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Aranessa was wide awake the first time the sun rose on an Araman without her husband, profane as it was. She’d known it was likely she’d outlive him when they married, a little older than her, more reckless, but…
Her eyes slid shut for a moment, heavy lids weighed down by exhaustion. There was a hot ache in her shoulders and a pressure on her chest, dull but insistent, the sort of pain that made the world swim. She needed sleep but the thought of waking in an empty bed the day after her darling leannán’s death turned her stomach.
One thing, to wake up in an empty bed, and to know that somewhere out there he was waking up as well. It was entirely another to wake and know that Thjazi’s sleep would be eternal. That he was laying cold and still on a table in Hallandil’s home. That soon he would be returned to the earth, here in Dol Makjar, so far from home.
She would place a memorial for him when they returned to the Orchards, in his favorite grove, where he had loved to spar with Thimble and laugh, and tease. She would visit him as often as she could, she decided. Maybe break her fast with him in the mornings. She had always loved that quiet first meal, her husband, who much preferred the night, a little grumpy but always with that roguish smile for her. She’d missed it, but a new tradition would have to suffice.
When the time came, she would crawl to the stone with his likeness engraved on it, go to sleep beside him, and never wake again. Andressa would bury her there, and she would hope against hope that whatever justice there was in the world, she would find her husband waiting for her on the other side.
Aranessa struggled with herself as she longed for it, to just sleep, and dream, and be with Thjazi again. Two years wasn’t nearly long enough, and fourteen a bare blink against the years she’d thought they’d have. Her eyes flitted to the picture on her desk, here in her quarters at the Palazzo Davinos, a little portrait of Thjazi, herself, and a very young Andressa.
Her poor niece. She’d been devastated to be ordered to remain behind, convinced her magic could help Aranessa save Thjazi, but risking her heir in a city as on edge as Dol Makjar? No. The younger woman had nearly come to blows with Julien over it, never having forgiven him for his own transgressions against Aranessa’s husband. And now, the father Andressa had gained and lost in two short years was beyond her grasp, lost to the ravages of the world’s cruel politics.
Aranessa could weep forever.
And for a long while, she did. The tears came softly at first, falling onto the fine silk of her nightgown, then harder, until the air itself began to hum. Her magic rose with her grief, trembling in her hands, shimmering faintly around her. The fabric at her lap began to shift, to move beneath her fingers.
Color bled into the air, soft at first, then rich and certain, threads of silk and light weaving themselves together. The mourning energy of her heart poured into the weave. Where her tears fell, flowers began to bloom.
The overskirt took form slowly, the air around her alive with power. Rolling hills emerged, painted in soft strokes upon silk. Fields of embroidered flowers followed, delicate petals rising from the fabric as stumpwork gave them shape and life. And all of it spoke, every bloom, every tree, every whisper of stitch and thread.
Orange trees blossomed in gentle groves, the symbol of an eternal love. From the front, willows bent low, heavy with mourning. Dogwood once bloomed there, its promise of overcoming adversity replaced by cypress, tall and shadowed, speaking of death and loss.
Marigolds grew around the willows, sorrow for the loss of one dearly loved. Fields of forget-me-nots spread across the back, a desperate plea, dotted with anemones, sparse but insistent, the memory of feeling forsaken. Dahlias bloomed too, eternal love and commitment, the echo of the ring that had never left her hand.
Asphodel crept across the whole of the skirt, her regrets made manifest, following him to the grave. Yet in the front it was overtaken by camellia, her longing laid bare, surrounded by wide swathes of hyacinths that murmured their endless refrain: forgive me, please forgive me.
And through it all, greater in number than any other flower, tulips rose bright and proud. In the face of grief and loss and regret, they stood as her final thought, deep and true.
I declare my love to you.
When at last the skirt was finished, her magic fell still. The air was quiet again. Aranessa sat trembling, the scent of silk and salt and tears around her. The overdress finally sat across her knees, shimmering faintly in the dawn light, a creation of love, sorrow, and the kind of magic that only grief could call forth.