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For the coming of Spring marks the end of Winter, and from the cradle of Death shall Life flourish.
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Winter is harsh and unyielding, but never cruel. She nurtures her children to be resilient, to carve out a living where others would’ve fled upon the first pang of hunger. For her months are long and quiet, and her nights cold and dark. Those who survive in her bosom flourish in different ways – they learn to keep the words tightly in their mouths, how to make fire in tinder boxes, where to fish above the surface of the frozen lake, how to count the breaths they take so ice crystals do not blossom inside their lungs. Their skin silvery pale, the hair upon their heads as black as coal.
Tine, with his gold-tinged skin and warm smiles, is a discordant note in the vast whiteness that calls itself home.
“Mama,” he says one day, curled up in the bearskin rug at her feet as she rubs oil into the heavy, fur-lined jacket meant for his father. There’s a fire in the hearth, but the flames are flickering and half-hearted. As if cowed by howls of Northerly wind that rattles their windows. “Why can’t I play with the others?”
She smiles at him. It’s a sad, distant thing. “Because you’re special.”
His brows furrow, but he’s too young to understand grief when he sees it. He rolls onto his back and raises his covered hands, waving them at his mother. “Is that why I have to wear these gloves too?”
Her head lowers, chin almost touching her chest. If Tine looks closer, he would’ve seen the tears in her eyes. “Yes.”
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“You’re lonely.”
He quirks an eyebrow at the ferryman, whose eyes gleam coin-bright underneath the shadow of its sweeping cloak. Having the ferryman in his throne room means that the river is left unattended, its passage collecting souls upon lost souls. His thumb brushes over inked words, looping handwriting half-faded against the yellowed parchment. The language is long dead, but he remembers. He always remembers.
“Aren’t we all?”
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Tine is thirteen, his brother sixteen when their sister comes into the world. Wide-eyed and tight-lipped, and their mother and the midwife breathe a sigh a relief at her pale skin, her dark hair. They slit the throat of a hare as an offering to the gods and once the Old Ones are appeased, what’s left of the hare goes into their weekly stew. Tine’s sister sleeps and doesn’t cry, not even during the worst snowstorms, already knows to keep her silence. His heart swells with love every single time he peers at her face and he tucks his best stuffed animal, a raggedy patchwork cat, right next to her pillow.
It makes their father laugh and he tells Type and Tine that they would need to protect her – they’re her big brothers and that’s what big brothers do.
It’s during one of the longer nights that Tine sees a touch of frost upon her cheeks. Blue-veined against pale pinkness. Type is outside, helping their father with the firewood. Their mother is busy in the kitchen, salting the fish they’d sell in the larger market over the mountains. If she were around, she would’ve told him that his sister is simply growing into the weather, like any winter child would.
But she is not there, and Tine looks at the branching veins and worries. He takes his gloves off for fear of scratching her and wipes a small hand to her cheek, over the blue, wintery veins. She startles awake from her nap at the first touch, tiny mouth snaps open into a shriek, and it’s such a loud, dreadful sound that Tine stumbles backwards in shock. Their mother rushes over, shoves him to the side to pick her up from her cradle.
Fear contorts her expression and he shrinks further once she turns to him.
“Your gloves! Why didn’t you wear them?!” Her voice cracks, thunderous. She clutches her daughter, still bawling, to her chest. “Tine, what have you done?!”
“I-I’m sorry, Mama.” He reaches out for his mother and sister, his own eyes watering. “Is she okay? I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t touch her!”
Tine whimpers, fat drops of tear rolling down his cheeks. For a child too used to kinder words, his mother’s wrath strikes him harder than cold iron. He stumbles towards the door, guilt squeezing the air out of his lungs, and runs as fast as he can to escape his sister’s unceasing cry. He doesn’t hear Type’s alarmed shout, nor does he realise how deep into the woods he’s gone until it’s too late.
The trees are skeletal thin, but they’re clustered so tightly together that they block out the fat winter moon. Freezing wind bites at Tine’s cheeks, at his hands and every inch of skin left uncovered by his flimsy coat, chastising him for his recklessness. He totters uncertainly in the half-light, turning around in circles looking for a way back.
“Are you lost?”
