KISS IT BETTER #5
Esme’s face went red. “I—I’ve been told I do,” she stuttered.
“My parents fell in love almost instantly. But as much as my grandmother respected his work, she didn’t want a commoner for her daughter’s first husband, so she banned them from seeing each other.
And as young lovers are wont to do, they ran away together.
” Esme grinned at this part every time. Even as a child, she never imagined her mother as someone who would run off with her first love.
Isre, freshly crowned empress with the gleam of centuries of wisdom in her eyes, had shimmied into her favorite dress at midnight, adorned herself with her finest jewels, and climbed down her balcony to meet Ligoo.
“Soon enough, though, my grandmother discovered what they’d done.
She raised an army to track them down, and though my parents tried to run, they were no match for her.
My father was captured while my mother escaped.
He was taken to my grandmother and she decreed that if my mother did not return within a day, she would kill him.
” Esme even made a little shadow executioner swing a blade on her puppet-father’s neck.
“Your grandmother is harsh,” Bal muttered. He was obviously a fan of true love.
Esme snorted. “Imagine learning your alphabet with her,” she said, building the next shadow scene.
“My grandmother threw my father in jail, but my mother had heard the decree. She knew she couldn’t let him die, so she returned to the castle in secret.
While my father was imprisoned, he called out to the trickster Kij-e, or what is called Magic in this world, and told it his tale of love and loss.
His story was so moving that even Kij-e was forced to grant him a boon, and that boon was the ability to sculpt shadow.
“With his new powers, my father sculpted my mother from the very blackness of night, just as beautiful as she was in the flesh. He brought his sculpture, moving it with his mind, to my grandmother. She was so pleased with her returned daughter that she never noticed she was fake. My father was released, and he found my mother right outside of the room, ready to turn herself in for him. They ran off that very night and were married by sunup. By the time my grandmother realized what they’d done, it was too late.
What Ojalla had recognized, her authority could not undo.
” With her shadows, Esme replayed the last scene, that of her goddess sitting in the curve of the moon, looking down upon her parents’ marriage with love.
Bal smiled at the image with wonder in his eyes. “And then they had you,” he said, like it was the true happy ending.
“Eventually, yes,” Esme told him. She erased the scene and whipped up nine more figures. “After Sek, Ram, Ur-ruk, and Ewae.” She counted figurines of her four older siblings. “Then me.” She picked herself out of her line-up. Her younger siblings were Thau, Kidra, Neme, Denai and Kiwe.
Staring down at her shadow siblings, Esme suddenly realized how undetailed they were. She grabbed her Sek and changed the contours of her nose. Still, the figurine felt… off. Esme changed it again and again and—
And she’d forgotten her sister’s nose.
She looked around her gallery of siblings and found other blurry inaccuracies—noses and eyes and lips just wrong enough to have an ocean of grief sloshing high in her.
She’d lost them, sacrificed their memories for worse ones.
She could conjure Omniel perfectly, could complain about every artist’s inability to do so—
But she couldn’t remember her sister’s nose.
Then again, she’d known Omniel’s cruelty decades longer than she’d known Sek’s love.
That lack howled like a hole in her stomach.
Her side was cold because her Kiwe was no longer perched on her hip.
Her shoulders itched because Sek’s massive arm was no longer slung over her.
Ur-ruk was not loudly regaling the story of his latest escapade while Kidra braided pearls into her hair.
Ewae was not rushing to share his latest read with her.
Thau did not sit in her bedroom while she worked, content to share Esme’s quietest moments with her.
Her head rang empty where Neme’s chattering about science should be.
Her littlest brother, Denai, was not tugging on her dress so he could carefully place the necklace he’d made her for Uhrain on her neck.
Her soul used to overflow into the people she loved most. So many parts of that soul were missing now, lopped off, and the wounds left to fester. She was alone, just Esme. Not their happiest sister, or her mother’s most defiant child, or her father’s favorite student.
Just Esme. Dull-toothed, dead-eyed, declawed Esme.
“Oh.” The sound was quiet, broken from Bal’s mouth.
Her grief must have been plain on her face.
He leaned closer to her, hands cradling her cheeks, except where she should have been sagging into the comfort of his palms, she hissed at the stinging in her neck.
Between the will and her overzealous commitment to her schemes, her throat was a mess of scarring and scabbing.
“Damn, I nearly forgot,” Bal said quickly. He held her against him while he reached over to grab the small tub he’d bought up here with them. She could smell the medicine in it. “I wanted to put this on your neck before it got too bad.”
He unscrewed the top and Esme screwed up her nose. The smell was so righteous that she momentarily forgot she was supposed to be sad.
“You are not putting that vile stuff on me,” she said, shielding her nose.
“It’s medicine, Esme,” Bal said, rolling his eyes, as he slathered his fingers with the pinkish salve.
“It’s oppressive, is what it is,” Esme protested with a pout.
Bal scoffed at her, wearing a small smile. There was desperation beneath it, like this was the one thing he could do for her, and he needed to do something.
She twisted her lips. It wasn’t about the salve—not really.
The smell was horrid, yes, but what would sting more was letting him care for her.
Was it because he’d be king soon? Ryukyhn had warned her—he’d been right to warn her—but would a crown really change her Bal?
Esme didn’t think so. She was sure that if she cracked him open, she’d find nothing but sweetness.
Sugar might sting, but that didn’t mean it was hurting her.