Eye to eye they stood, and Percy found that she was no taller and no shorter than the Goddess.
“You . . .” Percy said, and there was anguish in that one word.
“I have wronged you greatly,” said the bright Goddess. And her eyes, filled with infinite compassion, were liquid with moisture.
“Bring him back,” Percy said in a hard voice. “Take me if needed, but bring him back.”
The Goddess said nothing, only looked at Percy.
“I owe you a life, Persephone Ayren,” Persephone said. “And I owe you another, for having taken away your true love.”
“What do you mean?” Percy was breathing hard.
“You have died when you put me to rest, Percy Ayren.”
Percy felt hot and very cold at the same time. There was vertigo and there was ringing in her ears. “But of what do you speak? I am here! I am unharmed! I am crying, look! Tears, snot! And for Heaven’s sake, there is no death shadow at my side, for I myself would see it! And all of you here can see me!”
Persephone sighed gently. “It is your spirit that stands now before me. Your body lies on the floor in Hecate’s house, before the Throne. You had died in that moment when you healed me with your own sacrifice, and you refused to come forth from the Underworld where your soul went hiding in despair . . . for you did not want to live in a world where your true love died.”
“But—” Percy said, flexing her hands in confusion.
“Hecate pulled you forth, coaxed you back to the world Above—remember the bright star?”
“So what nonsense is this? I am solid flesh!”
“It is an illusion. You are a Miracle.”
“But Flor and Gloria just hugged me!”
But Flor Murel and Gloria Libbin, standing nearby shook their heads negatively. “I touched you, Percy, or I thought I did, but you felt odd, like thin air . . . and then I wasn’t sure. Since I can see you, after all,” Flor mumbled. “It is all very strange, but then everything has been so strange, the whole world. . . .”
“So. I am dead.” Percy stood like a dolt.
“I will bring you back,” said the Goddess.
“Bring him back!”
Persephone slowly inclined her radiant head. “I will restore you both. But it is a thing most difficult, and the balance of the world itself might suffer. Thus, I need a life for a life. To restore the two of you, two others must die.”
There was perfect silence in the forest.
“It will be an easy, gentle death, like the breath of spring, the falling of a single leaf, and the plucking of a flower,” said the Goddess. “Two will die such deaths, the gentlest deaths of all. But it must be done willingly. For there can be no new life without self-sacrifice.”
Silence was replaced with murmurs, stirring speech.
“Come, friends!” said Hecate in the shape of Grial, using her comfortable raucous voice to be heard above the crowds. “Who among you is loving enough to grant the Soteira—the maiden who is your latest savior—and her true love, their lives? For they have already given theirs on your behalf!”
Percy stared, stunned, numb, disbelieving.
“I’ll do it—for Percy!” a familiar young voice cried, teeny and cracking and childish. It was Jenna Doneil.
“Oh, no! No, Jen, no!” Percy was horrified.
There was a pause.
And then, “All right, I’ll do it.” An old limping soldier said loudly. “Might as well, since a gentle death at my age would be a blessing.”
“Take my life, Percy Ayren!” cried a young new widow from the crowd of San Quellenne.
“And aye, you can have mine for the Black Knight!” a burly musketeer exclaimed.
“And mine, for the Chidair bastard, since he spared me once in battle, bless him!” another wizened soldier cried out, wearing Goraque colors.
More and more voices sounded, until the crowd roared, “For Percy! For the Black Knight!”
Suddenly two elegantly dressed aristocrats pushed their way through the group of those who had come from the plain where had stood the cities.
Lady Amaryllis Roulle was dressed in a lovely blue winter coat, with a jaunty plumed hat and great rubies along the brim and at her throat, while at her side was Lord Nathan Woult, clean-shaven and elegant in a fine black greatcoat and starched lace at his throat.
“Enough! This noblest and fairest of Ladies from the Silver Court and I have decided!” exclaimed Lord Nathan in a loud commanding voice that carried over others and effectively silenced the crowd. “We hereby volunteer our lives in this worthy endeavor!”