The voice is soft, barely above the crunch of snow as it cuts through the quiet. Tine startles and almost loses his balance, if not for the steadying hand on his shoulder. He looks up to see a man, wrapped in a swath of grey and fur and flashes of silver. In the man’s other hand is a leash and Tine follows the taut line as it branches into three dogs, each nearly the size of a young reindeer. They stare at him with large, curious eyes, their fur sleek and a stark contrast to the pristine white of their surroundings. Tine wavers, torn between the company of another and his brother’s warning about strangers.
Especially one that appears out of thin air.
The old ladies in the village told stories of children who had been carried away by the spirits, into lands beyond the reach of the living.
Tine darts a glance at the silent, grim trees before he turns to the man. He seems the lesser of two evils. “Yes, sir.”
“Is he ours?”
“Is it his time?”
“Shall we lead him home?”
The voices are nothing more than faint echoes, chasing around each syllable like wisps of shadow, but Tine hears them all the same. He whips his head around, tries to find the owners of those voices, but the only one he sees is the man. And the dogs. With their grinning wet mouths and beetle-black eyes.
The man shakes his head. “Listen not to the wind. Come here, put this on before you freeze to death.”
The cloak looks heavy, but it feels as light as newly-fallen snow on Tine’s small shoulders. The fur tickles his cheeks and nose, softer than anything he’d ever worn before. He pulls it tight around him and smiles at the man, his mother’s warning all but forgotten when the man smiles back.
“What is your name?”
“Tine, sir.”
“Well met, Tine. I’m Sarawat.” Without his cloak, he looks younger. More slender. He still towers over Tine and the expression he wears is one of mild disapproval when he asks, “Why are you alone in the woods? You should know better than to wander around.”
Tine shifts uncomfortably under the weight of Sarawat’s eyes. “I— I hurt my sister.”
“Oh?”
He curls his fingers, reminded of her terrible cry. “I’m supposed to protect her, b-but I hurt her and made Mama angry.”
Sarawat’s expression softens. “I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but running off solves nothing, Tine. Your mother must be very worried right now.”
Tine lowers his head, embarrassment a heavy shackle around his neck. Sarawat pats his head as if to lessen the reprimand and moves forward, the dogs leading the way. Tine rubs the back of a hand over his eyes, following the trail made by Sarawat’s much larger footprints. The trees loom over them, as grim as ever, but they look less intimidating now that he has Sarawat as company. It isn’t long before they emerge at the edge of the village and even from afar, Tine hears the voices of his mother and his father and several others calling out for him. He hears Type’s voice, hoarse from yelling, and feels even worse for what he’d done.
“Be careful next time,” Sarawat says, but it’s a gentle reprimand. “Go on then.”
Tine starts to take a step forward and hesitates. He turns towards Sarawat. “Will I see you again?”
That seems to surprise the older man. The dogs circle around Tine, their barks carrying an undercurrent of mirth. Sarawat reins them in with an exasperated look and says, “Perhaps.”
Tine unknots the bracelet on his left wrist, a simple cord of leather adorned with burnished copper. It’s something he’s always worn, a trinket picked up by his father from a faraway city, when the seas were calm enough to allow travel. He steps forward and ties it around Sarawat’s wrist, brazen as only a child can be. Sarawat raises an eyebrow at the unexpected gift, but allows it and stands very still, despite the dogs’ curious sniffing. Once Tine is done, he looks up at Sarawat.
“It’s a promise now.”
Sarawat raises an eyebrow, inspecting the gift. “A promise?”
“That we’ll see each other again.” The voices grow louder and Tine turns towards them, anxious to let them know that he is okay. That he has been shown kindness in a land not known for it. “Thank yo—”
His gratitude trails off into the soft sound of falling snow.
Sarawat is no longer there.
.
The trees bow out of his way, unravelling a treacherous path that plunges into the belly of the earth. The dogs move ahead of him, three silhouettes twining into one, except for the distinctive shape of their heads. Stone steps spring to life underneath his feet, blue flames flickering along the upper side of the passageway and he descends into his realm, the ghost of a smile still etched onto his face.
“He smells different.”
“We like him.”
“Will we see him again?”
The bracelet sits around his wrist, an unusual weight, and he runs fingertips over the rough leather.
.
