one good honest kiss, to feel alright
It is the first time in a long time that Bexley is completely free, and the feeling is not, in the slightest, enjoyable.
She is free of responsibilities, and of torture, and of the way it felt to be part of something, and, too, free of love, free of desire, free of living-will, of blood: as the night closes in on her, both literally and figuratively, she finds herself free of purpose and is not sure what to say about it.
So what is left?
The sand has turned to a soft, liquid blue under the gaze of a dark and watchful night sky. Stars wink vaguely in the hard distance. In the not-light the dunes and the clouds melt into each other like so many braided ribbons. Bexley’s mouth is crusted with iron and salt. She wonders vaguely who or what is watching, if anything, and if it would be better to be ignorant of whatever does exist to punish. Only to punish.
Dear God, I hate you.
Her ribs are slatted and gaunt, too visible: her hips jut outward slightly: the ends of her usually pure-white hair are tinged with soot from a recent and particularly unpleasant visit to the markets. Dark circles bludgeon the skin under her eyes. A small pale sun bobs up and down at her side, fastidiously enthusiastic, and washes the path toward the Arma Mountains in thin rings of light. Bexley follows it with dead-eyed certainty.
Trees bristle hard against a deep-blue sky. A low wind moans against the rocks and the wood, bites and scrapes at the ex-regent’s skin. She locks her jaw against the chill. And from miles away, beyond the edge of the horizon, the sound of the cold, bright ocean crashing against the rocks mingles with the sound of a Denoctian horn announcing the arrival of the dawn and makes all the noise that announces something new, and Bexley’s heart slurs its beat in her chest until she cannot be sure whether she is alive or dead.
The sun rises. Denocte opens in front of her.
