Like strangers in an elevator.
And werent they strangers, really? Because the pull between them was so strong, it was easy to fall into thinking they knew each other. Karou, who had never believed in such things before, was willing to consider that in some way their souls did know each otherYour soul sings to mine, he had told her once, and she could swear that she had felt itbut they themselves did not. They had so much to learn, and she so badly wanted to learn it, but how do you do that, in times like these? They couldnt sit on top of a cathedral, eating hot bread and watching sunrises.
This wasnt a time for falling in love.
Are you two all right in there? asked Virko. His voice was cast low, not quite a whisper, and Karou imagined the hotel clerk hearing it and wondering who was hiding in the bathroom. With that, the scenario hit a new level of absurdity. In the midst of everything that was going on and the great weight of the mission they were on, they were squished into a bathroom, hiding from a hotel clerk.
Fine, she said, sounding choked, and it was such a lie. She was anything but fine. It struck her that even to say so in that offhand way was glib. Careless. She hazarded a glance at Akiva, afraid that he could think she meant it. Oh sure, fine, and nice weather were having. Whats new with you? And it was a fresh scrape of anguish to see, again, the pain in his eyes, and the anger. She had to look away. Akiva, Akiva. Back in the caves, when their eyes had at last met across the breadth of the great cavernacross all the soldiers between them, both sides, and the weight of their treacherous enmity, across the secrets they both carried, and the burdenseven at such a distance, their look had felt like touch. Not so now. A wisp of space between them only, and the meeting of their glances felt like regret.
Children of regret, she said aloud. Well, she whispered it, and stole another look up at him. Do you remember?
How could I forget? was Akivas answer, an ache in his heart and a scrape in his voice.
She had told him the storyshe, Madrigalthe night they fell in love. He remembered every word and touch of that night, every smile and gasp. Looking back at it was like peering down a dark tunnelall his life sinceat a bright place of light on the far side, where color and feeling were amplified. It seemed to him that that night was a place the placehed kept all his happiness, bundled up and stowed away, like gear hed never need again.
You told me it was a terrible story, she said.
It was the chimaera legend of how theyd come to be, and it was nothing less than a rape myth. Chimaera were sprung of the tears of the moon, and seraphim from the blood of the brutal sun. It is terrible, Akiva replied, hating it even more now than he had then, in light of what Karou had endured at Thiagos hands.
It is, Karou agreed. And so is yours. In the seraph myth, chimaera were shadows come to life, wrought by huge world-devouring monsters who swam in darkness. But the tone is right, she said. I feel like both now: a thing of tears and shadow.
If were going by the myths, then I would be a thing of blood.
And of light, she added, her voice so soft. They were almost whispering, as though Virko couldnt hear every word, just on the other side of this glass partition. You were kinder to yourselves in your legend than we were, Karou continued. We made ourselves out of grief. You made yourselves in your gods image, and with a noble purpose: to bring light to the worlds.
A black job weve done of it, he said.
She smiled a little, and gave breath to a rueful laugh. I wont argue with that.
The legend also says that well be enemies until the end of the world, he reminded her. When hed told her that story, theyd been entwined, naked and supple after lovetheir first, their first lovemakingand the end of the world had seemed as much a myth as the weeping moons had.
But Akiva could almost feel it
now, pressing down on them. It felt like hopelessness. At what point, he wondered, was there nothing left to save?
Thats why we made up our own myth, said Karou.
He remembered. A paradise waiting for us to find it and fill it with our happiness. Do you still believe that?
He didnt mean it the way it came out: harsh, as though it were nothing but the fool fantasy of new lovers tangled in each others arms. It was himself he wanted to chasten, because he had believed it, as recently as yesterday, when Liraz had accused him of being preoccupied by bliss. Shed been right. Hed been imagining bathing with Karou, hadnt he? Holding her against him, her back to his chest, just holding her and watching her hair swirl on the surface of the water.
Soon , hed thought, it will be possible.
Flying away from the caves this morning, seeing their armies mixed and moving in effortless flight together, hed imagined a lot more than that. A place that was theirs. A a home. Akiva had never had a home. Not even close. Barracks, campaign tents, and, before that, his too-brief childhood in the harem. Hed actually let himself picture this simple thing, as though it werent the biggest fantasy of all. A home. A rug, a table where he and Karou could eat meals together, chairs. Just the two of them, and candles flickering, and he could catch her hand across the table, just to hold it, and they could talk, and discover each other layer by layer. And there would be a door to shut out the world, and places to put things that would be theirs. Akiva could scarcely conjure what those things might be. Hed never owned anything but swords. It said so very much that, to flesh out his picture of domestic life, he had to draw from the old, rotted artifacts in the Kirin caves where once upon a time his people had destroyed hers.