I don’t get to finish, as he knows exactly what I’m about to say.
“Yes.”
Behind there is where a goddess slumbers… “Have you ever seen her?”
Lord Krokan swims freely through the Abyss. But Lellia is trapped within the tree. Confined.
Pain for her floods me. There is now a new verse of the hymn of the old ones that lives in the back of my mind—a different way to interpret the words. Same sounds, different meanings. This song is one of sorrow and agony. Of injustice.
Did she choose to be here? Or has she been trapped for millennia? I rub the markings on my flesh, as if they will tell me. As if this understanding I feel as though I’m on the edge of will take shape.
It does not. And Ilryth confirms my suspicions and my fears. “When the magic wars happened, Lady Lellia’s heart broke for her children and her pain was said to be felt in the peoples across the land. The Fade being erected and quenching the bloodshed calmed her. The first Human Queen, even, was said to have come and planted a tree to shade the old goddess of life. Lady Lellia sheltered under it, and then became one with it.
“As the tree grew, her song seemed to waver. She rooted into the world, but her people faded. The dryads vanished. Her song hasn’t been heard in thousands of years.”
“I see.”
He tugs on my hand and this time I follow behind as he leads me back, away from the tree. But instead he crosses the beach opposite of where we entered and into another tunnel made of roots.
I can’t help but look over my shoulder, back at the tree and its mysterious door. Ilryth called it Lellia’s home…but what if it is her prison? If it is, what does that mean for the Eversea, for the sirens, and for the relationship of the god of death with the goddess of life?
Is Krokan husband, or captor?
CHAPTER34
The roots createa tunnel once more. They are so dense that the only light that reaches us is from the beach behind and what I assume to be another beach farther ahead. The scars of cuttings are here, too. The sap that oozes from them is a bright red, still glistening in the dim light. Still wet.
“Are these carvings recent?” I ask.
“They shouldn’t be; Ventris has banned more carvings. And I believe I remember them from the last time I was here.”
More than five years old, and they still bleed. I reach up to touch them and Ilryth doesn’t stop me. As my fingertips meet the wet sap, a jolt courses through me, like when my skin met Ilryth’s immediately following his return from the trench. But this sensation is different, stronger. A trill of sharp words screeches through the recesses of my mind. They’re unlike any language I’ve ever heard before. Unlike the words of the sirens, or even the old ones.
I yank my hand away before the incoherent noises fill my mind with unbearable chaos. Pain rips through my temples, begging for a place currently occupied by a piece of me. A memory vanishes before I could pick which one.
Rubbing my temples, I try to recall what it is I lost. But a life is long and filled with thousands of small moments that seem inconsequential until they’re gone. It’s impossible to run through them all…to know what it was.
“What is it?” Concern is on his face. Ilryth moves for me.
I stop him with a hand, but do not touch him. The last thing I want is for whatever just happened to me to somehow jump to him. “I…I felt something strange.”
“Strange how?”
“It was a song, but unlike any I’ve ever heard before. Any I’ve ever learned.” I straighten, the pain subsiding. Though the twisting, uncomfortable sensation of having a memory ripped from me without my choosing still exists in the back of my throat. It felt like I had so many to give at the start, but now that they’re leaving unbidden, now that pieces Iwantare being taken from me, I feel the need to hold on to what I have left with all my might. “I think it was Lady Lellia.”
Ilryth takes a small step forward. I lower my fingers from the root, still not daring to touch him. He must pick up on my concern because his hands hover just off my flesh, as if he can barely hold himself back from enveloping me in the safety of his embrace.
“You…heard Lady Lellia’s song?”
“It wasn’t like Krokan’s. It wasn’t like your siren songs. And the language was unlike any human tongue I’ve ever heard.” I stare at the oozing sap, then down at my fingertips. It’s already gone. But a faint reddish tint has dyed my three center fingers from tip to second knuckle. I rub my thumb over my fingers. Like all the other markings and colors, it doesn’t leave. “It required a memory, just like all the other hymns of the old gods. I can only imagine it was her.”
Ilryth can no longer hold himself back. He seizes me with his powerful embrace, and spins us with wild laughter. Grip slackening, I slide down his strong form, my body instantly awash with sensation. He takes my face in both hands, pulls me close, and kisses me breathless. My mind is still with thoughts of Lady Lellia and my lost memories, but my body rushes with dizzying desire that roots me to the here and now.
“You are truly magnificent.”
“I—”
“I was right. It must be the desire of Lord Krokan to receive a human. One blessed by his lady’s hands. Evenshesings for you.”
