ogether, they walk through Terrastella’s orchards.
They have been walking for quite some time, without much conversation. Orestes pauses now and again to appraise, and then pick, an apple. Their shared whicker basket has become more full as they’ve progressed, and whatever awkward lulls might have happened due to their silence were compensated for when they stooped to plant a handful of seeds. The King cannot help glancing at her, every so often, from the corners of his eyes; there is something enchanting about these moments, stolen away in a ruse of normalcy, as if either of them has the time to pick apples. He wants to speak on this, but knows doing so breaks the intimate spell.
And, besides, Orestes's deeper thoughts are hardly acceptable. Orestes, who has dedicated himself utterly to Solterra, admits to himself that the orchards make his heart ache. Although he has grown accustomed—and even affectionate toward—all that is Solterra, from the heat to the violence to the politics, this is his more natural state. Orestes is surrounded by beauty. The rich odour of mulch and fruit perfumes the air, a smell of life. The orchard is humid to the point of being unbearable for a man so accustomed to the arid desert, but—
it is all so lovely.
Orestes steels glances, occasionally, at Marisol. He wonders in a way quite boyish exactly what she is thinking. Orestes wants to ask, but also fears being intrusive. They continue on like this until the midday light slinks into the quieter aura of her people’s time, dusk. First, however, the sun hangs heavy and pregnant upon the horizon, larger than life. The orchards dance with beautiful, golden light.
It is here, when many of the other patrons have already left, that Orestes begins to speak. He does so with the sun dappling the leaves, and their bodies, and his blue eyes light and full of curiosity.
“We have been busy with our kingdoms,” Orestes admits. They have not seen each other as feverishly or as often as they had during their initial courtship. Now, their visits with one another were much more measured, much more mature. Orestes adds, “I would like to spend more time getting to know one another. I know we’ve talked family in the past, but what about the future? I’d like to known more about your mother, about—“
and here Orestes smiles, a small and brilliant smile, slightly shy. Private. He does not smile that way for anyone else. “I want to know everything that makes you who you are, Marisol.” The light plays off the leaves all around them; the effect is not unlike a chandelier in that it reflects brilliantly off all it touches. They are in an equilibrium of dark and light, of sunshine and shadow, and it ignites within him a strange longing. Perhaps because it all seems so transient. Even she, mottled with the light of the orchard, seems as if she might disappear if he were to blink.
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
Of all this solstice’s festivities, the orchard must be Marisol’s favorite. It is a place she does not visit often, a normally fenced-off farm that borders one side of the swamp with carefully laid-out pumpkins, grapevines, and of course the swaybacked apple trees. Out here the warmth of the sun and the heat that rises off the water combine to turn the air almost unbearably humid. As Mari walks, sweat collects on the slope of her shoulders. At times her stomach even churns; but still she walks close to Orestes’ side, unwilling to pull herself away when their time together is already so limited.
Every now and again they draw to a stop in order to pick an apple or two. Marisol lets him choose where they pause, and which fruit to pull down. After all, it is he that has come to visit her, he to whom these celebrations must appear strange, and so she is content to follow quietly just a stride or two behind him, every so often reaching out to brush her lips against Orestes’ hip or thigh. Each time she touches him it’s the same feeling: butterflies in the stomach, a spine-clacking shudder, a rush of warmth. A phantasmal kind of kiss.
Eventually Orestes brings them to a final pause, under a tree bent in half by the weight of its fruitbearing years. Sunlight filters through the leaves and forms a pattern on the ground like the dapples of the Sun King’s coat; it plays across his skin like the moon on water, and Mari watches with muted envy just how close it is to him, how it sinks beneath the surface in a way she (at least not in this terribly solid form) will never be able to manage. Her heart aches suddenly and faintly. The wicker basket, already heavy with produce, falls with a thump into the dirt between them.
When she meets his eyes it makes her feel weaker than she can ever remember feeling. And when he says I want to know everything that makes you who you are, Marisol, a part of her instantly cracks open under the weight of wanting to cry as the thought—knowledge?—overwhelms her:
If you knew everything that makes me who I am, you would not love me anymore.
Her throat feels dry enough to bleed when she swallows, and she cannot help holding back the urge to speak by biting down on her bottom lip. But this look of panic lasts for only a second; and then she gathers her composure enough to smooth that expression away, replacing it with one of warm, earnest interest. She even presses a kiss to his cheek, briefly.
