A/N: my life would have been so much easier if I had finished this in a timely manner. Now here I am trying to finish it during my busiest semester. Difficult classes, volunteer hours and applying to grad school-these things are killing me! Ah, but here we are.
Chapter 24: That Tragic Moon
A scene flashed before Lana, quick, too much after the dizzying effect of the spell. She knew it had to have been a spell. Her sword had initiated it and through her she had felt it. It was too much to take in all at once. She stumbled, there were shouts, a shove, pain flared in her shoulder. Too much, she thought again, and too soon. She fell into blackness.
The next time she woke it was with a groan. Her shoulder ached, her head ached, everything ached. Fingertips lightly brushed the back of her hand. She took hold of them and struggled to see whom they were connected to: Zain. He smiled, setting off that dimple and knew it was for her though he wasn't looking at her. It wouldn't have mattered for him; his eyes were still black, still blind.
"Where are we?" Lana rasped. She tried to swallow. "Water, please."
Water was brought to her and she looked then at the hand that held it. From here, on a bed she realized, he looked impossibly tall. His hair was black, true black like her own. His skin was a light tan, but the sort that seemed permanent and genetic more than from the sun. His eyes were a hazel, more brown but there was a touch of other in it too.
Lana fought to sit up and the stranger helped her. She thought about refusing his help but it would get her nowhere if she lay there unable to drink and therefore unable to talk and get answers. She drank all the water with a satisfying sigh afterwards then turned her attention to the room.
She searched for Zain's hand again and when she took it a small almost imperceptible sound of surprise came from him. She turned her gaze to the other people and frowned. There was the dark stranger whom she had already seen but there were two other people in the large room. The room was also full of beds and had the distinct feel of a medical area. Perhaps one of them was a healer.
One of them was a woman. She had pale skin, black hair held back in a simple plait and some of the brightest sapphire eyes she'd ever seen. The other was an older man, he had dark skin and whitening hair that had once been as black as everyone else's in the room but Zain. Lana had spent too much time around the palace not to know how people of high blood felt. The woman had to be something high up. She didn't flaunt it or look at her haughtily; there was just something about her that breathed affluence. She was also sitting but the older man and the other man also kept flicking their eyes back to her. She was in charge here.
Lana fixed her gaze upon the woman. What question to seek first? "Where am I?"
"Carthak," The woman said promptly, there was something naggingly familiar about her.
"I apologize, lady, if I am rude in asking but," Lana flicked her eyes to everyone in the group. "Who are you and where am I?"
She smiled again, an intelligent fire lighting in those true blue eyes. "I might ask that you tell me who you are first."
Lana opened her mouth then closed it again. "Has my friend here told you nothing?"
"Not a word," The naturally tan man with the hazel eyes said, there was an edge of frustration. She imagined they had done a lot of asking. "Is he mute as well as blind?"
"If he were, he would not be deaf," Lana said pleasantly enough. The words had more bite and chastisement than her tone and facial expression implied. It made her message clear but did not offend. It was a neat trick.
A laugh, sudden and pure, fell into the room from the woman and broke apart the silence and tension that might have built. "Very true, very true. I am Empress Kalasin and this is my son, Prince Binur. I thought we had taught him more manners than this."
"Oh!" Lana's eyes widened and she gave a small sound of surprise. She realized why the woman—Kalasin—had nagged at her memory. Some, not all, but some of the features and expressions were reminiscent of her father. It was one thing to know her father had been born in a kingdom far away and had many siblings but another to see it. In all honesty, it was hard to reconcile that at some point his life had been like hers. A family, perhaps tight knit as she and her brothers were turning into this where an aunt did not recognize her own niece. It was odd to put it together like that. She swallowed. "I am Princess Iolana of Karucia. You are my father's sister."
"This is quite…unexpected. And who is your friend?" The empress nodded out of politeness.
"Zain," He responded for himself. Lana marveled at the softness of his voice. "I own no titles."
She nodded but made no comment. Lana realized with a jolt she had not told Zain she was a princess. Had he known somehow? His pinpointing of the fact that he had no titles was curious. Lana cleared her throat and all attention was back on her. She touched the bandage on her shoulder lightly. "If you don't mind, Majesty, what happened?"
"I shall leave that to my son," and as soon as she said it Binur's skin pinkened slightly and he turned apologetic eyes to her.
"It was one of my arrows that struck you," He paused there but continued more apologetic. "You dropped in just as I released. I would have struck something more important but your friend was already pulling you out of the way. He had simply appeared, too."
Lana smiled at him and that caught him off guard. He quickly regained himself. "It sounds like it was hardly your fault."
As if that were behind him, Binur regained confidence shrugging into a princely mantle. Or at least more dignified than the apologetic one. Lana was glad that a prince like him had that more humanistic side however. She appreciated it and tried to let him know with her smile.
