answer, so I shake him. I shake him harder when nothing happens.
At once, I have no choice but to understand. He's gone.
No words push at my throat now. My trembling hands still on his shoulders. I release them and lower my husband's body back to the floor as gently as possible. His head starts to fall back, so I catch it with one hand and lower him the rest of the way. I can't think, can't speak, can't fight to prove my senses and my fears wrong anymore. He's gone, cruelly yanked from me, and I was too late to stop it.
My tears sting the cuts my fingernails made in the flesh. As I wince, my eyes fall on two small puncture wounds in his neck. My heart squeezes painfully and I don't want to look at it anymore, but I can't look away. I stare at the wound, stare and stare until my eyes hurt from not blinking.
His eyes are still open.
A sob pushes at my throat, but I swallow it as quickly as it comes. Crying will do nothing. Crying won't bring him back. With newfound steadiness in my hands, I slide his lids closed so he won't have to stare at the ceiling forever. Instead, I stare at him. He's so cold under my hands…he was never cold.
I get the crazy idea that he shouldn't be cold. Though I know it'll do no good, I take the blanket from the bed and wrap it around him, tucking it tightly around his body as if to trap the heat that I know is no longer there. Slowly, I lay beside him, curling myself up against his side. In my head, I know this is doing nothing, but my heart won't let me do anything else. So there I lie, ignoring the muffled sounds of the city's daily business that leak through the walls. I want him to be warm.
When I wake, the house is dark throughout and my husband still lies beside me, cold and still. The blanket really didn't do anything.
I have to bury him.
This I realize with cold and startling clarity. He shouldn't be laying here on the floor of our bedroom exactly as he fell. He should be put to rest, tucked away where no prying eyes will see him, where no one will disturb him.
Back stiff from my time on the floor, I inch my way up to a kneeling position and try to lift his shoulders. My arms tremble from the effort, but I can do it. Yet when I try to lift the rest of him, my strength gives out and I have to catch him before he drops back to the floor.
Tears prick at my eyes; how can I fail him in this, this one final thing? I can't fail him, I can't leave him here, I can't –
Steely determination sets in. I'm not going to fail him. I am going to carry his body out of the city, I will do it unnoticed, and I will give him a proper burial. It's what he would have done for me, and so much more.
So I lift again, my back screaming in protest. But how can I give up? He never gave up on me. I set my teeth and ignore the pain in every muscle. I'm not letting him stay here like this, and I'm not getting any help either. This is my gift to him. He wouldn't want the whole city in an uproar, and that's exactly what would happen if word got out. And…Aslan help me, I couldn't stand the pity. I couldn't do it, I'm not strong enough for that. But I am strong enough to get him to the woods.
Sweat tickles at my skin, but I finish the job anyway. When I've straightened my legs and stood, my husband's body is in my arms and I take my first step. My legs hold. So I take another. And another. Before I know it, I'm at my front door and listening for any noise outside.
By the grace of Aslan, all is still. I suppose I slept well into the night with him, beside him.
Getting the door open proves almost impossible, but at last the knob turns all the way and I can go back to supporting my husband's back with that hand. A final glance into the streets shows me no soul in sight. I scoot the door closed behind me and make my way through the streets of Telmara. So many times, he walked this way with me on nights like this…
Getting out of the city is almost too easy. I know these streets well from years of sneaking about at night, and I know all the right nooks and crannies to scoot into whenever someone wanders by. I've gone my entire life slipping through unnoticed, and now it's once again serving me well. The only trouble is the extra guards at the city gate.
A flash of anger whips through me, but I choke it back down. That won't help. And besides, I happen upon the gate just as the guards are changing. It takes only a little more skill than usual to slip past and move along the wall until I'm out of sight.
After escaping the city, the trick is getting across the plains. But even this is easily accomplished; I'm determined to give Darin the honor he deserves, and I'm not allowing for any error. So there is none.
Once we're among the trees of the forest, I walk freely and hold him to me tighter than ever before. Understanding dawns; once I bury him, he is truly gone. I haven't even said goodbye.
My chest tightens to the point of pain again, and yet again I ignore it. I can worry with that later. Right now, none of that matters. None of it, not one bit of it, not when my husband is dead and I knew he was in danger and I got there too late to stop it and it should have been me that the witch took, not him and –
I have to stop. Thoughts like that make my legs tremble and the body in my arms suddenly feel a thousand times as heavy. I banish every thought tugging at my mind, every tear of pain ripping at my heart, and let sweet detachment flood through me, distancing me from the reality of death and failure.