“Damned aristos . . .” someone muttered. “Even now they won’t let us have our chance at peaceful deaths, blast ’em.”
Percy gazed in absolute astonishment, not only at the outpouring of the crowd, but now at these two familiar nobles, appearing out of nowhere and offering so much.
Persephone meanwhile appraised them with a wise gaze, and she said, “It is good. I will take what you believe to be your trite and humdrum lives and imbue them with meaning.”
“My ennui is hereby banished!” Lady Amaryllis exclaimed, and glanced at Nathan with her dark eyes that were suddenly sparkling with vivacity.
“We are absolutely stark mad, but oh, what an adventure awaits!” he replied, looking at her intently.
Persephone looked at Percy. “Now, my child, are you ready to live again?” And then she glanced at Hecate.
“I am,” Percy whispered. “But only if I can also love.”
They had returned to Letheburg—or what remained of it, a portion of wall and a handful of streets, including Rollins Way.
Lord Beltain Chidair’s body was placed in a covered wagon and driven the distance of less than a mile from the forest into Letheburg. Percy walked alongside it—even though she was in spirit—of which she was unconvinced, even now.
Lord Nathan and Amaryllis walked behind them, choosing to take a stroll as their last outing. And at one point Nathan took the Lady’s slim gloved hand and he pressed it to his lips. “For courage . . .” he whispered.
“I need none!” she replied.
“I do . . .” And Nathan’s handsome face appeared vulnerable for a moment. “What are we doing, Amaryllis, love?”
She glanced at him, dark and beautiful and fey. “We are doing something worthwhile.”
“But—what of the rest of our lives? Maybe at some wiser, more rational point we might choose to do something else?”
“Such as what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, perchance, dearest, I might venture one of these days to ask you to marry me?”
“What?” Amaryllis stopped walking. “Fie!” she said. “Nathan! I thought we’ve agreed never to speak of such odious matters! We are the League of Folly, after all, a pair of delightful friends forever linked in wit, intellect, and perfect camaraderie! Why bring odious love and romance into it and spoil everything?”
“You are right,” he said with a tiny smile, and then a laugh. And they resumed walking.
At some point, just as they were entering the city, a tiny furry creature raced underfoot, then turned its long, whiskered muzzle to stare.
“Look, a polecat!” Amaryllis exclaimed. “Such a furry, wily little red thing, it reminds me of someone, though I cannot recall—”
They moved on. But Hecate, glancing with mercy at the tiny creature who for some reason paused to observe them all with very astute, almost human eyes, said to the little beast, “Come, dumpling, fear not. . . . It is not so bad, being a polecat, is it? Quite a change of pace for you, wouldn’t you say. . . . From now on, you will serve me.”
And the polecat sniffed the air and followed at a safe distance.
The wagon turned into Rollins Way, and then the Black Knight’s body was carried gently through the red door and into Grial’s house.
“Stay out here for a moment, dearie,” Hecate said to Percy. “I asked Ebrai to stay behind to watch over your body, and now we’ll put your dear Beltain
inside also, and I want to make sure everything is presentable.”
Percy stood patiently, waiting, during the strangest moments of her conscious existence—for surely this was not her life.
When she was finally beckoned inside, gently, by Hecate, Percy saw that the large kitchen table had been pulled out and brought into the front parlor.
Upon it lay two people.
The first was Beltain, free of his black armor plates and his chain mail, and now clad in a clean white linen shirt. Pale and gaunt and suddenly different-looking from himself, he lay—inexplicable, in the way of death that makes dolls of all of us. Not a trace of blood anywhere, and Percy’s non-existent heart raced like mad nevertheless, seeing him thus. For the shirt covered the hole in his chest. . . .
The second person was—
Percy blinked.
It was herself.
Percy stared, frozen, stilled, never in her wildest nightmares imagining that she would one day have the privilege of looking down at her own body from the outside perspective of another.
Lord, she was fat! Pudgy and fat and awkward, and her hair was of a dull color in its messy braid, and her round face seemed utterly bland. Thank goodness her eyes were closed, because Percy really did not want to look at herself that way, eye-to-eye.
