Chapter Nine #2
When I was a little girl, I used to find the call of the sea comforting.
I imagined I could almost hear a voice in the tides whispering my name.
My mother would leave my window open, laughing gently at her fanciful child, but despite her laughter I was convinced that the sea was my friend and as long as it was nearby I would be safe.
I cannot feel the same way anymore. As I stumble out of the cottage, choking on the tears already falling in a patter and splatting hot on my bare feet, all I can think is that the sea has taken from me everything I loved.
I do not find comfort in the sound of it. Its crash and murmur is a cruel taunt.
It’s bright enough in the spill of moonlight that I need no light to make my way out across the island.
I do not follow one of the paths—not even the ones I haven’t trod yet.
I crave the risk of walking where I can barely see.
I want to do something dangerous. I do not know if I do it as a defense to keep Oke from following me or if I half wish he would follow.
I crave being told I am a fool. I want to have someone to yell and rail against. I want to fight.
And there is only one other person on this heap of an island.
But by the time I find a steep, jutting cliff that ends in nothing but furious surf below me, I no longer want to be found. I want only to rage alone. And I do.
I glare at the surf and I hate it for being so vast and unfeeling, so impossible to make pay for what it stole from me.
I weep bitter tears and let the sobs shake my body and I creep out to the very edge of the cliff to where the balls of my toes cross just over and curl around the lip of rock.
My belly is tight with emotion, my eyes glazed over and breath sharp and painful.
And then a fear-roughened voice breaks over the roar of the ocean: “Coralys!”
I whip my head around, and I must still be glaring, because Oke flinches back. He’s come close to me without me even realizing and I regret ever wishing he would follow me. Grief is a cup I must drain alone.
“What are you doing?” he asks, looking from me to the sea and back, and the look on his face is so horrified, so panicked, that I nearly choke on a dark laugh.
“I’m standing on the edge of a cliff,” I say acerbically. “What are you doing?”
“I am watching you.” He huffs a self-deprecating near-laugh as if he realizes his mistake, but his eyes—almost black in the moonlight—are on my face and I know he can see the tears gleaming and giving me away.
He takes a half step forward, his voice uncertain.
“You loved him very much. Your husband.”
“I would gladly take his place and give him mine,” I say fiercely.
“I had not met your husband,” he says gravely, “but I am certain he would have made an easier wife than Queen Coralys.”
I choke on a laugh, and I’m not sure if it is humor or just a way not to cry more. “With such wit it is a wonder you do not have more friends.”
His smile is a little wistful. “What was his name?”
I choke on it. “Lieve of House Carnelian.”
He makes a sign of blessing for the dead. It’s a thoughtful gesture, but I glare at him balefully for it. He has no right to honor my dead. I haven’t given him permission for that.
“Lieve of House Carnelian,” he repeats, and the way he says it, like an apology, breaks the resentment in me, leaving only a second spill of tears.
I turn my face away so he will not see them. I do not make a sound.
He steps out from among the tall rocks and into the moonlight, joining me on the lip of the cliff, waiting patiently for me to clarify. When I glance at him, I see him watching me out of the corner of his eye, though he faces forward.
I want desperately to push my grief back down into my chest.
“What would you have me tell you?” I ask bitterly.
“That every time my eyelids close I see him go again beneath the water never to return? That I still feel the ghost of his touch in every breeze that brushes my skin? That I expected this morning to open my eyes to his smile and saw instead only a strange place and an empty bed beside me? That I miss his jokes? I would not give you the satisfaction.”
My eyes well up and my vision swims enough that I take a cautious step back from the edge, and then to my utter shock his arms wrap around me and I’m pulled against his solid chest in an impulsive embrace.
The shock of it sends my mind reeling and for one wild moment I am simply enveloped in warmth.
“Of course you would not, you maddening queen,” he murmurs gently. “Why would you allow yourself to be comforted when you can choose to be made of prickles? But I am not easily pierced by the teeth of your thorns.”
He is warm and strong and certain as if he can ward off all trouble, as if he might even turn back the pages of time and mend my heart. And it is too much. It is far too much.
Tears spill hot and fast from my eyes and I’m clinging mindlessly to him without conscious thought, shuddering as waves of agony sweep over me and hollow me like the surf eroding the shore.
I press my face into the crook of his shoulder and suck in long breaths.
He’s making soft shushing noises, and when he strokes a gentle circle with his wide-spread palm between my shoulders, I am overcome.
I wrench myself abruptly from his arms. We look at each other, both breathing heavily. His face is startled, lips parted, already looking as if he regrets his choice.
I do not give him time to express any such regret. Rather, I say, “We should return to the cottage. There may be all manner of dangers on this island.”
“We are the only two living souls,” he whispers.
But I do not answer his protest. I dry my eyes, swipe my cheeks with the backs of my hands, and lead him back to our shared bed.
“Grief is its own vast sea,” Oke says in the darkness of the cottage as we settle back in to pretend to each other that we will sleep.
I cannot see his face, but I hear the catch in his voice as he speaks.
It is full of experience. “And none of us can cross it by the same path. Do not hurry your journey, Coralys. Certainly, I have no such requirement of you.”
It’s much harder not to cry when he is so kind. I wish he would stop and let me push all this away where I need not dwell on it at all.
But as I fall to sleep, in the confusion that comes as unconsciousness descends, I do not know if I am longing for the arms of Lieve to hold me or the arms of the one who has tried to comfort me.