28. The End of the Tunnel
The End of the Tunnel
This time I was grateful for the lantern.
The tunnel somehow seemed darker than before, its winding passage swallowing the light until only the small circle around my feet remained.
The drums were quiet tonight. Just my own footsteps and the cold and the distant sound of water somewhere below.
At last, the opening appeared.
Beyond it lay only darkness.
It's the middle of the night, I reminded myself. Even if Colsar came... he has surely gone back to the palace.
Still...
I walked closer.
And closer.
Until I stood before the invisible barrier separating Morrath from Urasal.
To anyone else, the darkness beyond would have appeared empty.
To me...
I knew the rhythm of his breathing.
He was on the floor.
Sitting with his back against the wall directly across from where I stood, his knees drawn up, his head leaning back. His hair was loose. He had not shaved in days. There was a bed in the room and yet he was on the floor in the middle of the night.
His eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling.
I stepped closer. “My love,” I said.
He looked down from the ceiling.
He saw my hand first. Then he looked up and found my face and went very still.
His hands were trembling.
He did not move for a long time. Just looked at me, then turned his face away. When he turned back his eyes were wet.
He still did not speak. I did not push him.
“Asha bear,” he said finally.
“Colsar.”
"You're alive.” His voice came out rough and low.
"I'm alive," I said.
We stared at each other through the ward, our faces as close as possible without risking the harm they said occurred when you forced yourself through thresholds not meant for you.
"The children," I said quietly.
He exhaled. "Safe. Both of them."
I waited.
"Fiorakis started crawling last week. She decided she wanted to do it and then she did it. No warning. Saurin turned around and she was halfway across the room."
I laughed. It came out wrong and I did not care. "And Ari?"
"Watching her." His mouth moved. "As though deciding whether or not crawling would be a worthwhile thing to try."
I pressed harder against the ward. "Are you sleeping?"
He looked at the floor briefly. "Some."
"Colsar."
"I sleep when I need to."
I looked at him sitting on the floor next to the tunnel and saw the blankets strewn there instead of in the bed six feet away and said nothing.
"Are you eating?" I said.
"Yes."
"Are you actually eating or are you saying yes so I stop asking?"
"Both," he said.
I almost smiled.
We were quiet. A good quiet. The kind that did not need filling.
"There is a man Aviaryn told me about," I said. "White hair. She said he comes and sits near the ward every evening. Stays until morning sometimes." I paused. "She said she saw a tear fall down his face once."
"The little girl," he said quietly. "I met her. She told me you were alive."
I nodded. "She asked me if I knew him."
He still said nothing.
"I told her--" I paused, my voice breaking.
He closed his eyes.
I tried again. "I told her he was my husband."
He leaned in closer to the ward and did not speak for a long time. I looked at his hand trembling next to him. He opened his eyes slowly, taking in the tears that were now streaming down my face.
His voice was thick. "I cannot do this without you." He looked away. "I am only here because of our children. And because there was a small hope that you would somehow survive."
I said nothing. There were no words that would have been adequate enough.
"Asharin," he said. “If there is no way for you to leave there, then I told myself that I will raise our children by day, and spend every night of my life here on the floor waiting for you, if this is as much of you as I can have."
My throat tightened.
"It isn't."
He waited.
"Eravic..." I began.
At his name, his jaw tightened.
"What did he do?"
"He gave me something that I was meant to have since I was born.” I swallowed. "I can cross the ward now."
He stared at me.
"There has to be a cost."
I nodded.
"I am not supposed to. Not for long. My body has not recovered yet."
His eyes searched mine.
“You still need the antidote.”
I nodded again.
"He has people searching for it."
"As do I," Colsar said.
"What was recovered, it can help me sustain at night. With enough treatment I should be able to come through the wards for short periods soon."
"But."
"But I will be tired in the daytime, he says." My words were quiet.
He looked at me for a long time.
"I'll still be here," he said finally.
"Every night?" I whispered.
"Until the day I die."
I searched his face. He meant every word and my heart could not take it.
"Tomorrow then," I managed.
He nodded once. His hand was still trembling.
I looked at him one more time. Then I turned to go.