Almost before I know it, my feet lead me to Tanssi Kuun's door. Perhaps I should bury him here, next to the place that brought us together, the place he proposed. The memory prods at my mind. Now that I'm here, I let it in.
There he stood, right before the tree as I stand now. I was just about to lift my pendant to the engraving that summer night when he caught my hand in his own and told me to wait, that there was something he'd been meaning to ask me for quite some time. And here I'd stood, tipping my head to the side in confusion even as my heart beat like a bird's wings against my ribs. In my heart, I wondered.
And without any further ceremony, he simply knelt before me and pulled a ring from his pocket. He said little, only that he never wanted a life without me in it and would I marry him. Simple and sweet, and just like him.
When the memory fades into my sorrow, I find that my cheeks are wet and my legs are giving out beneath me. I collapse to the ground, gripping Darin close as I go so he won't fall onto the cold earth too. Pained cries for the man I've lost tear at my throat, ripping past my lips with a ferocity I'd almost forgotten since this afternoon's discovery.
"I'm sorry," I cry into his shoulder, the blanket catching my tears before they taint his skin. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I should have known, I never should have left."
I have to pull myself together. I know I have to, but I can't. Would it have been better if we'd never met, if – no, I can't think like that. He would never want me to think like that.
All I have to do is muster the strength to start digging. That's all. Where is my strength now?
Choking on my sorrow, I wipe my cheeks with my sleeve over and over, until the wool scratches at my tender cheeks. The stinging on the shallow scratches is enough to snap me out of my craze. He wouldn't want this.
Slowly, carefully, I lower his body from my arms to rest on the ground, the blanket shielding him from the worst of it. I take off my cloak and tuck it under his head, taking an extra second to smooth back his hair as I do. It feels as rich through my fingers as it ever has, even if a bit stiff from the cold night air.
My hands leave him in favor of the ground. Almost immediately, my nails break against the hard earth, frozen through with the coming of winter. I steel myself against more tears and try again. At the very least, it will scrape the blood from my fingertips.
It takes a while, but I start to carve out a decent indent in the ground. My fingers ache with cold and strain and it doesn't matter. Wait. Perhaps there's a better way than clawing through the earth.
My eyes lift from my task to the engraving that leads to Tanssi Kuun. After the Great Battle, the vines came and covered everyone we lost, and they became new stars in the sky. So no one is ever truly lost, that's what Bashar said. I don't have to lose Darin to the merciless soil.
A spark of something calm flickers to life in my chest. Standing, I raise my pendant to the tree and open the door. Warm light floods out, welcoming me with open arms and the promise of respite from the world that's taken Darin from me. Tanssi Kuun is a better place for him; after all, it is what brought us together.
I rush to pick up Darin's body from the ground before the door slides closed again. Somehow, he feels just a little bit lighter.
I stride through the door and into Tanssi Kuun, and in that moment I am unspeakably grateful for this world. In the few seconds since deciding to bring Darin here, I can't imagine leaving him anywhere else.
At first, no one is within sight. The faeries spend much of their time in the forests, after all, and sometimes even as far as the mountains. I wasn't expecting them to be here to see me tonight.
Yet, they once again surprise me. Perhaps they can feel my heartache, or perhaps they are not so far away as I think. But no sooner have I begun striding through the wild grassy plains than the faeries swarm around me, ribbons twisting around my body and holding me steady even as I sway on exhausted feet.
They don't ask what happened, nor do they ask what I want to do. No, they simply strengthen me with their ribbons and fly beside me, sending all the comfort they can give. My heart still beats painfully, but with my faeries beside me it's almost bearable.
"The clearing," I whisper. "I want to bury him at the clearing."
"We know, Rose," Bashar whispers at my shoulder. Just hearing her voice eases the throbbing in my soul.
At the clearing, where the grasses retreat and leave softer versions of themselves, I lay down my husband once again, and for the last time. No sooner have I done so than vines race up from the earth and weave themselves over him. Perhaps they will warm him where the blanket couldn't…
The mourning song rises around me and ribbons flow forward to intertwine with the flowering vines. I open the pouch at my side and release the ribbon the faeries gifted to me for my journey. With none of my own, this is the most I can offer him in this ritual.
