Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Autumn curled into Boreus; he was squishing her a little, but the pressure was comforting, even if she was fighting for breath a little bit.
But then she was doing that anyway. Boreus was breathing hard, collapsed on top of her, but she just wrapped him in her arms and held on.
Eventually, he realized he was squishing her, and rolled to the side, tucking her beneath his chin and holding her close. They didn't speak, but they didn't need to. Everything that they needed to say to each other was in their breathing.
Autumn closed her eyes, a tiny smile crossing her lips. The world still wasn't right, but this was and she knew she was safe here in his arms.
"We should go back." His voice rumbled into her ear. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to wake up covered in dew."
She cuddled closer, feeling his arms tighten. “You’re right, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want life to get in yet.”
She felt him smile against the top of her head. “I’ll keep you safe, love. Let’s go back to the Bastion so we can rest.”
They rose, shrugging back into their clothing and leaving the meadow. The walk back to the Bastion was a silent one, but Autumn felt a little more stable now.
She looked over at Boreus as they crossed into the Bastion, only to find him looking back at her. She felt herself go pink, but she just smiled.
“Yes love?” He asked softly. “Are you ready to sleep?”
“I’d like a bath first.” She replied, squeezing his hand. “I think I have grass places it shouldn’t be.”
Boreus chuckled and pulled a blade of grass from her hair. “So you do.”
Autumn kissed his cheek and went to bathe. Getting rid of the grass and the stray smudges of dirt that their interlude had left behind. Out of the bath and into a fresh nightgown before she went to find Boreus.
He was sitting at the table in their room, a book open in front of him, but he wasn’t reading. His eyes were locked on the stack of letters she’d brought back from the villa, and there was an ocean of feelings in those eyes.
He looked up at her as she walked towards him, rising and pulling her close before settling back in the chair with her in his lap.
“You can read them,” she said quietly. “You are not betraying me by wanting to know his thoughts.”
He sighed. Sounding shaky and uncertain before he looked up at her. “I shouldn’t want to know his thoughts.” Boreus shook his head. “They should mean nothing, but?—”
“But you love him.” Autumn kissed his cheek. “You loved him for ages before I was even a thought. It makes sense that love would still exist.”
“I wish it didn’t,” he rubbed at his chest over his heart. “I wish I were still angry enough that it didn’t hurt to think of him.”
“We can be sad together.” She tilted his face until he was looking at her and kissed him briefly. “What do you need, love?”
“I think I just need to sleep.” He rose with her in his arms. “Will you hold me?”
“Of course,” she smiled up at him as he tucked her into bed and came to lie next to her. Autumn folded him into her arms, laying his head on her shoulder and running her fingers through his hair.
She wasn’t surprised when he started to cry. Softly heartbroken, he held her as if he were afraid she was going to vanish and cried out the pain that anger couldn’t express.
She just held him, letting him purge the pain, until he finally fell asleep. She waited, letting the night pass, letting him rest, until she got up and left him sleeping there to cross the meadow and return to the villa.
She’d expected him to be asleep, had only come to fetch anything he’d written and leave him breakfast. But he was sitting in the living area, on the sofa, with his head in his hands like he was searching for the answers to the universe inside his own skull.
His head shot up when he heard the door open, and then he was on his knees when he saw it was her. “How?—”
“I don’t need anything from you,” she said briskly, brushing past him. “I came to drop your breakfast off.” she plopped the basket on the table and turned back to look at him.
He just looked back, a universe of emotion in his eyes and Autumn reminded herself sternly that he had felt nothing but disgust for her until he realized that he’d made a mistake that had cost him those that he loved.
He hadn’t loved her, had harmed those that she loved, and she would not forgive him for that, until those that he harmed forgave.
“Why?” He asked from behind her. “I don’t understand; you could be so much less to me, and I wouldn’t question it. Why are you kind?”
“They still love you,” Autumn rounded on him. “You hurt them, Eleni still cries for you, and Boreus broke down tonight, all because of you, because of what you did. But in spite of that, they still love you, and because of that, because I want to honor the way they still feel, I will mind you.”
“What about you?” He asked faintly, looking up at her like she might either hit him or vanish.
“I do not matter,” she said firmly, watching him flinch. “I did not matter when I pulled you from Charan, I did not matter when all you could see in me was Eleni. I did not matter when I asked that we try to know each other again. And because of that, I do not matter now.”
“I regret that,” the words were nearly a whisper. “I regret that I did not see, that I did not try when I should have. Perhaps, someday, you might consider allowing me to do what I should have done from the beginning.”
Autumn sighed, feeling Eleni sob in her chest, feeling that sorrow run from her eyes unbidden. She wiped it away, looking down at Auster where he still knelt to her. “You will help us save Skirion, and after that, we will discuss where you will fit.”
He bowed his head, and Autumn left, feeling three of the threads holding her together tear as she hurried back over the meadow, back to the Bastion, back to Boreus. To bury herself in his arms and let Eleni cry.
Autumn had no tears for him, he had never seen her. But she could let Eleni mourn with their body. He had seen her, had loved her, and that meant something.