The promise holds true, although Tine doesn’t see Sarawat as often as he’d like. After that first night, weeks drift past before he spies the tall man standing at the edge of the woods as the moon climbs the velvet-dark sky. And Tine, elated at seeing his new friend, runs to Sarawat with stories bursting to be told. The dogs greet him with slobbery kisses and curl around him like a heavy, furry blanket. He can’t stay long, however, as Type’s voice soon calls him inside for dinner. Sarawat must’ve noticed the crestfallen look on Tine’s face, because the next time he comes around, the sky is lighter and Tine spends the better part of the evening pelting Sarawat with questions.
“Where do you live?” Tine asks, sandwiched between two dogs and scratching the belly of the third. “Is it beyond the mountains?”
“Under it, actually.”
Tine’s eyes widen. “Under the mountains? Like the foxes?”
“Yes.” Sarawat’s mouth hitches into a small smile. “Just like the foxes.”
“Can I come visit?”
“—Of course. When you’re older.”
Tine whoops in joy, misses the way Sarawat’s smile hardly reaches his large, beautiful eyes. He scrambles over the dogs to sit next to Sarawat. “We'll always be together, right? Promise?”
“How many promises would you have me keep?” Sarawat grouses. He rubs a thumb over the bracelet, a strip of dark brown against pale, pale skin. At Tine’s pout, he relents. “But yes, it is a promise.”
Tine’s grin is wide and jubilant, and neither of them notices the tiny flowers breach the carpet of white, snow melting ever so slightly around uncurling vines.
Seasons pass and Tine gets older, although not that much wiser, according to his brother. The world changes along with him. He is wider and taller, growing into the promise of a strong, young man tempered by years of unrelenting cold and merciless snowstorms. Winter still holds him dear, but his skin is untouched by frost and his mouth spills too much laughter to be smothered by the Northerly winds. He is strong enough to go out with the fishermen at dawn and follow the hunters at dusk, learning the trades of his father’s. Heads turn when he walks through their small village, even more so when he is with his brother and their sister. She wears her hair long and loose, combed over the half of her face where a faint scar in the shape of a small handprint mars the silvery smoothness of her skin.
He still wears his gloves.
The only time he’s ever dared to take them off is when he is in his own company.
And when he is with Sarawat.
“You’re brooding again,” Tine says in lieu of a greeting, striding into the clearing to where Sarawat is waiting. The dogs rear their heads and bound towards him, and he fights to not get bowled over by the combined force of their large paws and eager canine delight. Landing in a heap of dogs, it takes him awhile to wrestle them off and make his way to Sarawat. “What’s wrong?”
Sarawat shrugs. Tine has ceased to wonder how he remains unchanged, even after all these years. Except for the length of his hair. And its colour, which has turned a lighter shade of brown lately. Like he’s fading away, and that is not a thought Tine would want to entertain. “It’s nothing of importance. How was the hunt?”
“Not as good as we'd hoped. We could've tried going further south, but Father said the ice ravines are too dangerous to attempt.” It seems as if the land has grown colder these past few years, and much more temperamental. Large animals are scarce and fishermen who went out to the troubled seas came back empty-handed. Or worse yet, didn't come back at all. He lays his head on Sarawat’s lap, closing his eyes. Soon, fingers card through his hair and Tine smiles into the soft fur of Sarawat’s coat, relieved to push aside his worries, even for mere hours. “Sing to me about the princess who married the sea. Or the one with the bear and the nightingale.”
“You always ask for the same songs,” Sarawat grouses, sounds put upon although they both know he had never denied Tine anything. He flicks at Tine’s nose. “Do I look like a performing monkey to you?”
Tine rolls onto his back to look up at Sarawat, eyes crinkling when he grins. “Only when you scrunch your face like that.”
His laughter echoes through the woods when Sarawat tries to tip him off in retaliation. He likes Sarawat’s voice best. A soothing lull, its cadence rising and falling as his songs carry Tine into distant, foreign lands. Sarawat must’ve travelled far and wide, must’ve seen parts of the world Tine can’t even begin to imagine for he has in inexhaustible well of stories at his disposal. Tine closes his eyes and settles deeper into Sarawat’s warmth, barely there, but it is more than enough for him.
As long as he’s with Sarawat.
Tine often wonders if what he feels for him is appropriate, for it sits like embers in the pit of his stomach at the thought of the older man, and it only burns brighter as the years fall way. He knows he's expected to settle down with a girl from the village and start a family, but what use is he if he can't even touch his intended bride without fear of hurting her?
