We crept along the hoary ridge, boots breaking the blades of green-grey glass under our feet. We did not look down, but ahead, toward our prize.
Home.
A veritable feast awaited us, ready to assail our senses. We knew it, even if the halls were cold, even if the floors were thick with dust that bore no footprints save those of mice. Even if there was nothing, it would be everything, for we would be together again — we three.
Together, and home.
After the longest night of the year,
we waited quietly for the morning to come.
We held hands and sang lowly, in the cold,
our breath mingling in frosty fog.
We did not know the world had passed us by,
and so we waited, and waited, and are waiting,
still, for a sun that shall never rise.
I haven’t been this cold since the time I died, and you didn’t want to be near me. My eyes were still open, and you said it was creepy, and you wished you’d had someone shut them for you, because you couldn’t bear to look at me like that. I was cold then, but your hands weren’t, and when you shut my eyes, I couldn’t see you anymore, but I could still feel you. I wish I could let you know.
I can still feel you.
In some other life, we hung stockings and filled them. Our three children had to be shooed off to bed every night so we could wrap presents and eat the candy we told them not to eat too much of. We drank hot cocoa stirred with candy canes, and lit every candle we could find, and you always chided me for tracking in snow, and I always had to tell you to stop letting the cats eat the popcorn off the tree. In some other life, there were no bullet wounds, no secrets, no ridiculous brain hemorrhage getting in our way. You and I built the Christmas fire together, and you put your finger down while I tied bows, and you wrote out gift tags immediately because I could never remember which gift was which. In some other life, you tasted like fire against my lips, and you told me I tasted like whisky and pixie sticks, and everything was exhausting and hard and wonderful.
In some other life, I wore your ring, and under that, I wore your name, tattooed around my finger. In some other life, you wore a ring, and my name. Yours was the first face I saw in the morning, and the last I saw before I went to bed. We were never out of reach of one another, always able to grasp, to hold a hand.
In some other life, we never let go.
This is #17 of The Autumn Queen. To start at the beginning, go here.
* * *
The three of us had been inseparable–Elias, Kellis, and I–even if we fought, we came back around to one another, with our own secret language of loyalty and trust. If anyone bullied Elias, they found both Kellis and I at their throats. If anyone sneered at Kellis’s parentage, they found Elias and I standing behind him, vouching for his worth, his blood. If anyone questioned my talents in tactics or strength, both Kellis and Elias were there to help me hide the bodies.
We had lifetimes together; we grew up together, and it was beautiful.
It all changed when the Autumn Queen visited the city; the local nobles and generals would vie to host her — she had rarely left her own court, and so few had ever been admitted there, and none had spoken about it on their return, no matter how they were questioned — it was a great honor.
The three of us wore such pride when my mother announced our house would host Her Majesty, and when she, Herself, graced us with her presence in the receiving hall, we bowed low, as was our place, as was her due, and she was both radiant and terrible. We could feel her presence, and it both inspired elation, and yet when she passed, and her gaze was no longer on us, it felt like a weight that would pull us into some cold, dark forgetting place, where we would drown.
I could see, from the very first moment, that both Kellis and Elias were hopelessly in love. I could see, from the very first moment, that I might be, as well. Her beauty was incomparable; one smile from her could topple mountains, inspire insurrection or command ultimate peace in her name.
At the first dinner, and every engagement thereafter, she praised the service, the staff, our parents, and us, and made no secret of her joy in our skills and abilities.
At the coldest night of winter, as her time with us was coming to an end, she announced that she would be returning to her own keep, and bringing with her her three newest attendants — Kellis, Elias, and myself.
like so few others, we would venture to the Court of the Autumn Queen.
The only question I had: Would we ever return?
* * *
