Page 62 of Antiletum
“No. Not yet,” I say quietly. “I don’t really know what there’s left to say right now.”
Avoidance has been a balancing act, timing my comings and goings just right to not come face to face with Val.
Surprisingly, I’ve seen nothing of him after our explosive argument, though his door is always open when I creep by. Sometimes softwhooshingor the clatter of items against what sounds like glass calls to my curiosity. Remembering that he’s an artist.
Irefuseto ruminate too much on what Val may be doing in lieu of my expectations for him to demand another conversation. What piece he may be working on.
Perhaps he isn’t quite as predictable as I had pinned him to be.
“Would you like me to come with you?” Selise asks me kindly, coming to a crossroad of corridors where we might part ways. Me to the cemetery, and her back to theAlterwing.
“Thank you,” I say, squeezing her hand. “But no. I think I’d rather go by myself.”
Though we haven’t conversed much as I’ve struggled to process my reality, her quiet companionship has been welcomed.
Turns out Selise has been left out of the loop nearly as much as me. And she was also the one leaving daises at Rainah’s grave. Paranoia has been strong though. Even now, as she offers to visit Rainah with me, the quiet voice in my mind born from all this betrayal whispers that Selise is an astonishing actress. That she’s lying to me as well. My self-loathing keeps giggling unkindly with insistent suggestions that I’m not built for friendship. Too different. Taboo. Arcane.
Tooother.
She gives me a tight hug. “You know where to find me if you want company,” she tells me in parting.
It’s pitch black in the graveyard when I walk through the gate, the only light given by the silver scythe of the pale moon, charming as it smiles on chirping crickets and the blinking glow of fireflies. My steps pause halfway to Rainah’s grave, a physical voice telling me that more than insects and the dead are present in the cemetery.
Thedeosmust find this funny. Must be getting some entertainment in their rest, watching me trying to escape the atmosphere of my husband only to be drawn straight to him—both of us pulled here by our kindred grief.
Val sits with his back against a headstone, head hung. Strong posture completely deflated. Tucking myself behind a mammoth live oak, I know I shouldn’t stay. Shouldn’t give him any amount of my attention or time. Not for any reason. I should absolutelynotwait in the shadows to see if he says anything.
But I do.
And he does.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Val whispers, the question barely floating to where I’m hidden. Speaking to his departed father. “Things might have been different, if you’d only told me.”
Nothing answers him but complete silence. An empty refrain I’m all too familiar with.
“You left me,” Val says softly. Disbelieving.
Anguish in his voice brings about a pain within me so piercing, I have to suck in a deep breath.
We are not alike, I scold myself. I repeat it over and over and over. Trying to make this hole in my chest agree with my mind.
“You left, knowing you wouldn’t come back. And still, you didn’t tell me. Any of it.” It’s an accusation. An angry one. “I wasn’t ready. Though I suppose it didn’t matter. I was never going to be ready. Not really. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re gone. At least now, I don’t have to stomach your disappointment.”
My eyes clamp closed, as if the action could purge the sound of Val’s heartbreak. Sadly, I fail miserably, increasing the sense of despair crippling my soul. Empathy is a cruel beast, one that can’t always be ignored.
The distance between us in the last few days has done nothing to abate the hurt. To quiet my contradictory mind. This push and pull that I’ve battled too long. My desire to give in and accept my marriage with open arms, despite the tragedies that brought us here. Despite my equally dire need to be free of Val for too many reasons.
The drum of my pulse nearly drowns out Val’s defeated sigh. Still hidden, I hear him rise from the grass, whisper, “Until tomorrow,” and shuffle away.
I wait an undetermined amount of time for my heart to stop galloping. Slowly, I unpeel myself from where I tried to become one with the live oak’s bark—to have that same rough skin—and weave my wayover to Rainah’s grave, shaky and feeling like I’m existing outside of my own body.
Rounding the bend of mausoleums dedicated to the most celebrated Lords and Ladies ofNoctua, the call of death saturating the air makes my skin itch and my mouth water. A buzzing energy that longs to serve life back into the cadavers at my feet is overwhelming. More so than the last time I was here, due to my state of shock at the time.
Now, it coats my hands like a warm and welcome glove, dipped in the sweetest honey. Pulsing like a heartbeat, ready to expel.
That ache to release my magic is wiped away by a single, surprising image waiting at my destination: a stoic, dark figure perched on the corner of Rainah’s gravestone.
All ugliness saturating my bones melts away with alarming rapidness, as well as my fiendish hunger to use my magic, euphoria igniting at the sight of my dark owl. Like he was waiting for me. Like he knew I was coming here and that I needed his company. An undeniable urge to run and hug him against me is consuming, my body lurching forward of its own accord with more haste.
