Page 49 of Angel in Absentia
Tenida continued, louder, “Did you despise it?”
Clea folded her arms somewhat uncomfortably, looking around the empty steps and wondering why these questions were so personal at the door. She concluded that Tenida was talking about death itself, as it were another being like cien. Maybe the woman was mad after all? Due to healers stretching themselves through other people with healing, it was often rumored that they’d eventually lose themselves and their fate was madness. It was one of the reasons people were inclined to call Clea a mad queen, and so she often rejected such rumors. Tenida was certainly starting to look like a challenging example of such stereotypes.
“I, well, yes, at first,” Clea said, softening and allowing herself to open up even in the strangeness. “You know of the illness. It was frightening to watch it take my family. I feared for myself. I wanted to live, but death was never the enemy to me.” She shrugged slightly. “If anything, so many of my loved ones had embraced it, and I felt in a way it took care of them. It was a respite. I just wanted to die whole, to live fully, I suppose, for the time I had. Isn’t that the paradox of living? To ultimately let go?”
Tenida seemed to hang on every word she said as if decoding some cryptic message. “I see,” Tenida whispered, opening the door wide again as if Clea had muttered some secret code. “I’ll impart to you one last message.” She walked slowly down the steps. She took Clea’s hands, and looking into her eyes, she whispered a chant like a prophetess: “Death is a silent mirror. It only exists by reflecting the lights of life. Cien is not death but the interruption of this perfect balance, separating life and death, who once embraced like lovers.” Her hands tightened on Clea’s. “Only when life and death come together again will the world, too, find balance, and be freed from the pestilence of this pernicious wound. The cycle was interrupted. It must begin again for healing to start.”
Clea stared, absorbing the words as if they spoke to her very soul. She’d heard of healers who were powerful like prophetesses and wanted to speak, wanted to reply, but she was too struck by the strange sensation that settled over her along with the message.
Death is a silent mirror. The phrase sat inside her like a key, waiting to unlock something, and Clea couldn’t help but feel she’d been given something tremendous.
Tenida issued a final statement a moment later. “As healers, we commune with the essence of life in everything. We erase the self like dirtied glass, so that it can shine through us. The reality of death as a child purified you of the self, and cleansed, you made an ally of the thing that frightens the rest of the world.”
With that, Tenida turned and walked back into the temple, closing the door behind her and leaving Clea on the steps in silence.
CHAPTER 15
THE RIDE
LEA AND IRIS competed to open the door, one of them dropping the keys before both of them howled in laughter and stumbled back. Clea slid down the wall next to the door as they tried to argue. Iris was dressed in a glimmering red dress, her brilliant hair curled across her shoulders. Clea was in a similar black one, her hair similarly curled in long waves down her chest. They both scrambled against the floor in tall heels, an adornment worn almost exclusively in Ruedom which Clea had struggled with on her walk back.
Idan stood between them, arms crossed as he shook his head. “Unbelievable. I take you both out and you’re the ones who end up ruining my night.”
He picked up the keys and started to unlock the door. In a whining voice, Iris shouted, “Prince Idan lost his keys!” Idan winced as he glanced at the surrounding buildings and unlocked the door.
Clea howled in uncontrolled laughter, and Iris laughed back until they were both hunched on their hands and knees.
“You”—Idan pointed at Iris—“I might expect this from, but I can’t believe you let her drink this much.”
Iris looked at Clea and gasped in feigned horror. Clea covered her chest with her hands and looked at Idan, who leaned down, helping to hoist her up before pulling Iris in with him. Theyboth walked on either side of him, swaying rhythmically as they started to sing, so much so that Idan struggled to stand up until he managed to land Iris on the couch and then Clea beside her.
“Are the two of you going to be okay?” he asked before rubbing off a smudge on his black button shirt.
They both grew very somber, folding their hands in their laps and nodding insistently before bursting into laughter again. Clea rubbed her face, smearing her make up as she wiped at tears of laughter. Iris then pointed at her face and started laughing harder.
Idan rubbed his face. “I’m checking on both of you in the morning. Iris,” he said, pointing to her. “No more. Sleep. Understood? If anything happens to Loda’s princess, it would be a scandal, and I can’t deal with one of those right now.”
“Another one, you mean?” Iris said, her question broken by something between a hiccup and a burp. Iris and Clea then proceeded to laugh again, nearly falling over each other as Idan waved them both off and headed for the door.
“Go to bed!” he shouted and left them both still giggling on the couch. “I’ll be downstairs with Merune if one of you breaks something.”
After several other fits of laughter, discussion, and mumbling, they both managed to follow their night with several tall glasses of water, which they nearly spat at each other while trying to maintain enough composure to drink it while recounting the events of the night.
Iris set the empty glass down on the counter with a light clink as her laughter calmed. “Clea,” she said with surprising sobernessas they leaned against each other. “You deserve so much more,” she whispered, and wrapped her arms around Clea before squeezing her tight.
Clea chuckled, embracing her back somewhat dizzily before Iris mumbled into her ear, “You’re going to be okay no matter what, but I wish the world was better to you. If it does this to you, I don’t know what I deserve. Maybe that’s why they need each other, people that can hurt and people that can heal. You need both, I guess.”
The words landed strangely, Clea trying to figure out why as Iris leaned away from her, both hands on Clea’s shoulders. “There are worse men than Idan,” Iris mumbled, squeezing her shoulders. “He won’t hurt you ever, not that he could if he tried. You’ll be okay. Comfortable. Better here than there. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Iris cupped Clea’s face endearingly and then after a moment added, “I think he was right. He and I are kind of similar.”
Clea’s brows furrowed, sensing that the “he” Iris referenced might no longer be Idan by her change in tone.
“Being around you gives us a chance to see the world the way we want to,” Iris whispered, “because we had to change so much to survive it. I hope it doesn’t change you too. I would do anything to stop that from happening.”
Before Clea could question it, Iris yanked her into an emotional embrace, squeezed her tight and then stumbled off toward the living room.
“Night, night!” Iris called and collapsed onto the couch with a groan. “Let’s get food at that cute little deli tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Clea consented groggily, rubbing her face as she filed away Iris’s words for later. She drank the last of her water before wandering off to her bed. She shut the door before she made her way to the bathroom and washed her face. She chuckled to herself, patting her skin dry with a towel as she rested her forehead against the sink and sighed.