Lights compact, brighten, raise his body up into the sky. My voice scratches against my throat as I strain to reach the crescendo with all the faeries. A final, lingering note, and then…my Darin is gone. Almost frantically, I search the sky until my eyes cross, searching for him. I'm not supposed to lose him so completely, I have to be able to find him…
There. Just to the right of the Mountain Star, the one that sits over the Northern Mountains. There is Darin, winking back at me from afar. I smile absently; he always loved green. It's fitting that now, that is what he glows.
Were I anywhere else, the questions would begin now, questions of what happened and am I all right and is there anything they can do and shouldn't I sit down. Not here. No, the faeries know better than to harass me with meaningless queries. They wrap ribbons around me and lead me from the clearing into the woods, where the trees shelter us from the breeze.
"Thank you," I whisper. I know they can feel my gratitude, but I had to say it. I had to make sure they know how much it means that now I haven't lost him forever.
"Sleep, Rose," whispers Bashar. "Nothing will disturb you."
No sooner has she finished her words than I sink to the ground gratefully. Vaguely, I feel ribbons catch me and deposit me into a hammock before I slip away into sleep.
When I wake, it's still night. Stars greet my gaze.
There he is, directly above me, peeking through the pine canopy. Glowing a deep and rich green, almost smiling at me. A great and painful weight surges to life once more in my heart, in my bones. There is no crevice of me untouched.
"Rose."
The clawing, clenching sorrow subsides enough to let me breathe at the sound of Bashar's voice. Has she sat here with me this whole time?
"How long have I been asleep?" I ask. My voice cracks, hoarse with disuse and the stickiness of grief.
"Almost two days. We helped you sleep the best we could," she murmurs, sending a ribbon to wrap around my shoulders almost as if by instinct.
We sit there silently, together on the hammock, for a long while. So long that the moon begins to peek above the horizon. I try not to will it away, the new light that may wash out the star that remains of my Darin, but even so I find myself wishing that it would be night forever, that I didn't have to see that glowing orb rising in the sky and making it harder to see him.
Nevertheless, I know there is still something I have to do. Grief can only have its way for so long.
"I have to go back," I whisper into the dawn. Bashar's ribbon warms my upper body, bathing me in a pale blue light. "I promised Caspian I would help him find his son."
"Then go you must," Bashar replies. I feel how heavy her heart is. As heavy as mine, for I know she and all the others can feel my pain as if it were their own. A blessing and curse, I thought so long ago. I feel her fear also, her fear of losing me. I find myself fearing the same.
"There's more," I hear myself say. "Darin's pendant - it's gone."
Bashar's fear spikes, sending chills down my spine. When she answers, it is with one shaky syllable only. "Gone?"
"I will return, I promise," comes my trembling whisper. "But now I must find the witch more urgently than ever."
Bashar nods, though the dread I sense in her doesn't retreat. "What will you tell him?"
My reply is instant and painful. "Nothing," I say quickly. "Nothing, because he does not need to know."
Silently, Bashar prompts me. She knows there is more, and I admit it to her freely in the privacy of my own heart. I cannot speak the words aloud of what has happened, and so I could not tell Caspian even if I wished to.
With a cracking heart, I force myself to stand. My strength comes from Bashar's ribbon around me still. The warmth reminds me what I must do. Yet, I am loath to leave him. How can I go back to Narnia when there will be no Darin in the night sky to remind me of happier times?
"We will take care of him. He will never want for company." Bashar's words start a new stinging in my eyes, and I can't seem to blink it away.
I don't need to thank her aloud, I know she can feel my gratitude tenfold, but I whisper my thanks anyway. Bashar just smiles a sad, sad smile as she leads me back to the clearing in the wild grasses, where the others wait. Have they too kept a silent vigil while I mourned in sleep?
"I promise, I'll return," I choke out, very nearly overwhelmed at the comfort they send to me. "I will not leave you defenseless."
Now it is not only Bashar's ribbon, but one from every faerie encircling me, flooding my dim world with light and warmth and, amazingly, a faint stirring of hope. I know it won't last long, but I grasp on to that hope for as long as I can. I will need every shred of it I can find to continue on.
Bashar speaks for them all when she sends me on my way.
"Go now, Rose, and come back when Caspian's son is returned to him. We will wait for you."
Okay, before you guys freak out...well, I actually can't defend myself, so go right ahead. I've had this planned almost since Moonrose's beginnings. Actually, that doesn't help, does it? I'm sorry, it hurts, I know...
Review if you've got a sec, even if it's just curses :P