"Do you know what happened?" Kalasin's eyes were sharp now.
Lana smoothed her lips together, thinking. She gave the only honest answer she knew. "We were sent here, thrown here. How or why I do not know."
Binur was frowning. It might have been more of a scowl but he'd reined it in out of politeness. "That makes no sense."
Lana shrugged. "It is all I know."
"Were you running from something? Did your magic do this?" Kalasin prompted.
"Not precisely, to the first," Lana answered simply. She hadn't been running, really. But her sword had responded to some wrongness, something that should not be. "And no to the second."
"What do you mean by not precisely?" Kalsin asked. The only thing keeping Kalasin or Binur from losing patience with Lana was the air she had. Lana truly seemed to be answering to the best of her abilities and her large hazel eyes held too much sincerity to have anything else.
"Well, I myself was not running from anything. It was…foreign magic."
"You mean someone else's magic threw you here? From where?" Kalasin had taken control of the questioning. She leaned forward onto her knees, chin against her clasped hands.
Zain gave her hand a warning squeeze but Lana saw no reason to lie. "The Yamani Islands."
Sudden longing filled her breast. Lana barely held a sigh. Where were Vincent and Damien? She had felt them flung, too. Felt them leave her here. She missed them achingly. How much time had they ever spent apart? Even with their parents trying to get them away from each other—for independence they'd said—they had managed to get around that too. Sometimes because they'd needed each other, other times simply because they didn't see the point. Or maybe it had been for her sake only.
Pain, different from the one in her shoulder, flared at the corners of her mind. She winced. Anger, someone in there was very angry. She wanted to run. She wanted to cling to Damien or Vincent. She needed something, anything.
Zain squeezed her hand again, firmer this time. His calming presence was like a large stone amongst the pounding waves. Like he had known far too much chaos, perhaps had danced with it at some point, but knew now it was better to let it be. It was serenity hard forged, she knew, there was a tinge of sadness to it. Not true calm, then, but something. A weight perhaps. A weight, a heaviness, a depth he'd earned and was lending to her now.
Everyone in the room had noticed the pain that went over her though none could truly guess. The healer stepped forward. "I think our charge needs her rest. I put a slow healing on the wound and that might take some energy from her as well."
"Very well," Kalasin consented. "But we will need to continue this. It is frightening, what you have done."
Kalasin held Lana's gaze for long moments. The elder of the two broke the intensity of it when she seemed satisfied her message had gotten through. "This is Ibtea, he'll be your healer."
The two royals of Carthak left then with proper, respectful goodbyes. Zain stayed and she appreciated his presence.
"They are right, you probably should rest," Despite being blind, there was some emotion in his eyes, in the lines of his face that she could not read. It was drowningly deep and it brought a shiver to her. She smiled at him.
"Perhaps."
No sooner had she relaxed back into the bed than her eyes began to droop. Zain was humming a comforting tune, light with an edge as most things had with him. Still clutching to that last bit of wakefulness she thought she felt his hand carefully stroke her hairline in equally relaxing motions. Finally, she slept.
For three days, Lana wandered the palace with Zain. Her shoulder injury was healing nicely and it wasn't nearly enough to keep her bedridden. Despite being able to wander she had the impression close tabs were still kept on her. She was treated as a special guest for the most part but she also thought if she were to try and leave she would not be able to, not that she had anywhere to go.
It took her a portion of time to understand Zain was putting forth effort to distract her from worrying about Damien and Vincent. He was distracting enough simply by starting conversations with her and offering to walk with her somewhere. So reticent was he that every time he spoke without prompt, a part of her leapt with joy.
She began to recognize that when his lips tightened around the edges he was withholding a smile. Lana desperately wanted to see his smile but wanted it to be erased of sadness. She had begun to form a tie to him long before she knew. Her brothers had sensed the possibility from her but Lana had always given herself freely, she knew no other way. And before she realized it, she had begun giving Zain pieces of herself, too. Small pieces here and there, a smile, a look and receiving a flush of warmth at seeing something like happiness from him in return for her smallest gestures.
The insight to herself hi her suddenly. So suddenly, it was almost a blow. She would miss him, were he gone.
It was almost odd being with Zain without her brothers. They had not interfered with their friendship but they had always been a watching weight. Suddenly they were alone, Zain and she, and with her own realization she became uncharacteristically shy at first.
She had been one a walk of the grounds with him when this crashed into her and for a moment it stopped her. As if Zain were acutely attuned to her, he stopped and frowned.
"Are you well? Your shoulder…or?" She knew what he referred to; she shook her head though he couldn't see it.
"No, no," She murmured and said something else entirely she had though. "I thought myself brave, you know, for traveling. I think, though, had I truly been brave I would not have brought my brothers."
