17. Khiann
KHIANN
She was not there. He did not need to open his eyes to know it, because everything felt a few degrees colder when she was absent.
Then he remembered that she had told him she would be gone for a few hours. A family event of some sort that she needed to attend.
She had held his hand, told him she would be leaving, and asked whether he would be all right. He had smiled at her and squeezed once in affirmation because she wanted to go and he did not want to keep her from her family, but he missed her already.
He opened his eyes and looked at the strange ceiling with its illuminated panels that were functional but cold. Somewhere to his right, the machine kept its steady rhythm, and beyond that, a male was making incoherent sounds.
The tall male physician passed the foot of the bed without noticing that he was awake, which was fine by him. He needed to take inventory of what he knew. The things his scattered brain had managed to retain.
His name was Khiann, but he still did not feel like it belonged to him. It was the name of a stranger he did not know.
His father's name was Navohn, and his mother's name was Yaeni, and for some reason those names felt like something warm in his chest. It was not familiarity because they sounded as foreign to him as his own name. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he had a mother and a father.
What had happened to them?
The name of the magnificent beauty spending her days on the chair next to his bed was Annani, daughter of Ahn and Nai, and she was a bright flame that warmed his body and illuminated his spirit.
He felt alive when she was near.
A male had visited, the one with the red hair, but he could not remember his name. It was like a frayed thread in his head that remained out of grasp, but at least he remembered the friendly face and the infectious smile and how he had felt when that male was there.
A friend. He had a friend.
He remembered her telling him about three little children that would be at the family dinner, and the way she smiled when she had talked about them.
He also remembered the ring.
Then he moved his thumb and the band turned with it because it was too big. There was something carved underneath, and Annani had told him what it said, but he struggled to remember the words.
He remembered other things she had told him about the ring.
There was something about it not being made of gold because gold was not durable enough for a ring meant to last an eternity.
It was made from a special alloy that could not be cut, but since it was engraved, that did not make sense.
How had the words been engraved in an uncuttable alloy?
She had also said something about where the alloy could have come from that he must have misunderstood. Something about the planet of the gods. Then she had said it was a story for another day, and after that she had said something he had liked very much.
Your father told you things, and you told me.
His father had told him something about the metal or about the planet of the gods, and he had told her, but he had forgotten while she had remembered, and now she was reminding him of what his mind had lost.
She had turned the ring in the light, had held it up so that he could see the inside of it, and he had not looked because at that moment he had been looking at the ceiling and thinking about how it was made.
By the time he shifted his gaze to the ring, she had already moved it from his line of sight.
But she had read the inscription to him, and suddenly he remembered it.
For eternity and beyond.
Then something else arrived on the heels of that inscription.
A city of pale stone, petals falling from rooftops, two carriages coming up a wide avenue from opposite ends, and a crowd cheering loudly.
The bride under a tall gold headdress with her burning hair beneath it, laughing, blowing kisses off her fingertips.
A tall male leaping between the moving carriages, the crowd going wild, and the male carrying her up the palace steps while she protested and did not mean it.
The two of them turning to face each other.
The bride putting a ring on the groom's finger.
For eternity and beyond.
Khiann's breath caught in his throat.
The bride had said those words while she put a ring on the groom's finger, and there was a ring on his finger with those exact words inside it.
No.
It could not be. Perhaps every ring said that. Perhaps it was something people wrote inside rings, and it meant nothing. That was possible. That was entirely possible. The other thing was not.
He wanted to see it.
The urge emerged so fast and so violently that it frightened him.
He wished he could lift his hand in front of his eyes and see the letters because he believed he could read them. If he could bring his hand to his face, he would know for sure, and the knowledge would be his own.
He tried to lift his arm.
It came up off the blanket, but not far enough. He got it perhaps the width of two fingers and held it there while everything in his shoulder shook, and then he let it drop because he could not hold it up any longer.
He lay there for a few moments, breathing through his teeth, and then he tried again.
His hand barely lifted off the blanket before dropping back. He was so weak.
The physician came over and started saying something in that strange language that sounded like it was one long word instead of a string of them.
He put his hand on Khiann's wrist, and Khiann looked up at him and tried to tell him that he wanted to see what was written on the inner side of the ring, but nothing came out of his mouth.
The physician put his arm back down on the blanket, patted it twice, and then walked away.
Khiann shut his eyes, and what he saw behind his eyelids was a scene from the dream that told him everything he needed to know, but he still could not believe it. Could not accept it.
He was the groom in the dream.
He was the tall male in fine clothes who was luckier than anyone had a right to be. The life he had been mourning from the edge of the crowd as a spectator had been his own.
That part was almost bearable. The second part was not.
Annani had not been kind to a stranger. She had been waiting for her groom to remember who he was.
Five thousand years. That was how long she had been waiting for him to return to her.
He did not know how anyone could wait so long without losing hope. What she got back, though, was not the perfect groom who had loved her more than anything in the world, who could carry her up the palace stairs, and pledge himself to her forever.
Because he had not kept that pledge.
Something had happened, and he had been taken away from her, but he did not know what it was.
She had waited five thousand years for him to keep his promise, but what had returned to her was a useless body, a scattered brain, and a mute mouth.
If he fell asleep now, he would forget what he had deduced, and when he woke up, she would be sitting in that chair, and he would not know what he was to her.
What she was to him.
He could not let that happen again.
My name is Khiann, and I am the groom. Her name is Annani, and she is the bride. She gave me that ring.
He said it again and again until he lost the battle against his drooping eyelids and let sleep claim him.