36. Chapter 36
Adistant clinking came from my right. An object swayed in the breeze, hitting against something just hard enough to cause a soft cli-clunk.
I could sense the sunlight through my closed eyelids before I felt it.
My fingers stretched wide, feeling the soft fabric beneath them.
Strangely my head felt clearer than it ever had before.
The voice was nowhere to be heard, and its looming presence was gone.
Even in the moments when Ophelia had granted me the small mercy of silence by driving it away, I could still sense it was there, waiting to pounce like a beast on its prey.
With effort, I opened my eyes and blinked until my sight came into focus.
Whitewashed walls were all around me, except on the side where a large window perched, permitting wind and the sun’s rays to enter the room.
The golden light bounced off the dark wood of the four-poster bed I lay in.
Each post was wrapped in gossamer fabric that matched the sheets tucked around me.
This wasn’t my room at Loamil, but I knew this room. Why did I know this room?
I blinked again, fighting back the sting of dry eyes, as I took in the finer details.
Shelves littered with trinkets and books.
A glass cabinet filled with accolades and tributes of some kind.
The metals all glowed with an obscene shine that reflected brightly against the light that poured into the room.
A wooden desk that greatly mismatched the other furniture sat in the far corner. I remember that desk. It was the first piece of furniture I built with my uncle when I was barely fifteen. Why was it here? I shifted to a sitting position with ease and continued to stare at the desk.
There was the notch Brehm had carved with the first knife I gave her.
I’d told her she needed to practice handling it and she took that as the opportunity to try wielding it onto one of the desk’s legs, stating it needed a bit of flair.
A smile took over my face as I saw other small scratches from the times Thea had used it for her school studies.
A sad laugh escaped my chest when I saw the faint coal markings from the time Calum had gotten into Thea’s schoolbag and dug out her drawing supplies.
Memories flooded my mind as I heard the phantom laughs of my family from so long ago. My mind played tricks on me, even causing shadowed figures to move about the room like they once did.
But how was this possible?
Something shifted to my left as a figure stood in a doorway. Had there been a door there before? A woman entered and my mind suddenly went numb. A flare of hope crested inside of my chest so violently that it threatened to rip through bone…but this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
The woman moved to sit in the chair beside me.
She was just as I remembered. Her skin was beautifully umber, and her black hair had been twisted back into small braids, each strand adorned with metal and clay beads.
She smelled like raspberries, her favorite fruit, but it was her eyes that held me captive.
They were twin pools of sapphire, evidence of her Wielding lineage.
Talia.
“Hello, old friend.” My heart clenched at her voice. Her smile was frozen in time, just how I remembered from before…
“Giants. How is this possible?” I barely even heard my own voice. “How is this real?”
Her eyes saddened a bit. “It is, but it isn’t. We’re all granted one final place of importance before we enter the Final Door. My grandmother was at mine. In my childhood home’s kitchen, of all places. Giants, she made the best bread.”
“Where are we? Does this mean I am dead?”
Talia shifted in her seat, adjusting the skirts of her blue dress as she leaned back casually in her chair. “No. I’m afraid not, not yet. Close to it though, with that nasty hit you just took. But”—she pointed at the door she had entered through—“if you walk through that door, you will be.”
I struggled desperately to recall how I’d landed in this bed, in this house that had been destroyed so long ago.
Memories flooded behind my eyes as if a dam had been ripped open.
Flashes of Aurora and Ophelia sparring. Great lights glowing around them.
Such intense pain that happened when Ophelia called on her power and commanded the Ancient One in her clutches.
I remember that I’d tried running to her, to help her find her calm, right before she and her sister clashed their magic and disappeared—but not before the aftermath of their magic collided right into my chest.
My fingers found their way to the spot where the greatest agony I had ever experienced had landed.
Memories replayed of the feeling of skin being ripped apart as muscle and bone were forced to release their hold and splay out wide.
Instead of finding a wound, my fingers only skimmed across healed flesh.
“How am I not dead?”
“Because you can’t be. Not yet, anyway. You still have so much to do.” Talia smiled, but it barely reached her eyes.
