8. Chapter Eight #2
“You…you came,” she whispers on a brittle tone. “How did you know I needed…” She trails off, unable to finish the thought, but I understand. How did I know she needed comfort? That she teetered on the precipice of complete collapse?
I have always known.
Years of watching her suffer has attuned me to the frequency of her pain. I feel it across realms—a discordant note in the dark symphony that tethers our souls, pulling me from whatever task occupies me.
Tonight I sat in my palace library when her anguish struck me hard. The sudden, sharp crack of it forced the breath from my lungs. I moved without conscious thought, crossing the veil to find her cowering on the floor, terror eating her alive from within.
It may be wrong of me to keep such close watch and intervene when her suffering peaks…but there are lines I am willing to cross.
Each time she has tried to end this life—lifting blade to wrist, swallowing pills by the handful, stepping toward one-way destinations with deadened eyes—I have taken her longing in the moment before.
Not to feed or sustain myself, but to drain enough of her despair that the urge of self-destruction fades.
A manipulation, perhaps. A selfish interference in the free will the Bright Gods value so heartily. But I cannot watch her die by her own hand again. Cannot wait through the years of childhood and adolescence for her soul to mature enough to recognize mine once more.
She believes, I think, that she simply lacks the courage to complete these acts. That some part of her clings to life despite its endless cruelties.
I let her believe this. It is kinder than the truth.
Selfish, yes, but I am long past caring.
In those first years after the promise, I prepared my palace for Maven’s arrival. I filled it with comforts I thought might please her—soft fabrics in beautiful colors, instruments she might wish to play, a garden blooming with flowers that matched her gentle nature.
When she did not come—when I learned of the Bright Gods’ mistake—I sought her among the mortals. Found her living a simple life in a mountain village, laughing as she gathered herbs before dawn, singing as she wove fabric for her family’s clothes.
She did not know me then. Did not understand the pull she felt toward a different life, or the yearning that woke her from dreams with tears drying on her cheeks. But she sensed something. Even then, her soul recognized its missing half.
I courted her carefully. Left gifts where she would find them—fabric only known to the gods in one life and small carved animals in another.
Always different gifts. I visited her dreams, though I did not speak or explain.
Only watched as she explored imagined landscapes that reflected her inner desires.
Slowly, with understandable caution, she began to seek me.
To linger in places where we would be alone while deigning to leave me offerings at times.
How she thought me worthy of those gifts, I’ll never know, though I’ve kept all that I could.
Wine and herbs did not last, but she once left a lock of her hair wrapped around a bloom plucked from her mother’s garden, and that one is still in my possession.
When I finally revealed my truth, she showed no fear. Only wonder and curiosity. The beginning of understanding.
But when I explained what she was—what we were to each other—that wonder curdled to disbelief. Refusal. She could not conceive of a reality beyond the one she knew, could not imagine abandoning the family she loved for the promise of an immortal existence with a being she barely knew.
She said no. Firmly.
And I, bound by laws as old as creation itself, had no choice but to honor her decision.
She died of fever three years later. I wept as her soul departed, followed its journey as it was guided to a new vessel. And so, it began again. The slow alignment of time that would eventually allow us to meet once more.
Life after life. Death after death. Each one a variation on the same theme: discovery, connection, refusal.
But in each life, she lost something of her original brightness. The weight of mortal existence—more brief and brutal than the Bright Gods admit—pressed her down. Carved away pieces of her light until only a fraction of that first Maven remains.
This Maven—Maven Talmay, twenty-seven years old, resident of nine cities in eight years, survivor of foster homes and countless rejections—is the dimmest iteration yet. A soul so wounded by its continuous exile that it has forgotten how to recognize joy.
But beneath the scars and the layers of sadness, the essence of her first self remains. It calls to me still; yearns for completion with a ferocity that takes my breath away.
“Are you going to say something?” Her words are sharp, with the defensive edge she uses to keep the world at bay. “Or just sit there staring at me all night?”
I consider her question and my options.
Speaking would cross a threshold we’ve only approached in dreams thus far.
Would make this visitation more real than the silent watchfulness I’ve maintained.
But her defenses have been weakened by panic, alcohol, and the desperate loneliness that drove her to seek connection with the wrong man.
Perhaps now she might be ready to hear what I’ve waited this lifetime to say.
Maybe.
But caution keeps me silent. This Maven is brittle in ways her previous selves were not, meaning one misstep could shatter her completely.
Instead of words, I raise my hand and gesture toward her dress.
Her breath catches as she notices how far the dress has fallen.
“I’ll fix it,” she whispers, reaching back with unsteady fingers.
But the angle is awkward, her hands still trembling from the aftermath of panic and unwanted advance.
After two failed attempts, she drops her arms in defeat, shoulders curving forward. “Never mind. I’ll change in a bit.”
She tugs her knees to her chest, wrapping arms around them as if she needs the comfort of compacting herself. Her neck curves forward, hair falling to obscure her face—another layer of protection against a world that has taught her vulnerability is weakness.
But she does not ask me to leave. Does not tell me to go or deny my existence. I expected her to at least rail against the impossibility of this moment.
Instead, she sits in silence, her breathing steadying as the panic recedes with each passing minute. Her pulse settles into a rhythm less frantic, though still quicker than normal.
I match my breathing to hers without conscious thought, a smile curving my lips as our lungs fill and empty in perfect tandem despite the vastly different constructs of our bodies.
This small connection soothes something hungry and restless within me. A craving not for power or worship, but for simple recognition that we are two halves of a single whole that desperately need to fuse.
For the first time in this mortal lifetime, hope unfurls in me. Fragile, but there.
This time will be different.
But not tonight. Tonight she needs rest and peace. The small comfort of presence without demand.
So, I will wait, as I have always waited. Patient as the mountains that watch civilizations rise and crumble. Constant as the stars that float overhead, marking the passage of time that means so little to immortals.
I will wait, and I will watch, and I will hope.
For Maven.