39

WORDS

🙜

Ember lay flat on the grassy bank, stretching his arms behind his head and enjoying the pleasant tightness of a full stomach for the first time since he left his cabin behind. A few brilliant stars blinked down at him through the branches, even in the light of the resin.

Ky perched on a boulder in the middle of the stream, munching on a pear which he had brought her from one of the orchards. A few sparks of golden light trickled through the resin of the nearest tree root, glimmering on Ky's neck and jaw. The sparkling facets hidden under her slimy skin turned to amber in the light of the mountain, like living gold.

Already, two lazy days had passed.

It had been soothing to track the time by rising and setting of the sun, and Ember moved to sit beneath its dappled rays whenever it was directly overhead.

He had taken to napping in the burled tree roots, while Ky sang to him from afar. If she thought he had fallen asleep, she often wandered into little tunes and whistles that he suspected she made up herself, and sometimes she would fall silent and make soft splashes in the stream.

Ember found it rather melancholy—like a child playing alone.

The sirena had ventured out of the water herself twice only. Once to glimpse the doorway on the opposite side of the garden, which Ember had quickly discovered behind a copse of gnarled apple trees, and once she had disappeared and returned with her arms laden with lush dewy berries and fragrant fruit from the overgrown tangle of trees.

Those two days had already begun to restore some sense of order to his existence. Routine, he found, was a peculiar comfort after all they had endured beneath the mountain.

"Since we're both thinking it," Ember murmured, watching the stars, "I might as well say it. We could just—"

"No."

Ky spoke up softly from her post in the river.

Ember glanced at her, surprised.

"No?” he repeated. “The only real question is… why shouldn’t we? We have everything we need. No death-traps, no twisted magic. No fields or woodlands either, but I swear, there's enough bounty here to keep the entire valley fed."

"Yes," she murmured, trailing her fingers through the glassy stream. "But… you will not be happy, if we stay."

Her words settled over him like spider silk and he shivered, letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Irritation prickled him as he crossed his arms, glaring up into the broad leaves of the tree.

“And how do you know what will make me happy, Ky?”

She hummed a few notes, but did not respond.

Ember had never believed for a moment that she would remain by his side after she found her treasure. Being eaten alive by a hungry sirena had been his first and most pressing fear when they entered the door in the mountain, but now it was the unknown, the threat of dangers in the dark.

“I think,” he ventured quietly, “I could forget what it feels like to step outside this mountain…”

Careful Ember.

The words tasted powerful, dangerous.

Yet he couldn’t help but entertain the idea.

“Maybe you wouldn’t want your treasure anymore, after we’ve been here for a time…” He closed his eyes again and readjusted his hands beneath his head. “Maybe you could forget, too.”`

“No, Ember,” whispered the sirena, ducking her chin. “I cannot forget…”

Chills raised the hair on the backs of his arms as a sense of darkness swept through the garden–he felt the dread in her voice, a shadow which even the tree could not dispel.

A day ago, he might have pitied her for it.

“It won’t do us any harm to stay here a while,” he snapped, surprised at the forcefulness of his own voice.

“We shall go when you are rested. Must not be lingering here.”

"Must not? Cannot?" Ember glared at her. "Do you even hear yourself?"

"Hmm." Ky shifted again, and made a nervous clicking sound in the back of her throat. "It is not wise. When you finish your rest, we are leaving."

"And what if I decide to stay?" he challenged, resentment swelling in his heart.

Ky was very quiet, and he opened his eyes to see her turning a piece of polished resin over in her hands. She had fished it out of the stream bed; now that it was dark, many small fragments of tree sap could be seen lying among the stones, their glow rippling under the water's surface.

“I could, you know.”

“I am not thinking you will be—”

"What will you do then?”

Ky cast the resin into the water, and it sent up a small spray. “What is your meaning?”

“Will you sing to me, and persuade me to leave against my own wishes—like the coward you are?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Her mouth fell open. "C… coward?"

The stream babbled softly between them, and her toes curled into the rock.

A tangle of emotions wrenched Ember’s chest.

Miserable—and relieved—and wretched, all at once.

"Yes. Coward!" He scrambled to his feet, furrowing the mossy bank, and gazed down at her rather coldly. "What would you call it? Always looking for someone else to solve your problems—why don’t you try thinking for yourself, for a change? You’ve got a head on your shoulders, haven’t you? We’re not that different, you and I!"

Ky tilted her head upward to meet his gaze, her dark eyes fathomless.

"You know, that’s the worst of it… sometimes, I think I understand you—or at least, I want to!”

He drew Fishbiter with a loud rasp.

She flinched, shuffling off the stone and splashing back into the stream.

"You’re a thief. And worse than a thief, you’re a liar!" Ember gestured sharply with the sword for emphasis.

Ky hunched her shoulders at the sudden movement, clutching at her neck.