“I will tell you,” Marisol responds finally, “whatever you want to know, Orestes; but you must know, too, that not much of it is pleasant.” Her voice is softer than perhaps it has ever been, nearly drowned out by the sigh of the wind through the leaves overhead. The pleasant drone of conversation from the crowd of passersby. The shifting of the grass underfoot. Even her heartbeat seems louder than it should be.
If you knew everything that makes me who I am, you would not love me anymore.
will tell you. There is a long silence before she says it, where she measures him with her eyes and he thinks he sees something girlish, something vulnerable, in those cool metal irises. She bites her bottom lip and while she is far too dignified to shift or seem flustered, Orestes knows the question is a difficult one, and what he asks must be an enormous weight. The only thing he can imagine that is heavier, however, is the withholding of it; of her truths. Orestes wonders the last time she shared this weaknesses with another; he wonders if she ever has.
He smiles gladly when she kisses his cheek; Orestes understands the strength it takes to smooth away her fear, as one smooths out a wrinkled page. Her voice is too soft; the wind nearly takes it from him, disguised in a rustle of leaves. Orestes presses close to brush a strand of too-long hair from the edge of her eyes. He presses close, to offer the warmth of his body, the consistency of his gaze. Orestes is not afraid of her answer; there is a part of himself braced for atrocities, for the unforgivable, because he knows already that the worst she is capable of is not as terrible as the sins he's committed.
The world around them seems in constant movement as she contemplates; yes, their lives are full of the raucous voices of others in the orchard, the leaves in full symphony, the branches against one another. Yet where they stand, it is strangely still. Orestes pauses to pick an apple; perfect, brilliant red. His eyes follow every soft, curve, before he takes a bite and offers it casually to Marisol. The sweet flavour bursts on his tongue; it grounds him more resolutely beside her, in the moment shared between them. Perhaps the gesture appears flippant; Orestes does not mean it to be interpreted as such. Merely as another way to smooth her edges, to transform their interaction into something softer, quieter, kinder.
Admissions of truth do not, he thinks, have to be like the pulling of thorns. “Marisol,” Orestes says affectionately. “Do you think I love you simply because our sentiments are pleasant? That knowing one another is nothing but pleasant?” His smile is small, boyish. “Let me go first, and then… well, if it is too much, I understand.” What he does not say is that he does not think it will be too much. What he does not say is the entire reason for love is to mitigate the cruelness with which one views themselves; to sweeten that self-deprecation into something milder, self-reflection, understanding. Orestes confesses his sins to her in the light of dusk, in Terrastella’s fruit-rich orchard, with the birds loud in his ears and everything he has ever known far from him:
“I used to be a Prince.” Orestes does not say the only reason he remembers this is because it is fastidiously written down and now recollected as a history belonging to another man. ”And, as that Prince, I failed my people. I made a decision that effectively killed, or enslaved, them all. They succumbed to a genocide. I should have died with them, yet... for some reason, I was spared, and arrived in Novus. I have the blood of an entire people on my soul.” This, too, feels rehearsed; but there is an expression of anguish tightening his features, filling his eyes. It is that, the resounding pain he feels, that reminds him the words are not rehearsed. He had lived this tragedy, even if the memories are faded.
It flits from his eyes as a cloud does over the sun. “Anyways, that certainly isn’t pleasant. But it is a part of me, of who I am.”
There is a moment where he hates himself for what he is about to ask; a moment that writhes with self-deprecation, a bed of snakes in his chest. This is the moment he understands his own inherent nature. This is the moment he realises Solis has blessed him not only with a loss of memory, but with the whole of Solterran values. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done, Marisol? If you tell me that, and I still love you, you will no longer have to fear sharing your demons with me.” The question itself is cruel; and Orestes has never been a cruel man. But his intentions… Well, what is it, that they say about them?
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Oh, and isn’t it?
He thinks, the worst think he has ever done is ask for peace.
It is a mistake Orestes doesn’t think he will be making again soon.
But that is a different conversation, for a different day.
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
Even the people that love—loved?—her, Marisol thinks, don’t know her like they think they do.
Isra (if that thorny red thing between them could even be called love) knew almost nothing. Back then she had been careful to keep all her cards close to her chest; so, whatever it was the Night queen saw in her, it must have been the product of her own imagination.
There is little to remember about it except the pain. A rain-soaked dark street. The smell of cinnamon. That one long dance in the sparkling light of Denocte’s great hall, with violins moaning, and Mari’s heart beating in radiant panic, and the overwhelming but perfectly natural heat of Isra’s chest pressed up against hers like magma. Many fewer words than kisses or sidelong glances exchanged.