In moments, Persephone walked into the room. And suddenly light was cast everywhere, bright, joyful, redolent of youth and spring-blooming flowers.
Lady Amaryllis and Lord Nathan sat down on the sofa. “What should we do?” the lady exclaimed, nearly hyperventilating. “Should we lie down or sit or stand? What is the best, most artful and aesthetic posture to assume for eternity? That is of course for about five minutes, until they fold us up and put us in long boxes?”
Lord Nathan clutched her hand. And suddenly he leaned in and took Amaryllis’s beautiful face in both his hands and he pressed his mouth against hers in a hard kiss.
She sputtered, and then suddenly she was pliant and her lips parted briefly and she kissed him back with one gasp of secret hunger. They looked into each other’s eyes. And both of them smiled.
“What greatest mystery awaits on the other side!” Nathan whispered.
“Nathan!” the lady said suddenly, gripping his hand tight. “I am glad—I am fortunate that I will be discovering it with you. . . .”
“Are you ready, my beloved?” Persephone said in that instant, speaking to Percy, and also to all the others present.
Percy nodded and again felt spectral, unreal liquid come to her eyes.
Then close your eyes now, child, and remember the spring.
She looked at the two bodies lying motionless on the table. And she looked at the two living, suddenly very real people who were about to take their place.
Amaryllis, Nathan.
Thank you.
And Percy Ayren shut her eyes.
Chapter 19
It hurt! Oh, it hurt!
Percy gasped, deeply inhaled air into strangely atrophied lungs, and then she felt her entire body tingling sharply, with renewed circulation.
Everything ached and hurt!
She was lying on the surface of the table, staring at the ceiling. And at her side—
At her side, suddenly she could hear him breathing!
Beltain!
The face of the Goddess Persephone was hovering over them both, and then Percy could hear Beltain coughing, and shifting, which made the table creak under his weight.
She stirred, and turned her head, and there he was!
Lord Beltain Chidair sat up on his elbows, and he looked an awful fright, his face gaunt, unshaven, and almost bluish, with sharp prominent angles of jaw, cheekbones.
But it lasted only for a moment, for even as Percy looked, the Goddess of Resurrection placed her hands upon his forehead and her own, and there was a brilliant white flash of lightning inside Percy’s mind.
She blinked again, seeing the electric flare on her retina when the lids came down. And then she suddenly felt perfectly normal. Her body was warm, and she moved and easily sat up.
Beltain turned around, and he was still unshaven, but there was a warm healthy color on his cheeks and his skin was rich living bronze. And his eyes—oh, his beautiful, kind, blue eyes, they looked upon her with such awed wonder, and he said, “Percy! Are you a fair dream? Am I dead in Heaven? Or the Underworld?”
“Beltain!” Percy simply fell upon him full-body, and she clutched him with both her arms and cradled him against her, and she started to weep uncontrollably, her face hidden against his chest.
And it was then, wonder of wonders, that she heard his strongly beating, living heart.
Beltain awoke, pulled from somewhere indescribable—a place, a state of being, for which there were no words, and which was already receding from memory like a distant dream—but its afterflash seared his eyes with blinding whiteness.
He shuddered and he sucked in air hungrily with atrophied lungs, and he breathed, and felt the entirety of his body burn with fire, as blood returned to movement within his veins, and his chest hurt like Hades and Tartarus and hell all put together. . . .
He heard voices, some strange, some beatific, and he was aware that he lay on something hard. He opened his eyes, and there was a ceiling, vaguely familiar . . . Grial’s house?
Beltain breathed and breathed some more, and stirred and groaned and flexed his hands and fingers, and—
With a jolt, it came to him—the last thing he remembered, before all this, was the horror of Percy screaming, standing in the snowy woods at a chaotic scene of battle, while he had just been shot by a musket round, and he knew he had died, but . . . because death was stopped, he transitioned to the strange un-death, and he was still there.
