Chapter Text
The moons have not yet set when she returns to the Raha Den. With some relief, she finds that her key still turns the lock, but she leans carefully into the room, looking with anxiety over the sleeping shapes in each bed. How dreadful, if they’ve given up and moved on without her. (Surely not Imogen.) If a year, or a decade, or a century has passed and she’ll return to find every face a stranger’s. (Yes, even Imogen.)
As she steps into the room her foot finds the corner of something hard, and she withdraws it with a hiss. Holding onto the door, she turns over the small, even-edged object with her toe. A triangle-shaped wooden toy block, pushed up against the door to reveal intruders. Her throat catches as she recognizes Chetney’s workmanship and Ashton’s guardedness. They’re here. They’re still here.
Perhaps she has not lost that much time, after all. Perhaps it’s even still the same night.
“It is not,” the woman in her head reminds her as she shuts the door carefully behind herself and replaces the block, “You’ve been away a day or so, at least. And yet you return as you left. Unnoticed, unlooked-for, unmissed. Poor thing.”
“Soup,” Laudna replies in an absent whisper, “It’s a weird soup.”
She looks around, wobbling a little and continuing to hold on to the door latch for support. In one of the beds she can discern the soft, rounded outlines of Fearne, curled up around another, smaller figure, Orym? and — there. The other is faintly illuminated by the violet glow of Imogen’s lightning-struck arms, pulsing gently in time with her breathing. She’s here.
The room around her seems to be swaying unsteadily. Or maybe she’s the one swaying unsteadily. Her mind is still adrift in the sea of wonders and horrors she has seen.
Whether you’ve been good or bad,
You can’t hide from the Erumad.
Oh, it’s just the flutter of the night air along the tent-like canvas walls of the raised platform. She lets the coolness of the desert night soothe her sunburnt face for a moment as the breeze finds her, opening her chapped lips to it as if it’ll help her drink in what little moisture there is to it. Her tongue lies in her mouth like a dead animal.
All right. Just a little further now.
“Find yourself some water,” Delilah urges as she closes her eyes briefly against the rocking of the floor beneath her, “You’re like the rattling husk of a seed pod. I can’t hold you together like this for much longer.”
“Just a moment,” she mutters impatiently, the words crumbling in her throat like dried leaves.
Letting go of the door, she tips herself forward into the room, hoping more than trusting that something solid will be close enough to catch. A few stumbling steps take her within range of the nearest bedstead and she flings out a hand to take hold of the footboard. Fearne snuffles, but doesn’t wake. Slowly, not so much walking as shoving herself forward and repeatedly stopping herself from a headlong fall, she makes her uneven way over to Imogen’s bedside. It’s becoming harder to ignore the pain ricocheting through her with every limping step, from the bruised soles of her feet to the pounding of her whirling head to the dust-rasped burning of her throat. And she’s so tired.
But it’s all right. It’s going to be all right. Imogen is here, Imogen is lying sweetly asleep in the bed before her, with one bare arm flung up over her head and the other resting lightly on her chest. Her head is haloed with the soft ringlets of her hair, the color of the first hope of dawn after a sleepless night, and the feather-fine curves of her eyelashes flutter gently upon her cheek as she dreams.
The empty pillow beside her fills her with such longing tenderness that she’d be moved to tears if there were tears left in her. She is tempted to simply pile all of her aching bones into the wordless invitation of that space still left open for her, to sleep at last and let everything else wait until later. But Imogen is dreaming. How many nightmares has she endured without comfort in her absence? It wouldn’t do to let her suffer another one.
All right. Now the hard part. Her heart (she hopes it’s her heart) begins to pound as she opens her belt pouch and fumbles out the object wrapped up in her handkerchief. Maybe if she distracts Delilah . . .
Whether you are blithe or sad,
. . . by thinking of something else she can just . . .
You can’t hide from the
“Such a pity.”
Dammit.
She shakes her head sharply, nearly sending herself to the floor as the room wheels around her from the movement. The thing in her handkerchief fits entirely in her closed fist, but it suddenly seems unbearably heavy.
“Leave me be,” she hisses through the whirl of vertigo, “It’s not for you.”
“Would you waste it on an ungrateful girl who has not even missed you?”
“I did not carry this thing through hell just to let you have it now.”
Gingerly, taking the greatest care not to touch it with her trembling fingers, she unwraps the shard of dark purple crystal. Even through the fabric of her handkerchief her hands tingle under the skin like she’s been leaning on them for too long. It pulses faintly inside itself with a dim violet light in the darkness of the room, like the heartbeat in her head, like the glow in Imogen’s veins.
Delilah’s hands cover hers delicately, like a parent trying to prise open the fist of a petulant toddler to confiscate a sharp object without harming the tender baby hands. “This is far too dangerous a thing for you children,” she coaxes, “Let me take it, before you hurt yourself.”
“No.”
She slips it into Imogen’s sleeping hand. All at once the weight of the thing is gone, and Delilah retreats further into her mind with a huff.
“Sweet dreams, darling,” Laudna whispers, closing her fingers gently around the stone. A smile lights on Imogen’s face, delicate and precious as a butterfly, but she doesn’t wake.