Before long, the sun is sinking behind the snow-capped mountains and Tine reluctantly relinquishes his spot on Sarawat’s lap. He stretches, working out all the kinks and getting to his feet. The dogs are instantly onto him and he bids goodbye to each of them, promising more kisses and scratches later.
Tine hesitates for a half-second, before steeling his nerves.
“I need to show you something.” He slips off the glove from his right hand and presses it to the closest withered trunk of a tree. “Look.”
Sarawat’s brows crease, but he leans closer at Tine’s behest. The wind stills around them, broken only when the tree shudders as it slowly straightens, groaning like an old man with a bad back. Clumps of snow are shaken free from its branches, which don’t remain bare for long as tiny green shoots sprout from them, uncurling and lengthening into layers upon layers of leaves in seconds. Tine closes his eyes and feels the tree stirring to life, surprised to be awaken from too-long slumber, and he coaxes it to go a little bit further. He doesn’t notice Sarawat pulling away, too grounded by the roots sinking deeper into the ground and the taste of soil at the back of his tongue.
Tine stops only when he starts getting lightheaded. Blinking back the dark creeping into the edge of his vision, he looks up at the thick, luscious canopy overhead and then at Sarawat.
Who stands apart, watching Tine with glittering dark eyes and lips pressed into a thin line,
“I don't know how I'm doing that, but it’s getting stronger now.” Tine puts his glove back on, clenching and unclenching his fingers to chase away the urge to touch. Underneath all that green, the gold sheen to his skin is more pronounced. “Most nights, I dream of strange lands. Blue sky. Trees and flowers and rolling hills, as far as the eye can see. And someone calling my name.” He pauses, bites into his lip. When he turns to Sarawat, uncertainty lurks in his eyes. “How do I make it stop?”
Sarawat’s face gives nothing away, as if carved out of marble. “You can’t.”
“But—”
“You can’t.” The finality in Sarawat’s voice hits him like a sledgehammer, knocks the air right out of Tine’s lungs. “It’s too late.”
.
“You’re lonely.”
His eyes flicker from the tome on his lap to the ferryman, loathes to admit that he’s caught unaware of its presence, for his mind dwells on the one above surface. This is an old, tired conversation that goes around in circle. He opens his mouth, but is cut short when the ferryman draws closer.
“He will make a fine consort.”
A sigh threatens to break, but he corrals it behind his teeth. “He is not meant for this land.”
“Yet, his heart is set upon it.”
He slams the tome shut, the sound reverberating like a death knell in the cavernous quiet. He rises to his true height and the dog growls at his feet, warning of a line that should not be crossed. It is not in his design to anger so easily, but the seasons are changing and he finds it harder to control his temper.
“Enough.”
“Tell him the truth,” the ferryman persists, for the dead fears nothing. It had not always been a ferryman, once upon a time. It still remembers a river that flows into the sea, the sound of laughter. The laughing mouth of a young man as they walk off into the waning light of sunset. “He deserves to know.”
.
Tine hasn’t seen Sarawat since.
The man’s absence hangs heavily over his head and no matter how many times he returns to the dark woods, it remains empty. He doesn’t quite understand the yearning he feels or the sadness that’s made a nest inside his chest, but he wishes for nothing more than to hear Sarawat’s voice again. Days turn into weeks, into months. He’s slower to smile and laugh now, and the worry in his mother’s eyes becomes palpable enough to prickle his skin. Type asks him if something had happened and Tine hates that he has to lie to his brother. In escape, he’s taken to spending hours sitting underneath his tree, out of place in the midst of its brethren, with green leaves covered in snow.
He keeps his hands gloved and doesn’t attempt to resurrect another tree.
Maybe Sarawat will return if he’s good. If he pretends to be just like the others.
The land worsens, plagued by unrelenting snowstorms and merciless winds that cut them off from the rest of the world. What little crops they manage to salvage wouldn’t last a month and the hunting ground yields nothing, not even when they venture further than they would’ve dared. It isn’t long before they’ve taken to slaughtering horses, stretching their meat in thinning stews. Tine sees worry settling upon the crease of his father’s brows and in the way his mother lingers in the kitchen, fretting over her needlework as Type teaches their sister how to read. He thinks about what he can do, if he can help them with their harvest before the village collapses under its own weight. But that would mean revealing his unnatural urge, confessing that he is different.