I had taken three steps before I stopped. Eravic had said I wasn't ready. Perhaps he had underestimated what desperation could accomplish.
I turned back and ran at the ward and pushed through it. His arms closed around me before I had fully understood that I had crossed. A sound tore out of me against his chest, one that had been waiting since the night of the dinner.
"You are not supposed to—"
"I cannot survive it," I said. I looked up at him. "I cannot survive this separation from the one person..."
His arms tightened. His chin came down on top of my head.
"I know," he said, his voice rough against my hair. "I know."
The rest dissolved into a sob I had been holding back for days. Maybe weeks.
"We were perfect."
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
His eyes searched every part of my face as though he expected me to disappear if he blinked.
"We still can be," he whispered.
His thumbs brushed away tears that refused to stop falling.
Neither of us moved. We simply breathed the same air again.
"Every night I tell myself I'll make it until tomorrow," he said quietly. "Every morning I discover I lied."
I cupped his face.
"I'm here."
His eyes closed.
Then his mouth met mine, and nothing existed. Not Morrath, not the poison, not the war, not the ward.
We stayed like that for a long while, kissing with the slow relief of people who had already lost each other once.
Every kiss became proof. Proof that he was alive. Proof that I was alive. Proof that this was real.
His lips moved over mine with careful pressure at first, then deeper, his tongue finding mine as though he could drink the weeks of grief straight from my mouth. I held his shoulders, feeling the faint shake in them, and answered in kind.
He drew back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and raw.
"Asha Bear," he said, his voice rough. "I missed you," he whispered, as though the words were too small for what they carried.
Then he kissed me again, slower, one hand sliding down to rest over my heart.
His free hand reached for the ties at the back of my dress and paused.
I laughed. “This one is different. The ties are in the front.” He did not comment, just loosened them without breaking the kiss, fingertips grazing my nipples as the fabric fell away.
Before either of us noticed, the last of it was gone, and his hands were on my bare skin.
He didn't touch me again immediately.
He simply looked at me.
There was grief in his face that had not been there the last time I had seen him.
I looked away.
He tipped my chin back toward him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"For not getting to you."
"Colsar—"
"It should have been me." He stopped. "It never should have been you."
"No."
He shook his head.
"I was supposed to protect you."
His voice cracked.
"Since you've been gone...it is as though a piece of myself has been cut away."
He searched my face as though he were still trying to convince himself I was real.
"It wasn't cut away," I whispered. "It's right here."
Something inside him broke.
A low sound escaped him, somewhere between relief and grief, and he gathered me against him with desperate strength. His mouth found mine with a need that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with the unbearable certainty that I was finally here.
I kissed him back just as fiercely, my fingers sliding into his hair as every fear, every lonely night, every impossible mile between us dissolved into the kiss.
Only when our lungs demanded it did we finally pull apart. He rested his forehead against mine, his breathing uneven.
"Asha Bear..."
His palms skimmed up my sides, warm, cupping my breasts and stroking his thumbs across until they tightened. He broke the kiss only to press his mouth there, and his hands continued downward, sliding the fabric at my hips down my legs until I stepped out of it.
I reached for him, tugging his shirt over his head, fingers tracing the scar along his ribs and the line of muscle at his stomach before pushing at his waistband.
He helped until we were both bare. His hands gripped my hips and pulled me closer while his mouth returned to mine.
One hand slipped between my thighs, stroking through the wetness already there with slow fingers.
He walked me backward to the bed, laying me down and following. His weight pressed me into the sheets as we kept kissing. His fingers slid inside me and I let out a small moan. I touched him the same way, fingers wrapping around him and stroking until his breath hitched.
He made a sound low in his throat and his forehead dropped to mine. We stayed like that, both of us breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, his hand still moving between my thighs and mine still moving against him, neither of us ready to stop touching the other yet.
His eyes found mine in the dark. He did not rush. He lowered himself slowly, kissing down my belly until finally his mouth was between my legs, his tongue parting me in one long, careful stroke.
That alone undid me. Before he had done anything else, my back arched and I began moaning and trembling, release cresting so fast it startled us both.
A groan rumbled from his chest, low and disbelieving, like the sound of me coming apart for him was the first thing that had felt real in far too long.