the only truly natural things are dreams,
which nature cannot touch with decay.
which nature cannot touch with decay.
T
here were three of her when she came, cautious as a caged hawk, to the window. Wisely, Caine chose the steadiest of the trinity Seraphina's to look upon. His breath plumed in clouds upon the cold glass. Rough stone bit into his cheek as he sifted the shadows around him, clearing out a pane of semi-translucence. If he squinted he could just make out the bright silver of her hair through the dark, unbound, spilling down her neck like snowmelt in spring.
But the bright of her hair deepened the hollow of her cheeks, and Caine frowned as he drew closer to the gap in the window.
"Verona?"
He knew she could not possibly see him. He knew; yet still it took all his sobriety (mere dregs in a wineglass) to muffle his sharp inhale when Seraphina's searching gaze paused just a mark shy of his own.
Gathering his voice, Caine shifted over and put his back to the wall. "None other; though I am pleased to have made as much an impression on you as you have me," he said winningly. (To his pleasure, he discovered it was not, in fact, the alcohol that made him endearing. It had always hung like an empty skin in the closet; he'd merely lacked the occasion to wear it.)
He ducked his head as a gust of briny wind whipped sand into his eyes; it smelled of the sea and a coming storm. A warning that bade him hurry with his business. Resigned, the parchment crinkled as Caine unfurled it from his pocket, shaped its corners into a parchment rose, and pushed it through the crack in the window.
"The latest departure schedules of the Crown's caravans." In ridding his Solterran accent the boy's voice had lightened, gaining a quality of lyricism suited to marble ballrooms and high-vaulted atriums. Far out of place in a court of spies and burning pyres. Surely she could no longer doubt his intent now; he hadn't even forgotten the flower.
"How did you find me here?" His ears pricked, suddenly wary. Seraphina's question was met with silence, as if the shadow-cloaked spy had departed as mutely and as suddenly as whence he came. But there he was still, breath fanning softly, close enough to be touched if she dared to reach out and seek.
"A magical map," he said finally, with no malice nor flippancy. But he elaborated no further. Instead, Caine drew his heavy head towards the sky and frowned at what he found greeting him.
Clouds blacker than night hung like curtains over the moon, stripping the world of color. What little light he'd used to navigate by was soon extinguished by a final, thundering mass, tailed by a fork of lightning. He couldn't stay. A precious layer of darkness lay between him and the recipient of his letters, the betrayer and the betrayed. How much longer could he wear Verona's mask?
He shook his head. He was too drunk, he decided, to act as judge and jury in matters as doomed as his own fate.
"It looks like it's going to rain," Caine said instead, locking his gaze with the girl behind the smudged glass. Though she could not see him, the effect was none short of a confession, and a shiver shot up his spine. His hoof scraped the cobblestones as he brought it down flush with the wall.
"Invite me in, carissima?" He would leave such matters to her.
{ @Seraphina "speaks" notes: WE CONCLUDE OUR INTERLUDE and get on with the show ;D }