Then that had been it: heartbreak. Exhaustion. A quick ascension to the throne and then it was all irrelevant, anyway. Whatever Isra had thought of her was, by all accounts, likely not based in fact; and if Theodosia had paid attention to what Marisol told her—well, that would still be very little. What did this lover know about her that the others (or Asterion, for that matter) didn’t?
The difference is that she wants to tell him. She would even trust him with it. Theoretically.
Mari surfaces from the dark water of her thoughts all at once; dragged back to the world of the living by that warm, gentle touch of his, which brushes the hair from her eyes and lays a steady, grounding pressure against her shoulder. She leans back in a soft reciprocation. In the dampness of the orchard, Orestes’ skin against hers is almost too balmy, and Marisol feels briefly blushy and overwhelmed. Heat pools in her cheeks; her gaze is warm and glassy, sliding over the apple that is offered to her without ever really landing on it, distracted as she is by the knot in her stomach that begs her not to speak.
Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him. Why would you tell him? The voice is sharp with panic, and terribly insistent. It rings like a bell between her ears.
Marisol shakes her head as the fruit is offered, dazed, her chest beginning to swirl. She rests her head against the slope of his shoulder. Then lets her eyes flutter shut. His heart beats in her ear; he smells like sand and salt and rosemary, like freedom. The natural, dusty warmth of a living body. And when he speaks, Marisol feels it just as much as she hears it—a soft steady rumble like an earthquake. A mountain shifting. A river, rolling into the sea.
I failed my people. I made a decision that effectively killed, or enslaved, them all. They succumbed to a genocide. Mari’s heart stops. Suddenly she is frozen in place, ice cold, bolted into place by a fear that arcs through her like lightning and a panic that squeezes at her chest like an iron lung: there is nothing in the world, nothing imaginable, that scares her more than failing in that way. I should have died with them, yet... for some reason, I was spared, and arrived in Novus. I have the blood of an entire people on my soul.
She wants to ask him how he stands it. This—this is impossible. How can life be worth living when you’re consumed by so much guilt—? What she feels nowadays is nothing in comparison, and still it seems to eat her, gnawing down to the bones until they come close to splintering.
But of course she does not. It would be cruel, and Marisol has been cruel enough already to last her entire lifetime. Instead she slides closer, without removing the weight of her head against his neck, until she is tucked close under his cheek and says, softly: “I abandoned someone.”
A pause. She swallows roughly.
“Before I became Commander, when I was still in training, another cadet—“ A sharp sigh. Mari’s eyes close suddenly. When she speaks again her voice is almost too quiet to hear, almost breaking on every word. “I had a child. Not consensually. Long—long before I wanted or was willing to. I was still almost a child myself. For a while my mother took care of her, but raising her in the slums when there were better options, other families, would be cruel. I said I would be a decent person. And come find her after training. And I didn’t."
restes, for an endless minute, believes he has pushed her too far, too fast. He is reminded of leaving the Terrastellan festival, rejected and taken aback. To see that expression in her eyes again would crush him.
The Sovereign does not know exactly when he became so sensitive to rejection. But the concern is there, tumultuous and humming in his ears, a taunt string prepared to snap. He does not pressure her with his heavy eyes; no, Orestes retracts the offered apple and offers the warmth, and comfort, of his body instead. His own admission tastes strange on his tongue; his eyes seek her response, hoping what Orestes shares is not too much.There is a moment—brief, haphazard, where he sees a response teeter on her tongue—before she slides beneath the crook of his neck, in the warm alcove beneath his cheek and throat where his pulse is quiet, and steady.
I abandoned someone.
At the admission, Orestes tucks her even closer. Inexplicably, his mind is drawn back to their first few meetings. If he has learned anything of Marisol, it is that she is duty-bound. To betray that duty? Orestes cannot imagine the torment that has placed on her soul. He thinks, however, of the poet Rilke who writes:
Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect, and greet each other.
Orestes has never felt as if she’s needed his protecting—but this admission is as fragile as a fledgling bird’s first flight. The story is told against his skin in a quiet, quiet voice. It is almost drowned out by the light around them, by the orchard, by the wind in the leaves. Isn’t that the crux of living? So personal a tragedy could be appraised secondly to the wind, the birds, the trees?
I had a child.
There is a flare of anger in him so sharp he nearly grits his teeth. It is only her soft voice that steadies him; and no, the anger is not for Marisol. It is for whoever committed such an affront against her. He listens intently, looking just above her head. She smells of the sea, and rosemary, the orchards around them. Just above the nape of her neck he watches a robin flit between the branches of an apple tree, heavy with produce. He tries to focus on that rather than the gravity of her words. Orestes has always been exposed to tragedy, but there had always been a semblance of distance between himself and the tragedy; even in his life before Novus, the tragedy was known, the tragedy was apparent, and so he lived with it as if it were his shadow.