And what would happen afterwards?
They still burn witches in the kingdom, from the stories he’d heard.
He spends nights agonising over his choices, but before he can make that decision, he turns eighteen and he wakes to excruciating pain, a scream stuck in his throat as he thrashes in his bed. He feels like he’s being stretched over a too-large frame, slowly unravelling at the seams. There’s a battering against his skin (let us out let usoUT LET US OUT), greedy and unrelenting, and his mind floods with memories that aren’t his – endless verdant gardens, rows upon rows of giant trees inside an ancient copse, cascade of birdsongs and cries of animals emerging from the damp, dark soil. They drown out the rest of the world and he sinks fingernails into his arms in an effort to keep everything inside.
Spring, the voice inside his head sings, its lilting voice twining around the pain, has arrived.
Tine thinks of his brother and his sister, those with winter running through their veins, and—
“No. No, please—”
—and Sarawat.
Spring has arrived.
He curls into himself, teeth clenched tight and eyes squeezed shut. The battering grows worse, more frenzied, and he fights against its incandescent rage. Pushes it down, deep into parts of him he doesn’t even know exist. He loosens his lips to let slip a low, pained cry as light floods the cavity inside his chest, burning too bright and too hot, brimming with the same greed that’s fuelled the battering. His panting breaths soften into moans, every muscle in his body pulled taut by the agony. It could’ve been hours, years, but the light eventually recedes and Tine drifts into a fitful sleep, his dreams a tangle of sun-warmed valleys, the soft rush of the breezes in the grass under his feet.
And the silhouette of a man, watching him from afar.
He dreams and he hurts and he thinks, if only Sarawat is here.
“Drink this.”
The liquid that pools inside his mouth has a strange, sour ring to it and Tine sputters, tries to push the cup away. He’s too weak to succeed and his mother’s voice coaxes him to swallow the vile concoction to the last drop. It burns all the way down and leaves him feeling not much better, although it does dull the throbbing of his head. Tine shivers at the rasp of a blanket pulled over his skin, followed by the weight of animal furs being layered on top of him. He feels Type’s calloused hands wiping down the sweat slicking his forehead and he rolls to his side, trying to catch a glimpse of his brother.
He sees his sister instead and the scar, a reminder that he’d failed to protect her once.
Her face crumples as she coos at him. “You’ll get better soon, brother.”
There’s a hand sliding beneath his head and hips to lift him up, his father’s beard scratching the top of his head, and he winces as he’s slowly lowered into a tub of warm water. His elbow catches on its copper-rusted rim, drawing blood. The water smells of herbs, earthy and pungent, and he’s faintly aware of thick fingers burrowing through his wet hair. Foul-smelling poultice is smeared over his neck, along his collarbones and his chest, and he recognises the soft murmuring that accompanies each scrub as the Old Prayers. He cracks his eyes open, only to wish he hasn’t.
“You’re an unusual one, aren’t you.” The shaman’s voice is a crackling, threadbare thing, barely above a whisper, but her eyes are clear like the night sky. Ageless. “You know your sickness isn’t going away?”
The sharp intake of breath is his mother’s.
“It is what you are.” A bottle uncorks and it’s poured over him, viscous liquid stinging his eyes and making them water. “Not something I can cut out, like maggots from rotting meat.”
“What should we do?” his father asks. “How do we save him?”
"Leave," she says. His mother starts to protest, but she's silenced by a look. "I need to speak with the boy alone."
Tine hears them leave and he's tempted to crawl out to follow them, away from the shaman. Once the sound of their footsteps subsides, she pours another bottle and rubs him over with it. He smells linseed oil, with a heavy floral embellishment, and winces as her fingers find his bones.
He'd steered out of her way before, his guts warning him of unspeakable things. Nobody quite knows where she came from, but she's been with the village since it was nothing more than a few tents clustered together against the cold brought forth by the reign of the Mad King, and they know she would still be there long after all of them are gone.
“You should accept what you are.” The strings of glass and tiny animal skulls that hang about her neck dip into the murky bathwater as she presses her knuckles against his collarbone. He groans, head lolling forward. “The land has waited for you for a long, long time and she's grown impatient. Even now, I hear her calling for you and I'm near deaf with it.” She taps the side of her head with a crooked finger. "You came from the womb of your human mother, but you must know you're not entirely hers."
