Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was the dead of night, and Autumn was alone. That was right. It was right that she should be alone. No one needed her, no one cared. If it wasn’t for Eleni and the Song, she might vanish again and no one would see or come to find her.
Autumn got out of the empty bed and looked across the expanse of mattress that, in the past, when she had still hoped, that she had imagined them with her. Resting and laughing and living their eternity together.
But all she had now was the Song and Eleni, who was still crying in her chest. After everything, after all that she had tried to be, there was no one that saw her as her.
She would forever be an extension of Eleni, or she would be the thing standing in between the residents of the Mountain and its destruction.
A thing, not a person, and perhaps it was just time to swallow that bitterness and get on with it.
Three threads tore from the braid, and as much as it ached, she didn’t flinch. Why should she care? Why should that pain matter to her when she was just a thing to be used for a purpose?
Autumn dressed and left the room, left the Bastion, and walked down the Mountain. No one would look for her, so it didn’t matter where she went, as long as she stayed on the Mountain.
So she walked, dark and light and dark again before she walked into a familiar form in the darkness and went to her knees to keep from falling on her face.
Chaos gave her a sad, sideways smile. “You are all the parts of you, little Pomegranate.”
“Am I too much, or am I not enough?” She asked, looking up at Chaos with her arms out. “Which am I?”
His hand came down on her head. “You are you, all of you. Which part of you wins?”
“I can’t win,” Autumn said, wiping her face and not admitting that she was crying again. “I’ll never be enough. There will always be something in me that is broken, dismissible, or something to be used.”
Chaos tipped his head back, hand still on Autumn’s head. She felt a massive flex in the power of the Mountain and had to remember that it was Chaos that had freed the Mountain from the demons. The one that had raised the younger, and the one that had been destroyed when he had only wanted to help.
They had that in common, at least. Autumn, too, had been destroyed for wanting to help. Maybe that was when she had broken. Maybe it was time to just give the body back to Eleni.
The air tore, but Autumn wasn’t going to be dissuaded this time. She’d?—
Nothing.
There was nothing.
“Autumn?” That was Boreus, but what was he doing out in the field in the dead of night? “Autumn, I need you to wake up, please, love.”
There was nothing in her that he needed. He just needed to learn that. Autumn turned away from his voice, but there was nothing that way, just a dark hole, a void.
But the void had eyes, and it was looking back at her.
Too many eyes, opening and closing all over the inky black surface of the void.
Each eye a different window into a past she didn’t want.
Each opening to a point in her life where she had been abandoned, or sent away.
Each point a low, no one wanted her. She had always been shut out, so why would the future be any different?
But this was her life, and she made herself look at it.
“Autumn, please—” his voice was broken, and Autumn couldn’t let him hurt like that. “Please come back.”
She turned away from the void, away from the specks of her past that made up her blood and bone. If she was deficient, if she was never going to be enough, then she would spend what little coin she had in making the world a little better for someone.
She walked away from the void, and back towards the light. Forcing her eyes open to a light that was far too bright, to the point that it nearly had a weight to it.
“She’s awake?” A voice that wanted to be familiar, but wasn’t asked.
“Autumn!” Boreus sounded happy as a pressure went around her body and she was lifted into a pair of arms. “Where did you go? It’s been weeks.”
“The void,” she whispered. “I think it was trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what it was.”
“The void?” That voice asked. “How in the name of the Song did you get to the Void?”
“Chaos sent me there.” She said, trying to get her eyes to focus. “He can’t tell me what he means, so he was trying to get the void to show me. I didn’t understand it, though.”
“Let her rest, North Wind.” The voice shifted. “I will see that Chaos answers for this thing that he has done.”
“Why is my head strange?” Autumn peered up at Boreus. “I can’t think.”
“The void does that,” the voice said. “Rest and I will come back and see to you as soon as I see to my advisor.”
“Am I too much?” She asked as the door clicked shut. “Or am I not enough?”
“You are you,” he kissed her forehead. “That is all I need from you, love.”
She turned her face into his chest, sighing. “I want to be more than a thing, but I don’t think I’ll ever be.”
“You are to me,” Boreus whispered in her ear. “You are Autumn, you are the woman I love, and I see you, love.”
Autumn just sighed. “Long ago, when I could still hope, I would dream of you. Of resting with you, and then I woke and you were gone.”
“It was just a dream, Autumn.” Boreus said. “I went to Auster to tell him the story of us, and then I came back to hold you. You’ve been unconscious for two weeks, and we’ve been trying to find you everywhere.”
“Then how did I end up with the void?” She asked, trying to hold on to being awake.
“Light will find out.” Boreus laid her back into the bed. “It’s time for rest now.”
“Don’t leave me?”
“I’ll stay,” he curled around her. “Always, I’ll be here always.”