They began to walk again and Lana drank in the reactions of his features. His dark brows rose. "Only vagrants and beggars travel alone. Not out of bravery, but because they have nothing else."
Lana shrugged. "I only wish I had not brought two people I love most into harm's way. Do you…?"
She left the question hanging but he understood. "No, I do not know where they are."
There was another one of those tight, hidden smiles. They had walked under a hidden area purely by chance. Lana's fingers brushed his dimple lightly yet he froze under the touch.
"You have such a nice smile," She whispered. "I wish you wouldn't hide it so."
He was silent for long minutes. His hair was back in a braid. She noticed now that the end of it curled. His face, more beautiful or pretty than handsome, was blank and lovely. He was taller than her, she knew, but his shoulders hunched almost flinchingly as if too much of the world had beaten him.
She ached for that sad beauty. What had he seen over his years to make him so prematurely tired and world-weary? She nearly started when he spoke.
"I do not think," He began slowly, softly. "That I ever mean to hide my smile, not a purpose. I have just…known so little to make me smile that I'm not sure what to do with it."
"That," her voice waivered with the sudden tears. "I think is far worse."
He smiled, then, openly and his dimple deepened but it was tainted with sadness and pain that it nearly broke her heart to see it.
He raised one hand hesitantly. She took hold of it and pressed it to her face almost angrily. But the anger was not for him but for the injustice of all that hurt.
His hand lay over the tears that had already spilled and fresh ones hit his fingers.
"I did not mean to make you sad," he whispered. His thumb gently brushed her cheekbone and the wetness there.
She shook her head. She didn't think about her next actions. Impulsiveness and love, these things came easily to her. She buried her fingers as far as she could into his hair, the braid, and pulled his face to hers. He was compliant under her hold. Lana kissed him then. Soft but firm in her actions. He was frozen for only a moment. He shuddered and something released inside of him before he kissed her back. Her stomach did an odd flop she had never experienced at his response.
She pulled back in a question.
"You cannot fix me," He breathed. "I've been broken for too long."
"No," whispered Lana. "No."
And she was kissing him again.
She wasn't sure what she meant by 'no'. It wasn't true to say she didn't want to fix him. She wanted to ease that pain. She wanted to prove that he was worthy of anything, everything. Even her love.
His hand slipped to the back of her neck causing a small sound to escape her, not one of protest. He kissed her gently; almost reverently as if she were sweet nectar and he wanted to drink her down without spilling a drop.
He broke the kiss first, blinking furiously. "This…this should not happen."
"Why, why?"
"You are a princess, I am nothing," She'd forgotten he knew that now.
"Not nothing," She tugged him towards her but he resisted now. She pressed the line of her body to his just enough to feel that line of warmth like a promise.
He stepped away laughing shakily, Lana found she liked the sound of his laughter. "No, no, please. My control is not endless. Especially not where you are concerned for you are the most perfect thing I have ever seen."
At his choice of words, she looked to his eyes. They were pale, pale grey outlined in charcoal once again. Sight was there.
A slow smile spread across her face, she saw him react to it, shining a little brighter for her. "You can see."
"I—" He laughed again, sudden and perfect. "It has never meant more."
No, a few kisses from her had not fixed him, had not healed him. The pain was still there and still very real. Nothing could ever really take it away completely. But for the first time there was a light in his eyes that had nothing to do with gaining sight back. He was the moon, she realized in another moment of clarity, surrounded by the only thing he'd ever known: darkness. But she was the sun, shining with her own light, her own warmth and vitality. Finally, he had peeked from behind the earth and for the first time bathed in what he had always sought and reflected it back making him all the more beautiful.
Giddiness bubbled inside her and burst forth in a joyous laugh. He smiled then; more subdued more himself as if the reality of the world was enveloping him again except now there was a small barrier between it and him, her.
"Well, if you refuse to kiss me at least be a gentleman," She positioned his arms so that she could place hers atop it.
"I thought you knew I was no gentleman," It took her a moment to realize he was joking, teasing her. She laughed and thought it to be a lovely ending to any sort of day.
Lana has never been conditioned, as some are—jaded perhaps, to fear what might come next. Some character trait let her live in the moment, let her fully feel the moment for what it was be it happy or sad. Most people sought this, but it wasn't something that could be learned and once the world has crushed you, it becomes all the more difficult. It was a glorious gift, to be sure, but it was terribly shortsighted. It let her be happy about the now but it kept her from acknowledging that the next hour, day or week could produce some horror that would swallow that happiness whole and not regret it.
And because she never thought to protect herself, it would crush her.
A/N: I hope no one thinks badly of Lana for this last bit here, thinking she's the sun and he's the moon. It almost sounds conceited but 1) I don't think its really in Lana to be too conceited and 2) she's just realizing how Zain feels.
I know this has dwindled in importance for my readers but I still live in hope of seeing reviews!