Aeneas already knows the heaviness of life. He knows the heaviness of life in the way that boys abandoned by their fathers have to. He knows the heaviness of life in the way that he listened to his mother cry at night, or has felt her embrace him so tightly his ribs ached. He knows the heaviness of life in the way that he watches the Halcyon practice day after day after day, not as some competition of wills, but as a sharpening for some future conflict that is truly life, or death.
Because of this heaviness, Aeneas does not feel the urge to leave. He feels the urge to stay. He understands the importance of roots; of being duty-bound, not to the point of being crushed (as his father was)—but to the point of purpose. To the point of being nothing if not Terrastellan, if not Prince, if not Marisol’s son or Hilde’s brother or Elliana’s friend.
(This, one day, will hurt him as certainly as the heaviness does. Those of us find our purpose tied irrevocably in others find, all to often, that our hearts break).
There is magic in the movement, she tells him, and when she tells him he sees what he did not before; the way they are more alive, more enchanting, because his eyes cannot understand them. They are pandemonium rather than pattern; just as his eyes focus, they swirl away again and are gone.
Aeneas—his name, in her mouth, does something to him. It belongs there, in this secret field. The lion is gone but the stars remain; he can feel them even here, small and mortal and insignificant. He can feel them. I don’t know, Aeneas. His gaze lingers on the sky before it returns to her. “What do they say?” he asks, quietly. It is not the answer he expected and, somehow, it is the only answer that makes sense. It explains the severity of her gaze; the softness of her voice. “I didn’t know that.” Aeneas’s voice softens, nearly brightens. “But now I do.”
He told her the shameful dangers of his own magic; but as she explains the breathing of shadows, Aeneas thinks of the collapsing of stars. When he does not dream of the white stallion, he dreams of that; he dreams of an explosion so great it created life, of stardust and mercury, of elements that incomprehensible, lakes of liquid diamond, planets in orbit. The way that the same things that made him, made her.
Elli stares at him too intensely, then; her gaze does not waiver, and the ice of her eyes pierces the steel of his. He feels as if she knows something he does not, some mysterious and important secret. She catches him by surprise yet again by saying, I don’t know if we can create something beautiful without something ugly coming to exist, but I think if anyone should try—maybe it should be you.
He does not smile. He does not look away.
(His father would have smiled. His father would have said something clever and charming and appreciative). But Aeneas almost doesn’t know what to say. He thinks of burning his sister. He thinks of all the days he has gone to the garden outside of the citadel to sit and meditate. He thinks of all the times he has destroyed something without meaning to, and how little time he had spent creating. Somehow, her belief in him is a salve to those wounds and, at long last what he says to break the silence is, “Thank you, Elli.”
But Aeneas isn’t ready to believe it. Not yet. He has never created anything that lasts. And he has never created anything without ruining, first, something else.
Aeneas
you long to be just honeyed skin and soft curls, but beneath it all, your blood boils fiercely; you were born with heaven and hell already in you, holy fire, hell fire
you long to be just honeyed skin and soft curls, but beneath it all, your blood boils fiercely; you were born with heaven and hell already in you, holy fire, hell fire