“Then why am I here?” I pleaded, trying desperately to understand. “How am I here if I am not dead?”
Talia sat there thoughtfully. “Cisoi seems to be a rather patient giant, even if his lover is preparing for a bit of a rampage.” She huffed a small laugh. “He’ll let almost anyone sit at the doorstep and wait.”
“You’re waiting to enter his door? But isn’t there paradise on the other side?“ Why would she still be waiting, after all this time?
Talia laughed, reminding me of when she would watch our children play, or when she granted me mercy from telling a terrible joke.
“You know I can’t tell you that.” Her wide smile now dimmed a fraction, but enough to notice.
“I’ve been watching you, you know. Keeping an eye on you. Even as the years passed you by.”
A thick curtain of shame closed around me, choking me. Not just from how I lived over the many, many years, but for not living them with her. “Talia, I am so very—“ I closed my eyes as I waited for the tears to break. For the remorse to pour out in droves.
A warm hand wrapped around mine and squeezed.
My eyes opened to find deep blues staring back at me, full of sorrow.
“Hush now, Peiro. I don’t know how much time we have, but for your sake, you have already been forgiven.
I forgive you. We didn’t know the depths of that curse then, but seeing what I’ve seen, I could never hold that against you.
If anyone is to blame, it’s the greed of that king you had to serve during our time.
That man tormented you then, and his legacy torments you to this day. ”
The guilt I had held onto for centuries began to unravel at that moment as I stared back at Talia.
Her eyes held a thousand words that all said the same thing: forgiveness.
For years I’d refused to talk about my family for fear I would dishonor their memory.
Or because I felt that I didn’t even deserve to remember them, but that all was changing now with such a small but profound word.
Now I could gaze upon her face like that of an old friend and felt the beginnings of peace.
“And…the children? Are they…in paradise?” A part of me wanted to remain ignorant and leave their memories in the depths of my mind, but now I had to know.
Talia’s eyes lit up at the mention. “Brehm is just how you remember. So sure of herself at her age. Carries a stupid knife that matches the one you gave her at eight. You old fool.” She laughed for a bit then sighed before locking her eyes on mine, suddenly somber.
“But she is well, in harmony within paradise. I see her through the threshold from time to time, and she is always at peace. Cling to that, my friend.”
I nodded, needing to hear more. “Thea?” My voice croaked.
“You mean Lady Thea? Can you believe that?” Talia snickered.
“Goodness, I feel sorry for the lord who thought he was expecting a lady, thanks to the fire she always had inside of her. She looks like how I remember my mother at that age. She lived a full life and was surrounded by family as she approached Cisoi’s Door.
Thea is as every bit as lovely as we had dreamed her to be. If not more.”
A smile stretched across my face as I kept my eyes focused on my fingers. “I found her descendent by accident. He reminds me a lot of her. Fyom is his name. Eyes green as hers, and the same damn inquisitive nature, always thirsting for knowledge.”
“I can’t wait to meet him, when he’s old and lived his life.” Talia smiled.
I worked up the courage for my last question, feeling eager to know more. “And how is my boy? How is Calum?” Talia’s face fell a moment before resorting back to a neutral state, but it was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck begin to prickle. “Where is he?”
Talia shook her head slowly, her words a whisper. “I don’t know. I always look for him, but I never see him.”
“Was he not with you and Brehm? Did they not cross to the Final Door together?”
“No. I’ve only ever seen Brehm and Thea.”
What could this mean? I barely had a tolerance for the politics of courts, so my mind couldn’t even begin to unravel what was happening with the politics of giants. I was just about to speak right as I watched Talia wince in pain.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I reached for her like old times, but she smoothly backed away and adjusted herself.
“I don’t know how much time we have, but listen to me.
I’ve made my peace in the afterlife and have seen your story unfold.
No higher or lower man could outrun all that you’ve endured.
Everything was ripped away from you, from us, but…
but you have found love again after such a long time, and that makes me very happy to see.
” Talia’s warm smile was genuine, even when I felt like it was a betrayal to her memory.
“No. None of that, friend.” Talia tsked and leaned back in her chair again.
“None of what?”