[P] to be braver

[Marisol]

"Good sense comes the hard way.
And the grace of the gods
(I'm pretty sure)
is a grace that comes by violence."

Marisol does not meet Ariel’s eyes—she is too distracted by the sight of the golden sovereign—but the weight of his gaze drags her further and further down into the sand, until she is not sure she is breathing at all, or even that she can. His look is cold, judgmental; he must be thinking of her with disdain. Who is this girl that thinks she can kill a king, or bring him to his knees?

When she swallows, it is painful against the dry scratch in her throat. The sky, a dark blue-gray, presses in far too close for comfort. And Marisol is not sure she has any right to feel this way, but she feels it anyway: heartbroken. Lonely. Even though he is standing but a few yards ahead of her. 

I don’t know you at all, she thinks, and the realization—true or not—sends a spear of ice all the way through her chest and out of her ribs on the other side. 

Marisol flinches. Her eyes half-close against the cold, dim light that streams from overhead, and in her vision Orestes suddenly is little more than a puddle of gold, burning bright against the muted, pale sand. The roar in her ears might be the sound of the waves tumbling over one another, or it might be blood. The difference would not really matter.

She would like to be angry. She is, a little. But oh, the look in his eyes—how could anyone ever be mad at him? He is at least as heartbroken as she is, maybe more. He is the only person she has ever met who understood at first glance that underneath the steel-gray eyes, underneath the battered skin, she is softer than almost everyone. He understands this because he is the same way, and how can she fault him for that and still want to be loved? 

His eyes will kill her. The sad, tired turn of his lips. The way his ears fall back, the very small sound of his voice. It will all kill her. 

I couldn’t remember where I came from, says the small voice. The harder I try the more it seems to vanish. The hinge in Marisol’s jaw is aching now, her eyes are prickling with unwanted warmth; she thinks of her mother in the slums, of gravestones, of rose bouquets, of thunder and Asterion. But that does not excuse my distance from you.

“Well,” Marisol says quietly. Her mane, grown out longer than she ever meant to let it, grows snarled in the salty wind, and she blinks hard to clear her vision. “Of course it does. You only have to tell me.”

And she steps close. 

“Speaking.”

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