"Who stole my catch and ruined my nets? Who came into my cabin uninvited, and helped themselves to my food? You showed yourself to Wilifrey and they ran me off like a mangy wolf! You’re selfish, and cruel!" He paused, breathless; his face was flushed and his shoulders shook with repressed emotion. "How can you say that we’re friends, and then take everything I ever loved from me? My beautiful river, my livelihood, my cabin, my woodlands… Isabel!”

Ember slashed with the sword again, allowing himself a strangled yell of frustration. It echoed long among the twisted trees, and the ancient runes pulsed with a cerulean hunger.

“I’ll never see Isabel again—the only friend I ever had who truly cared for me. The only thing you care about is finding your damn treasure! If we were really friends, you’d have told me the truth from the start.” Fishbiter thrummed darkly, numbing his palm. “Maker’s breath, I’d give anything for one refreshing breeze that doesn’t reek of mildew and mold. I’ll never smell crushed pine and sage again, or—or finally set out to see the ocean, with Hunter, like he always promised me. Because we’re never getting out of here! Never!”

When he turned back to the sirena, she had pressed her hands tightly against her breast, as if his words had struck her there.

“‘No harm will come to you, Ember,’” he huffed in a mocking tone. “Well, look at me now. Look at the both of us. Look—look at what you’ve done!”

His throat squeezed tighter and tighter, and he fought to choke out the words as Ky watched in silent shock, digging her claws deeper into her abalone skin.

“Maybe I like this tree, this garden. So what if I do? I’m staying!” he cried. “And you can go on without me, if you please! At least I’m safe here, and I won’t starve to death. A better fate by far than following after you—you—”

But suddenly he could no longer speak.

A drop of dark blood trickled down Ky’s collarbone, disappearing into the damp laces of her jerkin. He glowered down at her—panting—furious—

Stunned.

Did I say all of that… out loud?

The sirena’s eyes wandered down from Ember’s face to the sword which hummed fiercely in his grasp, glowing runes proclaiming its purpose to her unknowing gaze.

She sniffed, blinking.

“...pretty sword…”

Her lips trembled, scarcely moving.

Ember stood very still upon the bank.

She crept over the boulder, splashing quietly through the stream until she crouched only a few paces away. Her hand moved closer and a faint blue reflection touched her fingertips. A gasp escaped her as she knelt before him, reaching for the runes.

He watched in awed silence, mesmerized, heartbeat stuttering.

…I could kill her.

The thought came from nowhere, and set upon him with such savagery that he twitched, startled by his own impulses. No—what was he thinking?

Ember yanked the sword away with a frightened shout.

Splash!

His vision smeared as droplets arced toward him, soaking his clothes and tinking quietly on Fishbiter’s blade. When he blinked, she was gone—only two rippling swirls left in her wake. The runes went dark as the sword slipped from his fingers, impacting the mossy dirt with a gentle thud.

He hadn’t noticed, until then…

Tears rolled swiftly down his cheeks, and dripped off the end of his nose.

❧

Ember retreated deep into the cradling roots of the old gnarled tree. Shame and anger mingled in his chest and he rolled over, pillowing his head on his hands and glaring into the darkness. He was angry with himself—angry for speaking his mind, angry for thinking he meant anything to Ky in the end—and ashamed of his own feelings. He didn't know what they were, exactly, but she was his only companion.

He was glad of the solitude. He wished only to be alone. And yet, as he lay awake with the sword beside him and the pack at his feet, visions beset him in a ceaseless stream…

Ky would appear above his tangled hollow, her face alight in the glow of the tree, and whisper his name. Yes, she would own to her mistakes, confess everything, and beg for his forgiveness.

Which he would offer without hesitation.

Then she would sing him to sleep, as before, and he would not have to worry about facing her sister in the darkness of his dreams.

Far too proud, he scoffed faintly, rolling over and resting his head against a gnarled root. Ky would never say such things.

Nonetheless, a part of him foolishly hoped for it.

Occasionally a twig crackled in the distance, or footsteps rustled far off in a carpet of leaves, but Ky did not return. Thus the sirena spent the rest of the evening apart from Ember, and his own thoughts turned to darker prospects even under the light of the tree. He would not fall asleep—he must stay awake.

But when at last the moon began to rise above the leaves, Ember sank into the tree’s embrace despite his resolve, and slipped into golden dreams.

Dreams of ancient days beyond his mortal ken…

A time when its majestic roots reached from the mountain to the sea, and the souls of many living beings drifted to and fro; when it was tended and loved, surrounded by the peripheral energy of singing and celebration; when banners hung from its golden fronds by the light of the harvest moon, and many traveled from lands beyond to partake of its bounty.

Content in its all-knowing-ness; the knowing of nothing, and everything.

Until, at long last, the days turned to dust. One by one the light of a thousand souls blinked out like the twinkling stars in the heavens, with a swiftness which stirred even an entity of such enduring wisdom. Then time passed unchanging in the hollow halls beneath the mountain, the existence of the golden tree swept away by the slumbering silence.

Lost to a forgotten history…

An age beyond recall.