17

Leila

            I should like to say:

That you are what I fear most and am least afraid of.

The lines aren’t drawn very clearly. I suppose that’s what guerilla warfare is all about. A collection of memories at war, no, two collections. At sixteen, I was so certain about my feelings I refused to listen to anybody else’s misgivings, not even yours. I was so intent on my conquest. That refusal to listen sucked you into our cycle of violence as surely as the demons within you. And now, I’m tired of the memories.

Aren’t you?

Why do I try to placate you about the child? You say with your quiet sneer, Oh, once again it shall be as the Pallases wish. I’m furious, stay calm. I want to take my children and leave again, but I won’t run this time. When you tell me what I already know, that Lady Ciani has asked Ray to join her in Zyss soon, I can see you relish that, too: You like to see me struggling with that one. A taste of revenge after all.

How many years have I kept our secrets, together with your Order? Then I see it in your eyes, the old brooding, the calm before the storm, and I’m waiting for your anger to resurface, and I’ve reached a point where your pain only tires me. I even get flippant: If you loathe it all so much, why don’t you just do yourself in, like Ray? I am tired of keeping secrets, of keeping the good soldier afloat, of keeping the house of the good soldier afloat, of keeping Ray afloat!

We meet in the garden. I stalk you there. Our secret dance of pursuit and avoidance, so like a courtship, winds around the rose houses and autumnal shrubs until you turn down a blind alley and I have you collared. The morning sun in my eyes blinds me until you move a few centres and stand between it and me. This small courtesy allows me to drop my hand from my eyes, to face you, perhaps to appease our memories after all.

You signal your surrender to me, “Well?”

We look at each other.

Even in his shadow her eyes struck him as too light. He’d never gotten used to them. Now her hair flashed blue shadows, her face had changed to a more angular oval befitting her age, and a tattooed rose grew right out of the jugular pulsing under her pale neck. Once again, she seemed infinitely fragile to him, her white hands like porcelain, with yellow doll’s eyes highlighted by her sepia hair.

I can’t make you out until we dance gingerly around each other, and you step back out of the light spilling over your head, overshadowing your face. Except for the silver in your beard you haven’t changed much. You look as weary as you did when I left you. But your gray eyes are not dull. To think that cousin Lex would fall for you, of all people. I touch your sleeve, push my fingers up the material until I reach your face. You don’t move away. You put your hand over mine and hold it on your shoulder.

“Why?” You ask finally.

“Would you believe because you are dying?”

I free my hand, press further up, through the speckled chestnut, try to pull you closer to me until you draw back, then I let you retreat the one step it takes to re-establish a safe distance.

“Hardly.” Brevity is still your trademark.

I observe, “Four years with the ice master as expiation. And you’ve been back, what? Another four years?” You keep silent, still. I add, “And Socorro was dying, so I had to return. Now Peg tells me she’ll be all right. If you want me to stay in Zyss, you should just say so.”

That stings, I can tell. Your anger rises, then you snap yourself back into line, “I have learned my lesson, if that’s what you’re here to establish.”

“You like your new daughter, then?”

What possesses me to goad you like this?

“Is that it? You want assurances that I’ll keep my part of this new bargain between us? Well then you can have it: I like the little bastard just fine.”

Ah, you still know how to sting back!

I turn my back to you and start to walk towards the closest rose house. Once inside, I sit down, wait for you to make up your mind about escaping. You could have taken that out. Then again, when have you ever taken the easy road?

“Well?” You repeat after you have caught up with me.

“Tell me about the duel.”

“What about it?”

“Please.”

“It’s just a duel.”

“With a Tomryd.”

You sit down next to me and your voice is almost soothing, “He’s still a journeyman.”

“Have you fought a Tomryd before?”

“I train with Alexander.”

So Cousin Lex is good for more than just one thing. I wonder how long it took him to convince you.

“But that’s not really what you wanted to talk about, is it?” You continue, “Why don’t you come to the point of this meeting, since you’ve gone to the trouble of forcing it.”

After gathering my courage, I dive in, “Things need to change between us.”

You look at me wordlessly, encouraging: Go on.

“You trusted me once.”

