Chapter Eleven #2
He raises his hand, a single flick of his wrist fills his empty palm with a bottle. He pulls the cork with his teeth. Anna watches the way his throat works as he tips his head back and takes a long, deep swallow.
Khiran holds it out to her in offering. “Wine?”
She shouldn’t, but there’s a vulnerability in his eyes that makes it impossible to deny him.
It’s easy to remember all those nights they sat by the fire, eating and drinking the gifts of food and drink he brought.
Easy to remember the subtle lift it gave her spirits.
This feels the same, only she’s not the one needing lifting this time.
Accepting the bottle, she takes a healthy drink in solidarity.
It’s cloying and sweet, and far more expensive than anything she can afford. It sits on her tongue, a pleasant aftertaste. She can already feel her blood warming as it settles, loosening the questions that stick in her chest as she hands it back to him. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes darken, watching the liquid swirl behind the tinted glass. “I know.”
An acknowledgement, because he of all people understands. The words are not ones of guilt, but of sorrow. Of empathy.
Another long drink. Anna wonders how long the bottle will last—how much damage it will do. Alcohol still affects her, but she’s noticed over the years that she never seems to carry the same crippling hangover that others do. She wonders if it affects him the same.
“They’re destroying it.”
The words are as hollow and haunting as the faraway look in his eyes. Anna wets her lips. “They?”
“Spain. Portugal,” he sneers, standing. His feet pace along her floors, hands gesturing wildly between drinks.
Anna has never seen him so openly distraught.
“Every ship that docks on those shores, believing they have a right to the land under their feet. The audacity to think—” he cuts off, hands shaking in anger.
“They’ll burn it down until there’s nothing and no one left. I tried—”
His voice cuts short, the tension in his body draining away until his proud shoulders hunch in defeat. Anna stands, goes to him. She touches his arm and catches his eyes. “You tried what?”
He stares down at her, looking so terribly lost. Then his free hand lifts, tracing her brow. “To save them.” He wilts, leaning closer until his forehead rests on her shoulder. “I am failing.”
Anna knows this pain; has felt it when she walked the corpselined streets of plague and famine. This is different. Khiran grieves not only the loss of lives, but an entire civilization. An entire culture. She can’t imagine what that kind of loss looks like.
She can feel the warmth of his breath on her shoulder, but his arms remain limp at his sides.
Anna’s not sure what to do with her hands.
They stall, hesitant, before reaching for his.
Palms resting on the backs of his hands, her fingers curl over his wrist. She hopes it tethers him the same way he’s helped tether her.
He doesn’t move closer, doesn’t pull away. His sigh is a breath over her heart, warm even through the high collar of her dress. She aches for him—for his pain.
This is not disease—not the plague—relentlessly stripping the land of its people. It makes it more tragic, knowing that man is responsible for the destruction of their brethren.
How do you live with all their ghosts?
Once he held her in a field and assured her that nightmares always have an end. She wants to do the same for him.
“Let’s go somewhere.” An invitation and a plea.
A dark curl brushes her cheek as he lifts his head to look at her.
Too close. He’s too close. She can see every fleck of green in his blue irises, can make out every eyelash.
If someone were to walk in, they’d think them lovers a breath away from a kiss.
Except there’s no warmth in her veins—no lust. The intimacy of the moment is more than that, more than fever and flesh.
She sees him.
His forehead kisses her own, their noses touching, with a reverence that feels weighted—a tradition she doesn’t know but can feel. His words brush against her lips, an ember of warmth and gratitude lighting the depths of his eyes.
“Anywhere.”
They go to the roof.
It’s one of Anna’s favorite spots, quiet and private. No one looks for her here. People are so busy looking at the world in front of them, it seems like they never take the moment to look up. They share the bottle of wine between them and, when it runs empty, Khiran replaces it with something new.
The city looks different from here—bigger and smaller all at once.
It’s easy to forget how many lives touch these streets.
The market is a flurry of people; a collage of color and movement.
So small they become more insects than people—no faces or features to pull at the instinctual recognition of another living soul.
From here, Anna can see how kings find it easy to play god with people’s lives when they never bother to get close enough to see their faces.
Khiran offers her the wine, his hands draping in his lap as he looks over the city she’s called home for the past two years.
Her fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle.
The glass warm from the shared touch of their hands.
She takes a slow sip, enough to feed the pleasantly relaxed hum in her body, but not enough to push her under.
It’s nice—the quiet that settles between them. There’s no strain, no push for conversation or for questions that don’t want to be answered. Together, on that rooftop, they are just two people with a millennia between them looking over a city that will never know.
The sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in reds and oranges and washing the city in warm hues, and Khiran speaks. “It’s beautiful.”
And Anna knows what he really means, hears the thank you behind each and every syllable. They watch as, one by one, stars emerge in a darkening, ageless sky, and remind themselves that every nightmare has an end.