Tears streak down his cheeks, into hitching sobs. He doesn’t want to hear any of this. He doesn’t. "S-Stop—"
"It's time you shed this human skin before it rips," she murmurs, pressing a thumb into the underside of his jaw. Tine jerks and scrabbles weakly for leverage, but she doesn't allow him to shy away from her grip. "Worry not, child. You'll make a fine god."
Tine shakes his head, weakly. He understands what she’s asking him to do, but he has no control over it. Over the blinding light suffusing the very marrow of his bones, pounding out its primordial urge. He'll hurt everyone caught unaware by the change it would've brought. Just like his sister, whose silver skin seared so, so easily at the first touch of spring. The water laps against his feverish skin and he sinks deeper into it, half-wishing he can escape her knowing eyes.
"I can't," he croaks. He barely recognises the voice that comes out of his throat. "Please, you have to help me—"
She shakes her head. There’s sorrow lurking there and he realises that she understands why he still resists. She lives among them; this is her home and her people. He tries to plead, but a fresh slew of pain ripples through his veins, and he can do nothing but gasp for breath. Her voice rises higher into the Old Prayers as she digs her nails deeper. They cut into him, drawing blood, and Tine is too delirious with pain to notice her prayers stuttering into silence. It’s seconds later that he cracks his eyes open, blurry with tears, and sees her stricken expression.
The bathwater had turned ink black around him.
“It can’t be—” Her eyes narrow, the colour of turbulent twilight. The skulls on her necklace chime as she crouches over him and her shadow spills like oil slick to swallow Tine’s. She plucks something from the loop of macabre trinkets and only when she forces his mouth open, places it onto his tongue that he recognises the shape of a coin. “Come. We have a journey to make.”
.
“My lord.”
He ignores the ferryman in favour of the scroll spilling over his knee, his mood too tempestuous to endure its unwanted meddling. Absently, he fiddles with his bracelet, nails picking at its frayed edges as he reads the same sentences twice. Very much aware that the ferryman is still there, as persistent as a wraith.
It isn’t long before the low drawl of its voice reaches him again.
“Someone is here for you.”
.
“Tine?”
Sarawat’s composure is iron-clad, but it cracks under the weight of his surprise. The scroll slides onto the foot of the throne as he straightens, throat working around the syllables of a name. Tine had never seen him so bewildered. The ferryman withdraws unseen, the passage paid for. It leaves Tine a few feet away from Sarawat, and the shaman at his side. She seems younger in the darkened halls, wrinkles smoothing into supple skin, and she no longer walks with a haunch as she approaches the throne. It is as if she's treading upon familiar ground, to greet an old friend. Tine stands rooted to the spot, hasn’t lost the golden glow that simmers right underneath his skin even in the bowel of the land. He looks as jarring in Sarawat’s throne room as he’d been on the surface, and the stagnant air shudders uneasily when Tine starts laughing.
It’s not something one hears in the Underworld.
“I should’ve known.” His laughter peters off into a bitter smile, reminded of a conversation from a lifetime ago. “You did say you live under the mountains.”
Sarawat eventually finds his voice and he sweeps down towards Tine, the tightness around his eyes belaying his true feeling. The cloak he wears is a black so dense it seems to drain any other colour in his immediate surrounding, the hem that brushes the floor smoking and misting faintly. It radiates the kind of cold burn Tine associates with frostbites and he wonders if he would lose his fingers if he tries touching Sarawat.
The shaman watches them and he wishes she’s not around, that this isn’t how he gets to see Sarawat again.
“What are you doing here?”
Tine clenches his jaw so tightly he feels it in his skull. "You promised we'll always be together."
Sarawat flinches. “I—”
“It’s been a while, Wat,” she says, cutting him off. Sarawat’s expression shutters into one of displeasure, but it is wiped off into indifference when he turns to her. The shaman’s mouth curls. “I’ve always thought of you as solitary, but imagine my surprise when I realise you've marked him as your own.”
“I didn’t know.” It rankles at Tine, being discussed like he isn’t there. Sarawat shakes his head at the shaman. “By the time I found out, it was too late to do anything, Pam. I would’ve been happy to wait until he comes to me as any mortal would.”