That dry bark of a laugh hurts, but I let it pass. “After nine years? You stop talking to me, announce to the world that we can’t get on, take my child to some godforsaken planet to be raised by some junkie, and now you want trust?”

“You struck the first blow.”

Whatever it was you were going to follow up with, it’s hard work swallowing it after my salvo. Still struggling with it, you squeeze out between clenched teeth, “I swear to God there is an O’bonne witch in you!”

I show no mercy, “And a good many others after that.” But then I remember why I have sought you out this morning, and I try to make amends, “Yes. You’re right. I do know how to strike back with my transformed Danyx talent. But my empathic sensibility should be another reason why you’d do well to trust me again.”

Almost a re-enactment, your hands lock onto my wrists and your voice rings savagely against me as you shake me, “How’s that for a start: Would you believe that I still can’t live with the memory of that third year? That I still regret that one day? Even now, with all the transgressions of my Order and my Justiciar title on my hands?”

I gasp, and realizing what you are doing you almost throw my hands away, cover your face. This time I let you recover, moving closer to you as you continue your confession, until my hand rests lightly on your arm again, “The duel is such a . . . relief. For once, to be faced with someone that I won’t just slaughter effortlessly! Of course you can’t know what I feel, the immense, immeasurable relief of it!” You let out a hard sigh, murmur, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

My turn. “I don’t know when you stopped being the monster, but one day it happened. Yes, I needed to go that far to stop hurting, but the distance also gave me perspective. Then, almost killing Ray was the clincher. You know, there was a part of me that wanted him to suffer.” I pause, finish dryly, “Well he did. I got to taste my wish coming true.” I can’t complete what I need to tell you, that indulging my anger had taught me about yours. I simply can’t get it out. I continue with, “And now I have this little Danyx witch daughter and I think it could be easier between us.” After a second pause, I ask more haltingly, “Do you think, might it be possible, for us, to find some peace, something like Vai and Alexander?”

“They started out so differently.”

Without the violence of first love and first grande décéption. Neither of them had the temperament for it.

A physically painful longing washed over him. She could re-awaken that old, fearsome self, the old rage snapping through him and out of him, to be stopped by broken bones. The self he’d turned over to the ice mentor, the self he couldn’t even retrieve safely in combat. He thought back to his personal turning point, the fateful day when she had been hurled clear across their bedroom, cracked her skull against the wall and crumpled to the floor. Waiting for the physician he’d alerted to arrive before turning himself in to his Order, he had sworn ice penance. Arthmis had agreed, with a twist: he’d go serve his time with her ice mentor father, the former Pallas Vrezh. He had not expected the old Mythran to let him live, let alone to turn into his teacher and together work his transformation into the controlled man he was now. 

“It’s worth a try,” you say almost in a whisper. You look so haunted that I reach for you again, twisting my wrist into my tunic so you won’t see the purple marks you left there. Compassion sweeps over me and I want to give you what I withheld just a moment ago. Tell you I forgave you even before I learned the need to be forgiven.

“You already know it, but I’ll tell you anyway: The stupid things I say about your going to Earth, it’s just bravado. Abandoning me was the right choice.”

Oh how you word things sometimes!

You continue, “And the truth is, I’ve gained a whole new understanding of passion now. First-hand.”

“Yeah?”

You half-nod, then half-shake your head, “How could you stand it? Where did you find the strength to let it go? To go on?”

I shrug, “You just … do. But I think, unlike so many of us, you won’t have to.”

“Really? That’s not the conventional wisdom.”

“Oh he’ll test you, that he will! Lex is not used to limits. But I always knew that if and when he surrendered himself, he wouldn’t hold back.”

And he has surrendered himself, I just know it.

And I sense that despite your nagging doubts, despite the whispers you can’t quite put out of your mind, at a deeper level, you know what I know. Rather an interesting way for your debts to come circling back.

“Truce, then,” I propose, and when you nod, I tousle your hair and say very quietly, “I trust you again, Eden. But as you say, I’m something of an O’bonne witch. I know I can. You’ll need more time.”

And I see shyness come over you, an awkwardness that signals a small opening in your armor you’re willing to risk. I lean into you for a timid hug. You hold me like a porcelain doll, almost at arm’s length. And I know that this trust I seek to re-establish will come to pass.