Into the Deep Wood

Tired, she walked back in the direction she believed she had come from. The weight of the air after the storm pushed against her, the heat and the humidity hard on her weary body. As she neared, she saw people gathered at the entrance. Marat pushed through them, sword and knife strapped to his back. Behind him came Ivan and Iros. All of them stopped dead in their tracks.

“Val…” Marat ran to her, pulling her into his arms. “For godsakes, what have you done?”

“I calmed the storm.” She answered, a very slight smile appearing on her lips.

“You’d been gone for a week!” He let go of her, his expression hard. “We thought you dead. Anukk’a’s spells began to fade against us, venturing into the tempest. We looked for you.”

“A week?” She asked quietly. It was but a moment.

Ivan and Iros approached. The look on Ivan’s face was just as harsh as Marat’s. Iros was frowning and looking around past her as if to spot from where she had come.

“I met the Impundulu.” She told them. “It came to me as a man.”

“An Impundulu can’t twis-t time.” Yaro appeared, having to turn sideways and edge around people standing in his way at the mouth of the cave. “Where were you for day-s?”

She looked at him blankly.

“In the storm…”

“How long?” Marat asked. The eyes of all within hearing distance were on her.

“An hour’s time…”

“We will leave early in the morning.” The five were gathered in the red tent, new supplies and clothes packed away. “Anukk’a has provided a guide for us through the canyons. She said it was wide enough for the horses to get through. The girl will take us to the edge of the mountains.”

Marat was pacing with Val’s eyes following his every move. He was restless.

“Once past the lake, we must take the main road for a short distance. There is no getting around it to reach Chelkalka.” He continued. “At least not for the horses. We cannot be on it a second longer than we must.”

“Do you not mean to go by Titan’s Pass?” Iros had been sitting with his arms folded, watching Marat as closely as Val had.

“No.”

“Why? Typhonos would provide soldiers, aid.” The High Templar frowned.

“You’d have me take a company into North occupied territory?” Marat looked at him incredulously, “perhaps we should wave a flag also?”

Iros did not respond.

“How long will you need?” Marat turned to Val, but she could only shrug.

“I cannot say. The Dormant Wound… it was not what I expected. This, I am sure, will be much harder. And with the trap… I just don’t know.”

“You’ll have a-s much a-s you need,” Yaro announced. He had not been paying attention to Marat until Valeria spoke. “I am s-ure the three-headed s-nake will take a while.”

“Two-headed.” Ivan corrected him again. Out of everyone there, he seemed the least tense.

“Two-headed s-nake.”

“Oh gods…” Val dropped her head against her knees, which had been drawn up to her chest.

She hadn’t thought about the serpent. Even when she was reminded of it, the Wound itself was all she could think of. The weave trap for the Legho. What if she had to reach for both it and the serpent? There were many things Val was sure of, but this had not been one of them.

It was not difficult to unbind the Impundulu. The Thunder Bird was like any other; its thread burned hot, but it was easy to catch hold of. She recognized its weave, it had not been much different than Sirin’s.

“Don’t worry about the serpent, Val.” Marat sat down by her. “You have three strapping young men and Yaro to keep things civil.”

“Iro-s i-s s-ame age a-s I am.”

“Allegedly,” Iros said.

“Yeah, Yaro, how long did you spend in the Deep Wood exactly?” Ivan asked, grinning.

The conversation was far less cumbersome the less Marat talked.

The red-bearded man just shrugged.

“A month? Twenty year-s? Who know-s.”

“And the nymph let you go just like that?” Ivan wouldn’t relent.

“I do not care to s-peak of it.”

“Did you live in the river with her?” Val smiled, catching how irritated Ivan’s questions were making Yaro.

“A meadow.” He was getting visibly red, his eyes suspiciously darting between the two. “S-ometime-s river.”

“Like a… glade?”

“You do not have dib-s on having glade-s.” He stood. “If you excu-se me.”

And with that, he walked away from the tent, the door swinging shut behind him.

“So from the road…” Marat started, but Iros and Ivan both threw their heads back and groaned, making a show out of how tired they were of the subject.

“I am sure between Ivan and yourself the two of you can figure out the path as we go,” Iros said. “There are five of us, and three are more than capable. Had we a well-illustrated map, even all five.”

He looked at Ivan.

“I think perhaps we should check on the horses.” Iros glanced at Val and Marat.

Ivan nodded, although his eyes were kept well off of them. The two left promptly.

Marat laid back with a sigh, and Val allowed herself to fall down next to him.

“It will be okay.” She assured him.

“The stakes are higher than the last time we came through there.” He closed his eyes, the weight of his eyelids unbearable after the week of sleeping little and looking for her day and night.

“Do you remember it?” She asked, her voice quieter, more private.

“Yes.”

“For a moment, I mean, in the River Cities…” she felt her words catch, but they hadn’t made her as emotional as the thoughts once had, “We thought that we could have a normal life. Like two people, in a house, perhaps eventually even a dog. And, of course, Aditi.”

