Chapter Nineteen #2
“I’ve always been told,” Aoife’s throat was thick, her heart heavy, “being an artist was silly. Or outright stupidity. The world functions on logic and practicality. There’s no room for anything else. Not if you want to succeed.”
Shadach was silent for a moment, still holding her hand.
“I suppose,” he said, “that depends on your definition of success. To my people, I’m a failure because I’m not a criminal.
But I’ve never felt more successful, more alive, than when I’m working at the Knitting Widow making beautiful drinks for the people I care about. ”
“But you’re good at making drinks. I’m not good at art.”
Shadach laughed. “I wasn’t always. Do you know how many years that took?”
A lot, judging from his tone.
Aoife scratched her thumb against the rough fabric, terrible and wonderful questions flooding her mind.
What if Shadach was right? What if she had been misjudging what “right” and “good” and “successful” meant?
What if Mum’s definition wasn’t Aoife’s?
What if Aoife’s definition mattered more?
She wasn’t used to thinking such things.
It had always been Mum’s voice she’d trusted.
Mum was successful. Mum had her life together.
Left to her own devices, Aoife would have ended up a homeless artist living on the street selling her body for crack.
Or something like that. Thinking that Mum’s voice wasn’t so important after all felt like blasphemy.
It also felt good.
“They said you went to another dimension,” Shadach said suddenly. “That these Gates you summoned took you there.”
Aoife hesitated. They hadn’t talked about this. They had been too busy running. Too busy staying alive.
“They failed miserably,” she said, “at taking me to another dimension.” Aoife tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough.
“Why?”
Aoife’s attempt at a smile faded instantly. The pain in that single word. “Why?” As if she had ripped out his heart and was holding it in front of him.
“I …” Because you need a princess, don’t you?
“You left so suddenly, without saying a word.” He stroked her hand with his thumb, looking at her as if he knew the answer. As if he was only waiting for her to confirm it.
Aoife glanced out the window into the bitter darkness. “I’m not from here,” she said.
“Yes,” Shadach said. Confused. “I know. Ireland, near the Fields of Blood.”
Aoife shook her head. “Ireland isn’t near the Fields of Blood. It’s in another dimension, somewhere through the Gates. I was trying to get home.”
Shadach went perfectly still. Whatever answer he had expected, it hadn’t been that.
“Honestly,” Aoife let go of Shadach’s hand and began working on the blanket again, weaving a dull orange into the mix, “I don’t think your god chose me. I think the Gates did.”
“This …” Shadach started to say more, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. He blinked as if coming out of a trance then picked up his own needle and thread.
“This explains so much,” he said, weaving in a coral blue.
“You believe me?”
“I do, in fact.” His laugh was soft, gentle. “What’s it’s like?”
Aoife hesitated.
“Your dimension,” Shadach said.
What a question. What was Earth like? To explain the difference would take years.
“There’s no Shadows,” Aoife said. There was ice and rain, just like here.
There were peoples, languages, cultures.
There were not so many kings and emperors in terms of titles, but people who believed themselves to be greater than kings.
Greater than gods. There was technology, too.
Aoife tried to explain an airplane, but Shadach looked more horrified than impressed.
“You shove people into a metal pipe,” Shadach said, “and then propel them through the air?”
“It’s perfectly safe!” Aoife hesitated. “Most of the time.”
“I think I’ll stick with horses and carts, thank you very much.”
Aoife laughed. He did, too. There was an easiness in the movements of their hands as they brought ever more beauty to the old blanket.
“Your summoning the Gates,” Shadach said, “had nothing to do with a rumour about me marrying a princess?”
Aoife felt the ice from the mountain creeping back into her. Had Tara told him what she’d said?
“I …” Aoife glanced to the door, wondering if she could run away from this conversation. But there was nowhere to go. “It makes sense, I just … I guess, I—”
“It isn’t true.”
“What?” Aoife’s gaze snapped to Shadach.
“I’m not betrothed to anyone. Not least because I have no intention of becoming Emperor.”
“But … an emperor marries an empress, or a princess, doesn’t he?”
“Not always. Besides, the Kingdom has never had a Halcin emperor. Even if I did, the God forbid, become Emperor, I doubt anyone would be throwing their daughter at me.” Shadach stopped stroking her hand, looking Aoife in the eye.
“Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. I would marry the woman who was the best fit for me.
I could never be a good emperor if the woman by my side wasn’t right for me. ”
Aoife’s heart thudded so loudly she wondered if Shadach could hear it. His words were at once perfectly romantic and yet not entirely illogical either. It would be awfully difficult to be a good, let alone great, emperor if the person by your side didn’t have your back.
“Why did you lie about the Gates?” he said. “About where you come from?”
“I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”
A flicker of hurt crossed Shadach’s gaze. “After all this, you’re still going to lie to me?”
“Why do you think I’m lying?”
“Because you’re not good at it,” he said. The words were certain, but he shifted uncomfortably.
After all this. How many times had her life flashed before her eyes at this point?
And yet, she was still running away from the same old ghosts?
Running. Running. Running. Running from Aristen.
Running through the Gates. Running from the truth.
She was getting a little tired of running.
A little tired of always being on the defensive.
More than a little tired of feeling like everyone else, everything else, was pushing her around.
Aoife sighed, letting her body sink into the scratchy straw mattress. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to hang you out to dry.”
“Even though you were.” Shadach’s tone was amused even though the words should have been cutting.
“I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch, honest, I just wanted to get home. I was scared. And afraid if I told you about the Gates that you’d be scared, too.”
“Why would I be scared?”
“You know, here you are, stuck with a mad woman who flitted through the Gates on a whim to find her true love with no way of getting back.” Aoife didn’t dare look at Shadach. Didn’t dare see what thoughts were blatant in his eyes. “I’d be scared if my life depended on a silly person like that.”
“True love?” he said, surprised.
Aoife flinched. She hadn’t actually meant to say that part. “That’s just the rumour about the Gates,” she said quickly. “Who knows if it’s true.”
“In that case …” Shadach’s laugh was slight. Disbelieving. “That isn’t being silly. That’s being brave.”
Aoife’s gaze flicked to his. There had been nothing mocking, nothing sinister in those words. As if his version of success was not what she had always been taught. As if here, with him, she need no longer be ashamed of that little girl with dreams.
Everything about Shadach was different from what had come before.
It was thrilling and terrifying. When she spoke of art, of dreams, of a world beyond what she could see, smell, taste, and touch, he looked at her as if she were a goddess feeding him the wisdom of eternity.
Shadach brought out the parts of her she thought she had buried so deep they’d never find their way to the light.
Yet, here they were. Here she was. Sitting in a crumbling inn trading work for food, sewing up a useless blanket when she should have been trying to find another way to get home. But there, in that moment, she realised the terrifying truth.
She didn’t want to go home.
At least, not right now. She wanted to sit here. Beside Shadach. Making beautiful things.
“I think that’s all the holes mended.” Shadach gave the blanket a tussle, letting the stunning colours lavish the bed. Had that much time passed already?
“Much better,” he said. “What do you want to do next?” He turned to her, shadow and ice eyes looking into her. Her breath caught.
This is what I want, she thought.
After all the science degrees and research proposals and staring at mind-numbing screens, after trying to find her soul but coming up empty and lifeless each time, she had found what she wanted. This was where she wanted to be. Who she wanted to be with.
Who she wanted to be.
The weight of that realisation should have been crushing. It should have made her hyperventilate with panic. She should have heard Mum’s voice shrieking in her head about the folly of trusting her desires.
None of that happened.
She reached out. Reached for him. “This,” she said, her lips hovering against his, “is what I want to do next.”