Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Autumn crossed back into Chaos’ domain, back to the sphere, back to the place where she’d spent so many days lost in her own pain. She looked at the sphere, at the golden symbols hanging from the silver flecks, connected by rainbow lines, and tried to smile.
It didn’t work terribly well, but her loves were at her back, and she could at least pretend she wasn’t full of awful trepidation for their sakes. She didn’t want them to worry, which was why she hadn’t told them about the nightmares either.
They were just dreams, and dreams meant nothing. They made sleeping impossible, but she had their arms and didn’t want to risk waking them. So after she would wake, gasping and terrified, she would simply curl down into their arms and try to be calm.
She was grateful that they never woke to her gasping, with tears rolling down her cheeks. They were only nightmares.
She stepped to the sphere, laying a hand on the cool stone and made herself smile. “This is me,” she told them. “My story, my years, and Eleni’s too.”
“Is it all right if we look?” Auster asked, laying a hand on her shoulder.
Autumn nodded, “I have no secrets from you.”
“Careful,” Chaos said from the other side of the room. “They live.”
Auster nodded, reaching out to the symbols. Autumn wasn’t certain what Chaos meant until Auster made contact with the golden symbol. He looked tormented, hand pressed firmly to the sphere, and then tore his hand away and wrapped her in his arms.
“Auster?” she cuddled into him on reflex. “What is it?”
He buried his head in her neck. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she stroked his hair. “What happened?”
“Memory,” Chaos said. “It lives in the sphere; touch sets it free.”
Autumn looked over at the sphere, at the symbol that Auster had touched, and winced. That had been a dark day in her life, and he’d taken that hit of despair directly to his psyche.
“I’m alright now,” she told him calmly. “I’m not in that place any longer.”
“Never again,” he said, voice muffled in her shoulder. “We’ll never allow that again.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I believe you, Auster.”
He nodded, but it was a few more minutes before he could release her. And a few more before he could look at the golden symbols again. “What are we to do here?”
Autumn went to the sphere, pointing to the blank spaces that existed in the pattern. “There are days I do not know,” she told them. “But they make up my truth. You hold those days, at least I think that’s what Chaos means.”
“Yes,” Chaos said. “Sing the past, become whole, rise.”
“Alright,” Auster nodded. “That seems straightforward.”
“Sing the whole,” Chaos said, warning in his voice. “Past is not pretty, but it is needed.”
Auster blanched, looking down at Autumn. “I never wanted to revisit that, but if it will help, I will have to.”
“It’s alright, Auster,” Autumn hugged him. “We aren’t there any longer, and I forgave you for that a while back.”
“Alright,” Auster nodded and stepped to the sphere, laying his hands on it. “I guess I’ll start where I first met Eleni?”
Chaos nodded. “The beginning.”
Auster nodded, turning to look at the sphere and opening his mouth. He sang, the first time he’d met Eleni, his understanding, his fear and joy as they fell in love. The passing years and his abandonment, and chosen exile to Charan.
He sang his meeting with Autumn, shame and desire and intent to save Eleni. He wasn’t less than honest, didn’t try to soften his role in nearly killing her or what came after. The trek to forgiveness and then understanding and the love that came after.
His voice cracked and died before Auster let his hands slip free of the sphere and Autumn handed him a glass of water and a sandwich.
Boreus took Auster’s place, and though his song wasn’t as confident, the symbols and the lines still appeared on the sphere.
But when he was done, there were still spaces, lines disconnected and going nowhere.
Autumn turned to Chaos, where the Elder was sitting cross legged on the floor lounging back against the wall. “Elder?—”
“When it becomes you, it becomes all.” He said, waving a hand at the sphere. “Choice and care, a broken mirror reflecting things that have been and might be. Backwards and broken, but truth anyway.”
“I think I understand,” Autumn said. “If we are only ever friends, then I will still need his truth for the sphere.”
“A broken mirror still reflects truth, little pomegranate.”
“Thank you, Elder,” Autumn bowed to him. “Is there anything else we need to do? Is there anything that I can do to help you?”
Chaos stood, walking over to lay a hand on Autumn’s shoulder and blinking hard. “Find him,” Chaos said, eyes fiercely lucid. “Beware the return, do not trust what appears.”
“I will do what I can,” Autumn said, happy that at least he hadn’t mentioned the nightmares. She really didn’t want to talk about them at all, much less think about them.
“Yes,” Chaos blinked again, the vagueness returning to his eyes. “Off you go, little pomegranate, sing the truth.”
The domain opened, and they all exited. It was pitch dark, and for some reason, Chaos had left them just outside the Bastion. And that meant that there was something that they needed here. Every time Chaos had dropped her somewhere else, that had been a catalyst for change in her life.
But what was it that he wanted her to see here?
The night was quiet, there was no one to disrupt it. No one around that Autumn could see.
“There has to be something here that we’re meant to see.” She mused. “Chos wouldn’t have put us here if there wasn’t.”
She brought a little golden light up out of her power, balancing it above her palm, and looking around.
And in the grass, under the window that looked into the throne room, near the base of the blooming olive tree was a shining black stone. Autumn bent to look at it more closely, but was snatched back by Boreus.
“Don’y touch it,” he demanded. “I know what that is and it should not be here.” He turned to Auster. “Alert the Highest, they need to know about this immediately.”