She isn’t sure what to do now. She hadn’t planned past this moment. She supposes she’d expected Imogen would thank her, and reassure her that everything is all right now, they don’t need to fight anymore, everything is all right, and then they’d go on doing whatever they’d been doing. (Which had been . . . what? Something about an orb? A ring? Armand Treshi? Paragon’s Call? The words slide uselessly around her head like grains of sand coasting down a dune, too many and too meaningless to gather.)
Where is Pâté? She has to tell him she’s sorry for leaving him behind. She looks over to the corner of the room where she’d made her bed, but it’s empty.
“Water,” Delilah’s voice reminds her curtly.
She looks down at the nightstand she’s bracing herself up on. There’s none there. How awful. What if Imogen woke and needed it — hasn’t anyone been taking care of her? — she should get
Oh, she’s on the floor. Maybe she ought to rest here just a moment. She is so tired. Her heart is still thrashing itself weakly against her ribs like it’s trying to escape them and her lungs (always underachievers) don’t seem to be dragging enough breath into her body.
Is it happening already? The horrible irony of the thought bubbles up into a giggle that she hadn’t known she still had left.
“So — so long, D . . . I wish I could say I’ve enjoyed our time together.”
A long-suffering sigh brushes against the inside of her head, almost a caress. “Poor thing. You poor, sweet, stupid thing. Was it worth it?”
She listens for the sound of wings between the faltering beats of her pulse, but all she can hear is the gentle whisper of Imogen breathing softly in her sleep. How nice, to think that the last her eyes ever saw was her smile.
“Yes,” she replies, and means it. She’s done what she set out to do, after all. She has mended the harm she did and brought peace to her sleep. And maybe
maybe Imogen will love her again when she’s
The red moon crests the brow of the hill, drowning the valley in ruddy light. Instinctive terror grips Imogen’s heart, trapping her like a rabbit in the spreading shadow of a hawk. There is nowhere to run to. The storm is already here.
It’s a dream, she tries to reassure herself, It’s always been a dream. But somehow the knowledge just makes it worse this time, knowing that when she wakes, Laudna won’t be there to comfort her.
Laudna, standing under the moon with her hair full of red wind, won’t hear her screaming for her.
Laudna, contentedly lying in the arms of someone else, won’t even know she’d been having a nightmare.
But there’s something in her hand. Opening her fingers she looks down incredulously to find a jagged shard of purple crystal, glowing faintly through the red dust surrounding her. The sharpness of its edge is reassuringly real against her palm. She tightens her hand around it, although its warmth is almost heat, and takes comfort in its solidity, in the sureness of its power pressing back against her skin.
She looks up at Laudna. Her friend’s eyes are blinded by the wind-whipped ribbons of her own hair, rending her expression inscrutable, but she smiles, a crooked gash of crooked teeth between the darkness of her lips, and keeps smiling, until her face splits open and all of her ragdoll stuffing is torn out by the teeth of the wind, but it isn’t stuffing it’s a swirl of feathers, the black of her hair and the white of her skin, and the razor-edged wind flings them like knives at Imogen’s face as she throws her hands up to shield herself, gripping the crystal with the bleak desperation of a formerly pious woman clinging to a holy symbol, but not in time to stop them from
brushing against gently her cheek, snowflakes as fine and soft as the tufts of feather-down from Laudna’s safe-landing spell. She is treading through the snow up the path to a hidden mountain cabin, dragging a sled with a load of firewood, lightning-split, for the wood stove, with nothing behind her and the promise of safety before.
She knows, with a bitter wistfulness, that she’ll find the cabin empty. There’s no home behind that door now, with her gone. No warm scent of baking bread, no weird half-finished craft project of carved antlers and yarn cluttering the kitchen table, no dead rat leering at her from the arm of the couch, no loving voice singing out her name in welcome.
Laudna, in the arms of someone else, won’t even know she’s been missed.
But it’s a way out. Gripping the stone in her hand, Imogen opens the door.
She opens her eyes to early light between the gaps in the tent walls, and quietly, for once. From the other bed she can still hear the quiet whuffling of Fearne in her sleep. Imogen doesn’t want to look over, knowing what she’ll see. But she stretches and scratches her head, enjoying the rare clarity of her mind being the only one awake.
There is something in her hand. Opening her fingers, she finds with surprise that she is still holding the stone from her dream. Had Laudna mended it, after all? Upon further inspection, she realizes it’s not quite the same. The shape is different, and a little bigger, the purple has a deeper vibrancy, and the warmth of it is greater. And the rush of power it had given her in her dream had come much more easily.
The power to change things, isn’t that what Letters had said it could do? Even her dream, at long last? She turns it pensively over in her hands, then slips it into her pajama pocket. Wherever it came from, she’s not going to let this one go as easily.
Getting up, she immediately trips over the limp bundle of bones and rags next to the bed and tumbles to the floor alongside it.
“Dammit, Laudna!” Imogen exclaims through her teeth as she lands hard on her elbow. Why d’you insist on lyin’ on the floor like a heap of trash when you’re feelin’ sorry for yourself? She rubs her thrumming elbow moodily. “What’re you even doin’ over here; I thought you were sleepin’ with Fearne.”
