Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She was crying again. Void she was so tired of crying, but every time she said she wasn’t going to cry, the universe seemed obsessed with giving her too many reasons to cry again.
Autumn shoved away from Auster, wiping her face, angry that she was crying again, angry at the Highest, furious at herself for her inability to just accept that this was how things were meant to be.
Autumn turned away, trying to hide that she’d been crying, trying to slide back into that place where she’d managed to close off everything that hurt her.
“Autumn,” his voice was so gentle, it was almost possible to forget that Eleni still cried for him.
But she couldn’t allow herself to forget.
And she couldn’t cling to her past either; the Highest had forbidden it.
She was supposed to let it go, as if it had never happened, and Autumn wasn’t sure if she could find it in her to do that without letting everything go.
She couldn’t let go of Boreus or Eleni. Autumn loved them, wanted them protected, and so she couldn’t just walk away from it all. So where did that leave her?
“Walk with me,” Auster’s voice made her turn around, still fighting with everything that she had to be, had to do. “Autumn, come and walk with me. Maybe I can help? I can be there if nothing else. I can guard you, and if you need to cry, maybe I can hold you until you feel better.”
“As you wish,” Autumn managed to choke the words out. “I will go with you, East Wind.”
He looked sad, but took her hand and led her out of the Bastion and back to the meadow on the side of the Mountain. It was getting dark, fireflies drifting across the grass, blinking on and off, calling for something that they didn’t even know the shape of.
It was inexpressibly lonely. Autumn was calling too, begging to be understood, but her light was too faint to be seen, and no one wanted to see her anyway.
“I see you,” Auster squeezed her hand.
“As do I,” Boreus came up on her other side and took her hand as well. “You shine, darling, for anyone who cares to look.”
“And for those that don’t see, they are not worth crying for.” Auster said firmly. “You can feel, Autumn, you can cry and mourn and feel, and I can promise you I will still be here when the sun rises.”
* * *
They stood in the field in the dark, hand in hand until the lights of the fireflies drifted away to wherever fireflies go in the day, until the sun started to peek its face above the horizon, and Autumn couldn’t hide the yawns any longer.
“Would you like to rest now?” Auster asked softly. “The villa is just over there, or I can take you back to the Bastion.”
“I’m not ready to leave yet,” Autumn said, and the words didn’t feel as stuck as they had in the dark. “We still haven’t talked, and I think we have to.”
“You don’t,” Auster said. “If you aren’t ready, I will wait.”
“I’m not going to get any more ready,” she turned to face him, looking at him and seeing the regret as a living thing in his eyes. “If you want to talk, we will discuss how we will move forward.”
“Alright,” he raised her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it gently. She felt her face go red, but she held his eyes, not willing to look away.
“Come,” he straightened and took her hand again. “I’ll make breakfast, and we can talk.”
They all went to the villa and danced awkwardly around each other while Auster made breakfast. It was odd; Eleni didn’t even know he could cook, and her confusion was reading loudly in the braid.
“I had to,” he smiled at her as he put the plate of eggs scrambled with cheese and the sausage down along with a plate of cut fruit that shone in the light coming in through the windows like gems. “I had to learn to cook for the others, before Eleni, before you, because we could not go home to the Mountain. Boreus and Skirion are hopeless, so I had to either make us food, or go hungry.”
Boreus made a sound of protest, but nodded, a half-smile on his lips. “You were more patient with it, so we left it to you.”
Boreus assisted Autumn into a seat and set a plate with mostly fruit in front of her. Autumn smiled at him. He remembered she didn’t care that much for heavy foods like sausage. She had eggs and cheese, and that was good enough for her.
They ate, but the silence wasn’t as awkward as it had been in the past. It was waiting, heavy, but less awkward. There was still Eleni’s mourning that Autumn had to see to, but even that was less in the bright light of the morning sun.
Autumn didn’t feel so heavy this morning. She still had to save Skirion and sing to the Song. But the Song was her friend, and Skirion—he was someone she was going to worry about later.
Boreus reached out for her, pulling her close and kissing the side of her head. “Would you like to rest?”
“I want to discuss this,” Autumn said, looking up at him. “But I don’t know what I would say.”
“Perhaps it’s better if we sleep on it and come back when we haven’t been up all night.” Auster covered a yawn with his hand. “I want to figure this out, Autumn, but I’m an idiot when I’m tired, and I’ve been enough of an idiot to you.”
“Alright,” Autumn covered a yawn of her own. “I will come back later?”
“Or you could stay here?” Auster pointed to a door in the far wall. “That’s another bedroom; the bed is larger and better for the two of you.”
“Alright,” Autumn nodded, rising from the table. “I will do the dishes and?—”
“The unseen come for them.” Auster said. “I stack them in the alcove, and they are clean when I go back for them.”
Autumn nodded, suddenly out of things to say, places to hide; she was left wanting to flee. But she couldn’t do that; the Highest had told her what was at stake, and that meant she couldn’t run any longer.
Boreus took her hand and led her to the other bedroom, helping her lie down and covering her with the blankets. The room was dim, thanks to the thick curtains, and the ceiling was just stars. Swinging through the sky in an eternal dance that nothing could disrupt.
Perhaps it was time to take a cue from them.
But she fell asleep before she could figure out what that meant.