This is different. This is sharp. This is a knife between his ribs, and he is certain he is Solterran now, because he sees nearly red with all that he would do—
I can’t.
Orestes sighs. His anger leaves with the sound of her cracked sob. He presses closer, and closer still, until he has twisted around her as if a shelter himself. “Marisol,” he says her name so, so softly. And then, as gently as he can, he tips her nose up with his own so as to regard her quietly, and evenly, in the eyes. “Marisol, love. You cannot blame yourself for that. You were a decent person—you found her a place above your means and station, somewhere to raise and care for her in ways you couldn’t at the time, emotionally or physically.”
Orestes, with a gentle brush of his telekinesis, wipes the tears from her eyes. It is his turn, now, to say in a voice so soft it is lost, almost, to the trees: “Marisol—the thing about this, and us, and what I hope to prove here… is that we are stronger together, you and I. I cannot imagine the burden this has placed on your soul for so long—but... well, what you can’t do alone… perhaps we can do together? If you feel it is an unfinished chapter in your life and something you need to find closure on, I would help you look for her. I would be there for you, to remind you there is a difference between survival and abandonment.” There is an uncertain waiver in Orestes’s voice—but it is not because of her. It is because he so desperately wants to say the right thing, be the right man and there is never a guarantee of that. “Or, if it is better for you, perhaps I will just remind you that you did your best. And we cannot condemn ourselves for our decisions when we were young, or else—well, we would spend our entire lives trapped in that regret.”
Yet there is a flint edge when Orestes says, “Is he—the other cadet…” then his voice cuts out, briefly. He steels himself. “Do you know if he is still in Terrastella?”
In all his lives, there is one thing he has learned and he has learned well: how to cause pain. It was his enemies, not his comrades, who taught him that. Orestes disguises it well, but there is a seething anger just beneath the surface. He cannot imagine the type of man who would commit such an atrocity. He draws Marisol tighter to himself, and then tighter still, until he feels as if he could not discern where his body begins and her's ends.
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
The moment of silence between Marisol’s admission and Orestes’ response feels absolutely like death.
The longest moment of warm, complete darkness there ever has been or ever will be—longer than life itself, longer than Marisol’s bloodline has walked the earth, longer than the gods have existed, longer than the heat death of the universe or anything else.
She is a teenager again, making eyes across the room at the boy who will ruin her life, because the future is so fuzzy, and he has eyes like gems. And then a child, dark skin warming under the sun, racing through the fields with the wind at her back. And then a foal, still learning how to walk; and then nothing but a swirling consciousness trapped in the warm belly of her mother, and Mari closes her eyes, and she can hear nothing but the wind rushing through the old trees and Orestes’ heartbeat drumming in her ear out of the soft place between his cheek and throat.
The turning of the world slows, then stops; her head is filled with the rushing sound of blood, and the smell of so many apples crushed underfoot.
Orestes moves. She almost falls apart, or collapses to the ground, folding at the knees; but instantly he is there to catch her, steady, solid, as warm and calm and alive as ever when he tilts her head up for their eyes to meet, and when they do Marisol wants to ry again for the way he looks at her, with more love than she could ever possibly deserve from him.
Blue and blue and blue and blue, all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And Marisol was always meant for the sky—why else would she carry these wings?—but for Orestes, she thinks she might be willing to drown.
I would help you look for her, he says. She looks up at him with wide gray eyes and they are softer than perhaps anyone has ever seen, melted down into mercury, spilling over onto her cheeks; and when she breathes it is shaky, the inhale mottled by effort, chest tightening as if squeezed by a python. “He died years ago. When he was still in training.” She produces a swallow made gritty with effort, even the memory of it casting a brief shadow over her face.
But almost instantly she is distracted from that pain by the echo of Orestes’ voice in her head—I would help you look for her.
I would help you look for her.
Her ears ring with shrill noise. The thought of it makes Marisol dizzy. Almost sick. It turns the edges of her vision black, and when she speaks it is in a tone of quiet pain, but also conviction: “She doesn’t even know me; it wouldn’t be fair to disrupt her after all these years, when she has her own life and family. I have nothing to give her.” A pause. Marisol glances up at him again and presses her nose briefly to his chest, so that when she speaks it is less noise than vibration, and he cannot see the flush of embarrassment that crawls into her face.
“But sometimes,” she mumbles against his skin, timid and almost silent, “—sometimes—I think I might like to try again.”
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