She crosses her arms, unfazed by his ire. “You must undo your claim. Do you wish to explain to his true mother why her son refuses to heed her call? Why he allows the world to perish, just because he wears your mark upon his heart?”
Tine’s heart lurches in his chest.
Sarawat grimaces. He glances at Tine then, with something akin to agony carved onto his face. In that split second, Tine’s made his mind. He steps between them, closer to Sarawat than the shaman. “What if I want to stay?”
She clicks her tongue. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Sarawat makes a disgruntled noise, but he doesn’t disagree. “This is the Land of the Dead. There’s nothing for you here.”
“You.” The word tumbles off Tine’s tongue in a rush, emptying out into the space between them. He turns red, blindsided by his own confession, but he’s never known how to be a coward. “You are here.”
"Tine–" Something flickers in Sarawat’s eyes, something ancient and hungry, before his expression flattens. His jaw is a line of battlements as he looks at Tine, carved out of stone. “Sunlight doesn’t shine in my realm, nor can you grow anything in its barren soil. You are born to the Song of Harvest and you’ll wither if you stay.” His voice lowers and he looks away, fingers clenched into tight fists. “I will not allow that.”
Tine reaches for Sarawat’s hand, gently uncurling his fingers. Upon Sarawat’s upturned palm, he places a white, star-shaped flower, velvet-soft and plucked in secret. He’d found an entire meadow of them, right before they reached the rivers. He had to ask for their name, foreign as they are, and they sang it to him in a low susurrus not unlike the sound of bones grinding.
Asphodels.
If they can flourish in the Underworld—
I can be here. With you.
“You forget your duty.” And he’s forgotten about the shaman too, why she’d brought him here. He presses closer to Sarawat, tries to ignore the battering inside his ribcage. It’s calling to him again, in birdsongs and wind chimes and greedy little chatters demanding to be set upon the world. But it’s not as painful as it had been when it made him writhe helplessly in his bed, in the bathtub. He thinks it must be Sarawat’s presence that’s weakening its pull. From the look on her face, he must’ve been right. She frowns. “Even now, the only reason the land still breathes is because you walk upon it. It is time for the cycle to begin anew, for Winter to give way to the coming of Spring. If you intend to stay here, your family will join you much sooner than the Fates’ design.”
“I will hurt all of them if I go back right now.” Tine drags a short breath, trying to steady the frantic beating of his heart. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to barter with gods (since he isn’t one, not quite yet), but there is too much at stake. Sarawat’s fingers slip between his, squeezing lightly. It gives him the strength to continue. Tine lifts his chin to look at the shaman. “Will you allow them time to prepare themselves? Warn them of what’s coming?”
She looks at him, calculating. She must've known that he is not about to relent, for she eventually says, “You will return when they’re ready?”
“Of course.” Hope flutters in his chest and his grip on Sarawat’s hand tightens. He inhales deeply. “For half of the year, I will walk the land. The other half I will spend here, with Sarawat. Winter has never done me wrong," Tine presses on, recalling the lessons he'd learnt throughout his entire life. "And an eternal Spring will do them little good."
She stares at him, slack-jawed.
“He doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Sarawat’s mouth twitches, as if suppressing a smile. Tine flushes at the fondness he finds there, even more so when Sarawat’s arm loops around his waist. “He makes a fine god, don’t you think?”
The shaman sighs. She almost looks her age once again.
“Indeed.”
.
He lounges in the shade beneath a slanted tree, simmering in dappled sunlight as he watches Sarawat approach. The valley is resplendent with colours, sun-warmed earth beneath his back and endless blue sky above. In the distance, Type’s laughter is carried by a breeze that’s turning colder by the minute and he knows he’s running out of time. The trees will soon turn gold in farewell, before they sleep for months as the land is smothered by the white vastness of a familiar winter. Hearth fires. Midnight festivities. Slip-sliding across frozen lakes. He smiles as Sarawat offers a hand and he’s pulled to his feet, toes curling into the dirt.
Sarawat kisses him softly, sweetly then, in the lengthening shadow of the tree. His lips are pomegranate red and his eyes, polished silver.
“Come. It's time to go.”
Tine might have spring running through his veins, but everyone knows that his heart truly lies in the embrace of Sarawat’s winter.
.