BECAUSE I PROMISE I'LL LIGHT THE BEACONS
OF YOUR DIMMED AND HOLLOW SOUL
EVEN IF I HAVE TO STEAL THE FIRE
FROM A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
The Sovereign burns in the twilight like a forgotten ember. A spark, having vaulted too far from the flame, burns more brightly because of it. And more transiently. So it is with Orestes who, in the dying day, radiates with all the sun’s lingering brilliance. There are few citizens willing, or capable, of holding his gaze in such a state; and the Sovereign knows if he were to bleed, it would drip like molten gold and burn the cobblestones beneath. He feels hot. Seething. It has little to do with the sunset and everything to do with the way there is an itching, creeping restlessness beneath his skin. There is a part of him that in that moment wants to do nothing but run, run, run, until there is nothing left in him but fatigue and sweat, nothing left but his breathing and the raging beat of his heart.
But such pleasures escape the Sovereign. Orestes cannot, for all his wants, neglect the needs of Solterra. And so he wanders the Court; practicing pleasantries, speaking to those who he has painstakingly learned the names and occupations of. He is courteous, gracious, everything a Sovereign ought to be and more. He attempts to reel in the flaring, burning glow of his magic; he attempts to settle the pebbles that gravitate from the ground and encircle his ankles. He smiles and laughs, joking with the bread-maker and blacksmith. There is still much in Solterra that is broken. There is still much outside his power. But beneath his jovial exterior a small sun burns, and burns, and burns—
There is a poet singing in the markets. The string instrument echoes and the voice carries with the song.
I want you to know one thing
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch near the fire
the impalpable ash
or teh wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Orestes, no matter where he ventures, cannot escape the song. It is a favourite of the travelling bard. His name—Julius—is one Orestes has committed to memory. Later in the evening he will compliment the artist on his skilful use of verse and melody. Later in the evening Orestes will again proclaim his love for the song Julius sings, If You Forget Me, and by doing so Orestes will prolong his own suffering. Perhaps the bard will not play the song for a few evenings; but it will always reappear, as Julius believes it pleases the Sovereign.
Yet it pleases Orestes in the way of an exquisite, delectable pain. It pleases him because it makes him suffer.
The melody follows down a dark alleyway; it follows as he glances toward the fading, bruise-coloured horizon. It follows past the fountain and past the merchants, past gutter-children and rats, past a stray dog and a pregnant mare, past a line of playing children--
Well now if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly you forget me, do not look for me
for I shall have already forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners
that passes through my life, and you decide
to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots,
remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.
Orestes takes a moment to rest. He presses his forehead against the cool sandstone of a dark, private alleyway. It calms the pounding of his blood. It placates the burning of his magic.
But if each day, each hour
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness, if each day
a flower climbs up your lips to seek me
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved
and as long as you live it will be in your arms,
without leaving mine.
The stone has already heated with his magic and, anyway, there are more vendors to visit, more citizens to discuss Court affairs with, more—
Orestes, perhaps you ought return to the citadel?—
and this comes from Ariel, who has slunk silently to his bonded’s flank. Uncharacteristically, Orestes leans into the pressure—briefly, to steel himself. No, everything is fine—let’s just, finish the rounds—
And so they do.
Or, they would have. But Orestes is interrupted. It is the first encounter that breaks Orestes from the habitual stupor, the dazed and distracted routine—coloured, of course, by the added complication of his nonexistent memory and the itch, the sensation that the song sung by the bard ought mean something more to him. There is a striking woman turning toward him, as Julius's voice grows in boldness, as the poem moves from recitation to true song.
The bard is repeating the last lines of the poem, pitching them higher, lacing them with a riveting melody—
My king.
This girl burns. Orestes is struck first by her beauty, and then by the fact he cannot place her.
She does not dip her head respectfully; she raises it, and the gesture, defiant and powerful, strikes him with an uncharacteristic violence. The responding thought rises in his mind clear, resonant. I want to break her.
Orestes swallows. If her eyes blaze then he does tenfold; the golden light that seeps from him brightens, brightens, and the sand whips up at his feet. He responds slowly, perhaps overly focused on keeping the twilight at bay, on ensuring she cannot hold his gaze for too long. For a moment longer, there is no fading sun; Solterra’s heat and fury radiates from the Sovereign’s tattoos, his skin, it seeps from each and every pore. The brush of her feather incites him further, further, further.
“My lady,” he returns. There is something sultry in the tone, something that is as evocative as that slight brush of her against him. “We have not met before.”
It has taken him the entire night to realise the thing that brews deep within him, the thing that radiates from his flesh like sunlight, like starlight, the thing that causes the sand to dance and the stones to gravitate—
it is fury.
He recognises it for the first time, perhaps, because he thinks he sees it reflected in the proud lines of her face and the splintered embers of her eyes. At last, he stills his magic; the gesture is abrupt and absolute. Where there was once gold, there is silver. Where there was once light, there is darkness. The last light of the sun on the distant horizon is the colour of blood; he can barely make out, now, the colour of her eyes, the striking nature of her appearance. Yet Orestes knows it is there. He had seen it so violently highlighted by his own raging light. In the quiet darkness he adds, "And how is it we have not met before?"
@Amaunet