Val smiled at the memory of the horse. The mare had been a much-missed companion. She hoped that she was doing well back home.

“I saw her, you know.”

“What?”

“Aditi.”

“What do you mean?” She sat up slightly. “When?”

“I looked for you. I mean it when I said I looked everywhere to find you. I found your village. I even met Inna.”

“What??” She sat up all the way now. “You met my mother?”

She saw how much he suppressed a smile, fully knowing he hadn’t mentioned it before this moment.

“It was years after you had left. I spent a week there, once I figured out where I was. We spoke much. It seems that she did not exactly…. Know about me.”

Val’s mouth fell open. She hadn’t… she couldn’t, back then. The expression on his face made it obvious that this was bringing him much enjoyment.

“She was doing well. Missed you, but understood you could not have stayed. She said you took the main road toward the city, and she hadn’t seen you since.” He continued, his eyes still blissfully closed. “That life you left, it seemed pleasant. Calm. Not for you.”

She smiled, but her expression was still melancholy.

“Do you ever think what it would have been like? To have made it there, to raise a family?”

“Do you?”

She stared at the ground for a moment.

“Yes. I do. It was what I wanted when I was young. With the right person, one who sparked something in me to even want that.” Val said. “How long ago that feels.”

“Marry me.” He propped himself up on his arm.

“What…”

“Marry me,” Marat repeated. “I cannot give you that life. But I can give you mine. Marry me.”

“I think the All-Mother already…”

“No, Val, not under some Nothing-touched ritual, as unhinged as that was. Marry me now as you are. As I am. In this life. Before we venture into what could very well be both our ends.”

“And if it isn’t the end?”

“Then marry me anyway.”

She stared at him, so shocked that she found it hard to speak. It was not the idea. There was no one but each other - never again - but the gesture, coming from him… the man who had told her once that he did not like the words ‘I love you’…

He was right here in front of her. So many years later, he did not look a moment older than the last they were in the River Cities. It seemed that time had forgotten about both of them.

“Say you will.” He prompted her.

“I will.” She whispered, a restrained smile forcing its way onto her face. He sat up and, taking her face between both hands, he kissed her with such fervor that her head began to swim. The words sank in, and everything else faded away until she felt his hands slip lower.

“We can’t, not here…” she breathed out, breaking the kiss but not moving away. She felt his smile rather than saw it as he caught her again, pushing her back against the makeshift fur bed. She lost all will to protest, awareness of them not being alone fading fast.

His hands were insistent, as was his body. The want to cry out and need to keep secrecy balanced against each other with every thrust. This could have very well been the last that they would be alone for a long, long time, and by gods but they would use every second.

“Before I left, your mother gave something to me that you’d forgotten there. Or perhaps left on purpose.”

“Hm?”

Like teenagers, they snuck away and toward the back of the lava tube, where it split off into different directions. Val giggled and Marat’s face seemed to hold a smile that would just not go away despite years of practice.

Ducking behind a corner, he stopped her. Out of a pocket in his shirt, he produced a flower. It took a moment, but she recognized the ambrosia blossom that Theodora had given her so long ago.

They only come alive in the presence of first love.

When it had wilted upon his death, she tucked it far from sight - but kept it. Unable to look at it again, she had not taken it back into the Deep Wood.

Now, it was vibrant and bright –alive.

“Marat…” she took it, lovingly running her fingers across the petals.

“She waits for us as soon as the sun sets.” He whispered to her, the moment too intense and private for louder words. “And it is setting now. We have to go.”

They continued up until they reached an opening.

Up a few boulders and across dark volcanic rocks, they made it to the moonlit mountaintop. Looking across, the whole of the desert and the mountains felt it could be theirs for just that one moment.

“My Sister.” Anukk’a greeted Val.

She stood tall, her clothes light and swaying in the night breeze. “We must hurry. The freeze will come soon after the storm has passed.”

Gods. The smile, Val could not contain it now.

In front of her stood Marat, her Marat. And he was smiling, too. The very first time she had seen this genuine smile had crossed her mind. The first time that he grabbed her hand. The first kiss, the first igniting touch.

“…under the sky that litters with the pieces of the Shattered God…” the High Priestess’ words chimed somewhere in the distance from her thoughts.

It was as if she could hear his too, their eyes locked, their hands clasped together. She knew he was reliving all that they had gone through with each other - for each other. A vow.

“…in life as in death together as one…”

There had been too much death, and now there would be none. Not for either of them, gods willing. An eternity, promised to them through trial and sacrifice. Untouched by time, forever as they are. As they came, seen by one another, accepted.

Never again apart.

Only you.

Forever you.

The words seemed to echo across their minds.

“…to keep the name given, to give the name you have.” The Priestess grew quiet.

“I, Marat, son of Erdem, brother of Erlan, give my name freely to you, Valeria. May you keep it safe within your heart.” He recited.

“I, Valeria, daughter of Inna, sister to none, give my name freely to you, Marat. May you keep it safe within your heart.” She repeated.

“Therefore, you are one under the Shattered God. May nothing breach the sanctity of your union now.”