The world passed by in a haze of faces, frantic words and concerned voices. Liliana could understand people were asking things, asking for clarification of the events of a day that her world had shattered apart. Asking for her to put to words her version of the day her heart had died in her chest but cruelly left her alive to suffer through the pain alone.
She couldn’t speak, though, her tongue as dead in her mouth as her heart in her chest. It felt like her entire body was dying around her, or perhaps it was her soul that died that afternoon. Her lungs still pulled in air, her eyes still blinked, and she knew blood still rushed through her veins, but it felt wrong now. Like all these facts shouldn’t be true. Her blood shouldn’t still be warm, shouldn’t still be filling her body with the surety of life. Not when the blood of the woman she’d known as a mother congealed and laid still in her body. Not when Astrid’s body was cold as ice and already succumbing to the slow rot of death and decay. She shouldn’t feel her lungs filling with air when Astrid would never again take in another breath. Not when Astrid’s eyes would never again fill with love. Instead they would forever more stare into the distance, dull and lifeless.
She knew, distantly, that she was eventually left alone. Knew her Bonds were stalking her rooms, full of rage and despair she couldn’t help them with. She couldn’t hope to save anyone else from this sea of uncertainty when she herself was so far beneath the waves, she could no longer see the light. Not when she felt despair and hopelessness clogging her throat and filling her chest alongside the blood and air that kept her body alive even when she felt dead.
Visitors became rarer, whether it was because they were unable to summon a response from her almost catatonic state or because her Bonds were nearly feral at the moment she neither knew nor cared. She’d happily let herself fade from existence in this room turned grave. Perhaps then this awful, empty and aching feeling in her chest would fade. Perhaps the jagged wound that she’d been left with would stop bleeding and seeping through her being. Maybe the void she still so vividly remembered would soothe the pain and ache that had become who she was as she stared up at the ceiling of her room, laid out on a bed, unmoving except for the weak breaths of air she drew in periodically.
Pain radiated from her arm, sharp and clear in the haze of heartbreak she was floating in. In a moment it was as if her body and soul realigned and she took in a deep breath, eyes blinking as if she’d just come out of a long sleep. Looking over, movements still so slow and hesitant as if she no longer was used to her body, she saw a small Nemesis sitting by her arm where two small holes lazily leaked red blood down her arm and stained her sheets.
Astrid will be mad about the stains. Liliana thought, an instinctive thought that brought back to horrifying clarity the events that had left her in this state.
Astrid wouldn’t be mad, wouldn’t care. She was dead, she couldn't care. She’d never again chastise Liliana for something again. Her sharp but loving voice would never again fill her ears and suffuse her with love and shame in equal measures when she did something reckless or childish. She’d never again fall apart in Astrid’s arms, crying out in the safety of a mother’s embrace. A sob choked her throat and Liliana curled up on her side, hands clutching ineffectually at her chest as if she could squeeze the broken shards of her heart back together as her sobs gained strength and shook her body. Tears ran freely down her face, a torrent of pain that did nothing to staunch the agony that wracked her very being.
Her mind was gaining lucidity even as she broke apart again in her bed, and with it the power of her Bonds flooded her mind, the instinctive wall she’d placed between them crumbling to dust in the face of their love and concern. She felt her bed dip concerningly and groan as it was forced to bear the weight of a huge tiger, but Liliana didn’t care if it broke beneath them as she turned and curled into Lelantos’ side, hands clutching desperately into his fur, seeking comfort for a pain too great for one body to hold on its own.
With their Bond now clear of any blockades, she felt Nemesis and Lelantos in startling clarity, and heard their whines and hisses as the full brunt of her pain was truly unleashed to run rampant through the three of them. But somehow, the sharing of pain across three bodies and minds made the load easier for all to bear. Each breath Liliana took as her pain bled into the minds of her Bonds was easier, a little less shattered glass digging into her chest with each beat of her broken heart. Eventually an equilibrium was reached, where the pain still dug and stabbed and wounded them all, but it was no longer this unconquerable beast that would drown Liliana in its cold depths. Now it was something manageable, something they could bear the burden of until the pain became less savage one day, until its claws dulled and its ragged edges smoothed to scars.
“I’m sorry,” Liliana croaked out, her voice hoarse and nothing more than a breath, as weak and effervescent as spider silk fluttering on the breeze. She wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to, Astrid for not being the one to drink the poisoned wine, Lelantos and Nemesis, for forcing them to endure this devastating agony. Maybe even Silas, who was no longer here, who had gone to handle his own grief in solitude. The only other person who could perhaps understand the pain she was undergoing with any true empathy. But his loss was different too, that of a man who lost the love of his life. She’d lost a mother, he’d lost his heart. Their pains weren’t the same, but they were both too great for anyone to handle alone.
It was with a single-minded determination that Liliana got to her feet, unsteady and dizzy. She hadn’t eaten since that day, and she didn’t know how much time had passed since. The unfaltering march of time had passed her by without notice while she’d been trapped in a coma of pain and loss. Her feet stumbled, but there was a large body there to catch her before she fell. A warm, sure form that laid down so she could pull herself onto his back. Nemesis wrapped around her throat, almost too tight in her need for closeness, the comfort of skin on scales essential for their survival as they all rode out, the waves of grief washing through their bond unfettered.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Find him,” Liliana ordered, her voice still a weak whisper, but Lelantos understood as he stood and bounded out to the courtyard, clearing the wall with ease.
Liliana gripped his fur with all the strength she had in her abused body, legs shaking even as they clamped to his side. She could hear people shouting her name, knew they were watching her in confusion and concern. She hadn’t cared to change into anything appropriate, and at some point a maid had put her in a nightgown. She didn’t care if she looked wholly inappropriate, riding a tiger in her nightwear. Such things were so pointless to her now. What did propriety matter in the face of choking grief?