There is no response. Imogen sits up. Laudna is lying curled on her side like a dead leaf, her dark hair netted over her face. Coming more awake Imogen realizes that she’s absolutely filthy; her hair tangled and snarled with bits of twigs and leaves (where had those come from, in the middle of this wasteland city?), her clothes worn nearly to tatters, and she’s covered in smudges of dirt and streaks of dried ichor and gods only know what else.
“Laudna?” Cautiously she lifts a handful of her hair away from her face, and sits back with a gasp as she’s met with the black glass of her wide-open, unseeing eyes. Then Laudna blinks slowly, and stirs, curling further in on herself with a feeble groan. Imogen lets out a shaky sigh as the uncannily corpse-like semblance of her stillness is dispelled, somewhat. “You all right?” she asks, more gently.
Laudna opens her eyes again, and the expression of relief that creeps into them as she finds Imogen’s face through the curtain of her hair still hurts, somehow. Her lips move, forming the familiar shape of her name, but there’s no sound. Imogen reaches over and gingerly tucks her hair behind her ear, uncovering a mottled stripe of something painfully raw and bruise-colored scathed across the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
Laudna’s throat hitches as she makes a few attempts to speak. “Did . . .” she whispers, in a voice as thin and frayed as her clothing. Imogen leans in closer to hear her. “Did you . . . did you sleep well?”
Imogen stares at her, bewildered by the nonchalance of the question. “What?”
Laudna presses her hand against the floor and attempts to lever herself up, but there seems to be no strength left in her and she lets her arm fall again with a tired sigh. Imogen takes her by the bony yoke of her shoulders and sits her up, looking her over in growing concern.
“Laudna, what . . . happened to you?” She takes her face in her hands as Laudna’s gaze wanders vaguely away from her and her eyelids flutter closed. “Nonono.” Laudna flinches back to consciousness as she pats her cheek lightly. “Stay with me,” Imogen implores, “tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”
“How . . .” Laudna’s breath rustles in her throat, and she swallows roughly and begins again, “How did you sleep?”
“Yeah, I slept fine!” Imogen snaps impatiently, “What—?”
Laudna smiles, with lips so dry that the smile cracks her face and a bead of dark blood swells from her lower lip. “It helped, then? The — the rock, it helped? I’m so glad.”
The chill that rushes through Imogen’s veins makes her newly aware of the warmth of the crystal in her pocket. Laudna is still smiling up at her expectantly, like she’s waiting for a question to be answered. Her breath comes and goes between her lips in a slow, husky rattle and head bobs slightly between her shoulders as she breathes, as though it’s too heavy for her neck to hold up. Her trembling fingers gripping Imogen’s forearms are as dry and brittle as twigs.
The stone, that awful stone, how had she—? Where had she—?
When whatever response she’s waiting for does not come, Laudna lets her heavy eyelids fall over her big, dark eyes and begins to go limp in her hands. Imogen shakes her by the shoulders, more roughly than she means to, causing her head to rock on her fragile neck. “What did you do?”
Laudna’s cracked and bleeding mouth curves into an apologetic smile. “Something rather awful, I’m afraid,” she replies, and then she’s gone again. Her head lolls onto Imogen’s shoulder as she slumps against her.
Fearfully Imogen fumbles at her bony wrist for her pulse, unsure if she’ll even be able to find it through the thumping of her own. But as she waits she feels something else, a sensation she’s missed bitterly since she was shut out from it three days ago — the gentle hum of Laudna’s mind against her own. Somehow, it’s still singing.
“What’s going on?” Fearne’s sleepy voice yawns from the other side of the room, “Who did what?”
Telekinetically straightening out the blankets, Imogen gathers Laudna’s loose-limbed body into her arms. She means to scoop her onto the bed but she holds her for a moment, cradled close against herself, even though she’s a mess. Was she always so light, so hollow-boned and fragile, or had the days of longing separation made her forget? When she’d carried her on her back only three days ago she hadn’t seemed to weigh so little.
She lays her down on the mattress. With fingertips she notices have begun to tremble, she begins running a cleansing spell over her in an effort to find out how badly she’s hurt under all the dust and grime. She’s unsure of where even to begin tending to her. The angry scratches around her wrists and ankles beginning to fester into sores? The unmerciful sunburn (how has she gotten sunburned overnight?) that has purpled and peeled the delicate skin away from her bony clavicles and cheeks? Most tenderly, her bleeding lip?
She clutches helplessly at the empty air above her, not wanting to hurt her further by touching her. “I think Laudna did somethin’ stupid and went out into the desert on her own and got another one of those damn rocks somehow and now she’s in real bad shape but she wouldn’t tell me what happened,” she explains in a single breath, unable to keep the frantic edge from her voice, “Could you come over here and take a look at her, please?”
Fearne sits up. “What do you mean?” she asks, her voice still clumsy with sleep. “Laudna’s right here. She’s been here all night.”
“. . . What?” Imogen raises her head and stares at the bedheaded faun.
Behind her, the pale, gaunt, dark-eyed figure rises from the other bed.