Chapter 36. Departure

is breath curled against her throat, warm and soft as he drifted at the edge of sleep.  Exhausted after the stress of preparing for the guild census followed by dancing and celebration, Zhou hardly protested as she extricated herself from his arms and kissed his brow.  They had both imbibed a little too much of the heady Elonian wine and it amused her to see him mildly intoxicated.  It had made their surreptitious love making amusing if only because he fumbled over the lacings of her gown more than he normally might.  Against the staccato blasts of fireworks and the thrum of music, no one had observed their ardor.  Pendaran slept on, oblivious in his mandrake induced slumber on a nearby pile of bedding.

“Are you going, my love?” he whispered.  It was approaching midnight on the last night of autumn.  Tomorrow he would be conducting ancestor rites and putting the uneasy spirits of the year’s grim events to rest.  Lying there stripped down to his loose pantaloons, he seemed vulnerable and childlike.  In the flare of firework flashes seeping through the pavilion walls she caught glimpses of his sad expression

“Yes, Beloved, I have delayed as much as I could.”

“I’ll miss you,” he sighed and Shikai lingered at his side a moment longer, her long fingers trailing through his short-cropped hair.  His eyes glistened in the dimness.  He no longer begged her to stay as he had in his younger days and she found his quiet resignation more poignant.

“In the spring, I’ll see you again, my beautiful song,” he whispered.

He lifted his left hand to cup her cheek, his fingers warm and gentle as they slid along the line of her jaw and pulled her down for a last long kiss.  She drank of his sweetness and the salt of his tears as he gave in at last to sorrow.  She should have gone before it came to this but always it ended the same with the two of them parting in tears, unresolved.

“You should go,” he said, trying to sound strong as he rolled onto his side and drew a blanket up around his throat so that his face lay in shadow.  He was trying to spare her his grief and it only made things worse.  Always so stoic and yet she knew the little boy that hid inside him, demure and playful but lonely as well. 

She parted from him with new concerns.  He had his found his apprentice and thus there was hope he might escape the punishment of the gods.  But his apprentice was an ill-luck man that needed warding and guidance.  The gods were cruel and Lyssa was no doubt laughing at Zhou.  If he died with his tasks unfinished his fate would be sealed. 

“Be careful, my love,” she said, rising now and wrapping her heavy blue traveling cloak around her shoulders.

“I will.  Go in peace, Beloved.”