Eventually the amount of people they passed died down until they were alone as Lelantos loped across snow covered ground and through barren trees. She had never been to Silas’ house, but she knew Lelantos would find him. By the time they stopped before a small, humble cottage deep in the Rosengarde estate, Liliana had begun to shiver from the cold, but the ache of numbing extremities was barely a thought to her. Her mind had so little space with grief and determination, filling it to its entirety. Liliana slid off Lelantos’ back and, with one hand kept on him for balance, she made her way to the door of the cottage. Her bare feet crunched through the snow and her steps were stumbling, but she pushed through the numbness and clumsiness with a single-minded determination to get to the door.
When they stopped before the wooden door, Liliana paused, uncertainty filling her for a moment. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Liliana raised a hand and pounded on the door, the sound ringing out through the silent snowy vista around them. She heard steps in the house, heard them pause at the door and someone take in a deep breath of their own before opening the door.
Silas stood before her, looking haggard and far older than she had ever seen him. His clothes were loose around him, stained and messy. His beard was unkempt, bursting off his face like a wild bush, eyes swollen and bloodshot, likely a mirror of her own. He looked like a man who had nothing left to live for, wracked by grief. He couldn’t even summon the energy to look surprised at her appearance on his doorstep looking like a ghost of a girl, a snow spirit come to drag him to an icy death. Liliana stared at him, her mind working slowly to find the words she needed to explain her presence, but it was unnecessary. Silas stepped aside, giving her unspoken permission to enter his home.
Liliana stepped inside, Lelantos laying before the door as she did, blocking anyone else from following her. A sentinel standing guard before this house that stank of sadness and heartbreak. Silas closed the door and walked off, Liliana following behind him, her steps clumsy as her numbed feet pricked and stung when confronted with the warmth in the house. He’d lit a fire at some point. How he’d managed it in the grip of his grief, Liliana couldn’t imagine.
Silas led her to a couch, and she sat down gratefully, nearly collapsing as her tired and frozen limbs cried out in relief. She curled up on the seat, knees to her chest and arms wrapped around them, her long nightgown covering her until she looked like a mound of snow left on his old brown furniture. Silas took a seat next to her and Liliana leaned towards him until her head rested on his shoulder, offering silent comfort and soaking in his warmth. The cold that filled her went further than snow chilled skin. It was as if her very bones were made of ice and she wanted to see if she would melt away when enough heat was applied.
She didn‘t know how long they sat there, saying nothing, but she felt the pain in her lessen ever so much as they both took in the comfort of another person who would understand their pain. Her Bonds had helped bring her back to life, and had made it possible for her to exist with the pain inside of her, but they would never know Astrid the way she did, never understand the depth of love she felt for the woman. But Silas did. Silas knew, and had felt a love for Astrid as deep as her own. That knowledge did something to ease a bit of the ache in her chest, was a medicine she needed with all her being.
“We were going to get married this summer,” Silas spoke after what felt like hours of silence. Shattered the calm between them with words filled with longing and pain. A future imagined that would forever stay a dream. Hopes stolen by the cold hands of death. But it was necessary. It was allowing a festering wound to be aired and cleaned. These things inside of them couldn’t stay there, or it would rot them from the inside out. So Liliana took a breath and opened her mouth, her tongue less numb than it had been. More alive with each beat of her heart and intention filling her.
“I was hoping to buy her a house when I graduated from the Academy. Somewhere nice, sunny, where she could have her own garden and never again have to serve someone,” Liliana confessed her own hopes of a future that would never come to pass. A small bit of the pain in her heart eased with each word that passed her lips.
“When I asked her to marry me, I’d brought her a bouquet of her favorite flowers, lilies you know, and I was so nervous I dropped the ring. She cried and laughed and told me yes between her tears and giggles,” Silas told her, his voice breaking a bit with the words. Liliana felt the faint urge to smile, but it wasn’t yet strong enough to change her frozen features.
“Astrid caught me sneaking cookies from the kitchen a week ago. She was so angry, but her eyes were full of amusement. She took half of them as a tax, telling me if I wanted to sneak out cookies I should try to wipe my mouth of the chocolate before she came in,” Liliana blurted out, the memory bringing tears to her eyes but they felt warm now, instead of cold like they had before as they poured down her face. Thawing her heart and skin.
They spent hours, the light of the day fading to night as they shared their memories of the woman who had kept both their hearts in her hands and stolen them with her when she died. Each sentence birthed more tears, but each word also eased something deep inside of them. It didn’t fix what was broken, but the pieces were being arranged so they could heal one day. There would always be scars, they would ache and sting and itch, but one day they would heal. It was something both of them realized as they comforted each other through reminiscence, as they both bore their wounds for the other to see and allowed themselves to remember not just the pain, but the love and happiness that Astrid had brought them.
Eventually, Liliana fell asleep to a lullaby of Silas recounting a beautiful memory of him and Astrid by a lake filled with summer flowers. Silas stood from her side and pulled blankets over the fragile-looking girl who had sought him out for comfort and safety, but to also draw him out of the darkness that had been consuming him. As he stared down at her, he saw tears still slowly leaked down her face, even in her sleep, and he made a silent vow. This girl who Astrid had loved as her own, he would see her safe. He couldn’t live for himself right now. It was too much to ask him when he felt like his heart had died with Astrid, but he could live for the girl she’d loved more than life itself. It went beyond the call of duty. It was an oath he alone would know, as his loyalties irrevocably shifted that night.