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Chapter Fifteen
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Echoes, echoes- where do they come from?
A long-past leftover of a scream for help, a lover's whisper to their starlit companion, battle cries of glory and defeat.
Slipping its way into my restless mind, my echo settles down for a night full of torment.
This echo gnaws painfully on my thoughts I once believed solid, dripping infestations of doubt into the bite marks.
What does this echo say, you ask?
"'Thiel, please! It was not me, why… I came too late! Please… Lle rangwa?"
Every syllable pounds a drumbeat behind my eyelids, flushing my cheeks and tracing a cold finger up the rattled bones of my spine. I turn over, wrapped in my sheets tight as if they were a shroud. I play games with myself, not allowing my toes to peek out of the blanket, afraid to open my eyes and see my room in shadow.
As I drift in and out of consciousness, my echo continues to scream mercilessly; pleading, begging, gnawing, crying. Screwing my eyes tight shut, attempting to block my thoughts, I fall into a trance filled with nothing.
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My mind jumps through a checklist of things any courtly lady should be, things that any wife of mine should be expected to master. Not long after the quest was done and I was safely home, I decided that I would take no wife, and live the simple life of a warrior. The sea often calls to me, but my love for my homeland is such that I prolong my departure and spend my time here, living life peacefully.
Peace is not what I found here.
From the day Fiothiel got the best of me in the woods to tonight, my thoughts have not strayed far from her face. All my life I have thought love to be a quirky infatuation, but denying it, I have found, is near impossible.
Kissing her was both the weakest moment of my existence, and the most beautiful.
Sleep is hard to find tonight, though never a problem for me. I step out to the balcony, watching moonlight glimmer like an unsheathed sword on the pond past the night-darkened trees.
My mind settles back on the memory of her embrace, feeling her shiver beneath my hands, her chin tilted against mine as I kissed her as I had never kissed another before. I remember her reaction, the way she drew back from me, confused.
I took advantage of her, taking her when she was at her weakest. What have I done? She cannot love me anymore than I should her. Two blinded warriors: one muddled from love, the other from pain.
Never again will I let my emotions take hold of me like they did then.
I will have to be satisfied by the memory of love's first, and only, embrace.
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