Beltain remembered that moment, sharp and clear. . . . The agonizing shock to his heart, and then his body had suddenly receded from him, and he was like a bird trapped in a cage of thick walls of unresponsive flesh, and everything was so remote. . . . And then—because he knew there was no certain time left for anything, not ever again—he got down from Jack, and stood before Percy and took her beloved face to him, barely feeling its sweet dear softness through the thickness of his dead fingers, and kissed her . . . again, barely feeling her lips with his own—hurry, hurry, while you still remember how it feels. . . .
Something serene had come to him then, at the end. “Put us all to rest, my love . . .” he had said.
And then Percy screamed and screamed. . . .
Beltain blinked, and he felt a bout of dizziness, and his head was still thick and fuzzy. But he felt surprisingly strong, and then he could prop himself up on his elbows, and he turned his head to the side and saw . . . Percy!
She lay at his side, and his heart gave a healthy jolt and was pounding with joy.
“Percy!” he exclaimed, and he mumbled something else, some nonsense about dreaming, and then all he could see were her hauntingly beautiful eyes, her rosy face, for some reason wet with tears, and the reddened nose and the lips that were full and ripe. . . .
And the next instant she was embracing him, hugging him with the raw force of a berserker warrior, and her arms were fiercely strong and warm, and he was holding her, stroking her hair as she pressed herself tighter and sobbed into his chest . . . and then overwhelming sweet heat came to him, a vigor born of flaming impossible joy . . . and his body was suddenly fierce and virile and he was scalding hot, burning like the first sun of spring. . . .
“Percy, oh my Percy!” he said, his voice cracking. But her soft lips were upon his, drinking his living breath, and he was now gasping in divine madness, pressing his mouth over hers like a drowning man, breathing through her. . . .
“That would be quite enough for now, pumpkins, else you break my lovely kitchen table!” Grial’s voice sounded, familiar, loud and sonorous as always. Grial—she is Hecate, the Goddess, it occurred to him. Her voice—such a human, brash, ringing sound. For some reason it was possibly the most wonderful sound in the world.
&n
bsp; Percy tore away her face from his, and she grasped his coarse, stubble-covered cheeks with both her hands like the most precious thing. She glanced into his eyes with wildness and she laughed! She laughed, open-mouthed, gulping, nose-snorting, horsey sounds, loud and brash and mindless of anything in complete joyful delight.
Ah, thought Beltain. But it is this sound, this is the most wonderful sound in the world.
Percy and Beltain, hands still twined around each other, limbs touching, unable to let go even for a moment, got down from the table, and looked around.
This was Grial’s front parlor, but what a horrible mess of broken things and upturned furniture. There were also people present, familiar faces—Hecate the Goddess herself, and Ebrai Fiomarre stood off to the side and a few girls were peeking from the back . . . and there was Persephone, radiant Goddess of Spring, standing before them.
Percy turned to the sofa, clutching Beltain’s hand, and she quieted. . . .
Two still figures were seated there. Heads leaning toward the other, hands placed together. Amaryllis and Nathan.
They were gone.
A sharp jolt of awe came to Percy, and her eyes burned.
“They have given their lives for our own, Beltain,” she whispered. “I don’t even know how to begin to honor them. . . .” And Percy told Beltain what had come to pass—not all of it, for that would require long evenings and intimate words—but enough.
“Honor them by living your lives and loving one another as was your life’s desire,” said the Goddess Persephone.
Percy stared at her, willing herself to remember even a moment of former hatred, of bitterness, of accusation for all that had come to pass. But there was none. . . . It had been washed away in the sacrifice.
As they spoke thus, more people came through the red door into Grial’s house.
Lady Jelavie San Quellenne stepped within, and Ebrai Fiomarre gave her a long glance and a brief smile. She in turn, nodded proudly, and then announced: “My people of San Quellenne and I are leaving. Where to, it is uncertain, but it might be France—that is, if it still stands! This insane war is over, for blessedly there is no one left to fight, and no land to be fought over. Have you looked outside? Your city, Letheburg is no more, and there are some other strange streets with signs in a foreign language! I asked a man where were was the last remaining wall of Letheburg and he looked at me as if I were mad. He spoke words I could not understand! He pointed at the streets and said, ‘Luxembourg, Luxembourg!’”