CHAPTER 126 – Tidings

Rarely did Saphienne drink wine.

Although she no longer detested drunkenness as she had in her childhood, she preferred sobriety over intoxication, usually seeking the latter only when she wished escape from suffering that she reasoned to be pointless. Her mother had fallen victim to habitual indulgence, however, and so she was strict about when she allowed herself a glass, having declined to partake with Lynnariel since she had purposefully shed their inhibitions to better their bond. Her last had been the day Laelansa left.

How appropriate, then, that sunset saw her reclining in the tub amid the steam of the bathroom, soaking in the heat with an open bottle on the floor, quietly enjoying a rosy vintage as she hummed to herself.

Chiming in the hall announced a visitor had entered through the kitchen. She paused until she heard familiar footsteps on the stairs, then grinned as she cast Far Hand to open the privacy bolt on the door, sinking lower in the water while her long, unbound hair spilled over the edge and onto the tiled floor.

Knocks with an elaborate rhythm preceded a welcome interruption. “May I enter? Or shall I wait outside?”

“Come in!”

Hyacinth was still unaccustomed to doorhandles, and her grip slipped twice before she managed to open the door, her floral shell slowing as she enjoyed the mists rolling across her petals. The bloomkith’s smile was eerily wide – having not quite learned to mimic a grin with her verdure – as she shut the door. “You are relaxed! Your day went well?”

“Excellently.” She beckoned with her nearly empty glass. “Pour me another?”

Rattling with laughter, Hyacinth slapped across the tiles to crouch down, lifting the bottle and deftly decanting the last of the wine.

“How is it,” Saphienne wondered as she tilted back against the tub, “you struggle with opening doors, but you don’t spill wine?”

“I find the twisting motion unfamiliar.” The spirit sank down on her knees beside the bath, folding her arms along the edge to rest her chin upon them. “Filling your glass is like watering flowers.”

“You’re quite good with my hands…” Saphienne smirked as she sipped.

Hyacinth’s smile was prettier when smaller, especially when her cheeks bloomed with pink blossoms. “That is different yet again. You should thank my elder sisters for such cuttings as did gift those skills, that I am deft within your form.”

“It’s not your sisters I’ve been thinking about all day…” Saphienne batted her eyelids.

Had Hyacinth a throat, she would have choked.

Her master giggled. “I never tire of flustering my flowers…” Then she drained the wineglass, passing it to the bloomkith. “Do you wish to hear very good news?”

“I could soon guess; Laelansa comes to stay.”

Saphienne pouted and flicked water at her. “Ruddles told you, didn’t she?”

Unbothered by the splash, Hyacinth set down the glass then extended a finger to trail along the surface, pretending she wasn’t allured by what dwelled beneath. “Nelathiel. She called for Holly — and then Holly called for me.”

“Spoilsport… I wanted to see your reaction.”

“I shrieked in glee.” Faint white strands grew into the water.

Noticing, Saphienne reached out and casually caressed them. “You’re drinking the water I’m bathing in…”

Hyacinth’s petals became a darker, ardent red. “Have no fear; my blooms by dirt are nourished. ‘Tis good refreshment for this floral gown I wear.”

She studied her with lidded eyes. “You’re not here for refreshment.”

Hyacinth leaned closer. “True… but I would quench other thirsts…”

 

Ah, but what happened then is not a tale to be told in the daytime.

 

* * *

 

They dozed together, eyes yellowed in the bed.

“…Saphienne, we are avoiding what is to come…”

“I’m afraid.”

“As am I — for I must be the one to tell her. You cannot name your nature aloud, not without deceiving wards for which you now lack excuse.”

“You’re good at reading people, Hyacinth. Will she still love me?”

“…She will, but whether Laelansa will accept your truth, I know not. If she cannot… if she should seek help for you, and tell others… we will need to flee the woodlands.”

“I’d be heartbroken.”

“So too my roots would tear. Yet, no matter who may judge you, however harshly, yours I ever shall remain, handmaid to my one and only dragon.”

“…Hyacinth…”

“Saphienne?”

Their last passion of the night was tender.

 

* * *

 

They spent the next morning walking together, Saphienne-Hyacinth tranquil and contented as she cleaned the bathroom and undertook other domestic labours in her own company. After a breakfast that was delicious to her heightened senses, she sat with tea in her chair and allowed herself to divide, eyes closed as Saphienne and Hyacinth separated yet remained close, lips moving as they kissed long and amorously on the steps.

Groaning, Saphienne broke away. “…I’ve things to do before she arrives. There’s something I’ve been putting off.”

Hyacinth wound her vines more tightly around the library; the bloomkith found self-control against its edifice. “Alike am I. If there is a chance that we must flee, I must prepare a plan for us. Evading my sisters, the elves, and the Luminary Vale would be no small feat, and cannot be accomplished through recklessness.”

This intrigued the magician. “Didn’t you have a plan to grab me and run, when we freed Tyrnansunna?”

“A desperate plan.” Hyacinth blushed — potent enough that Saphienne’s body mirrored her heat. “Dependent upon my sister aiding us. With her flight as distraction, I would have feigned to flee as wind, then hid myself within a beast and crept back to you unseen, thereby to walk you out, unnoticed in the strife.”

“You think they would have been too busy chasing her to notice?”

The spirit made no attempt to conceal the conflict and shame she felt. “…I would have asked her to wither the woodlands in her departure. Chaos would have covered us.”

Saphienne wondered whether Tyrnansunna would have obliged; her intuition said that she would have done, but only to spare Hyacinth from suffering the imprisonment she’d endured. “Assume that we’ll tell Laelansa at a time conducive to escape; that I’d use my magic to the fullest; that I’d be willing to do anything I must — except kill.”

From the way she sadly smiled, Hyacinth already knew. “Your mother could not join us in her illness; Minina would have to; and if Laelansa were resolved against us immediately, so too would she, until we reached the far side of the protectorate.”

Saphienne blinked. “…You’d possess her. Of course: we’d already be violating the ancient ways. Preventing her from raising the alarm would make things easier.”

“A pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of the Balanced Scales with her, then through the protectorates with stealth and haste. That would be best…” She sighed, and leaned against Saphienne heavily. “…But my fear is that she will not decide at once. Were she to resolve to betray your trust, she would do so later, seeking advice from Mother Marigold on how to mend you.”

Despairing, Saphienne hung her head. “Who is canny, and would take steps to catch us unaware — for our own good.”

They sat together with the fear as storm clouds gathered over field and library.

“…She loves you.” Hyacinth made an effort to hope for the best. “If any other in the woodlands will accept your truth, Laelansa is the most likely. Say that you trust her, and come what will, I will honour your judgement.”

There wasn’t any question in Saphienne’s mind; Laelansa deserved honesty, to be loved fully and without deceit. Had it been possible to have told her before asking her to come to the Eastern Vale, she would have done so. “I…”

Where she sat with her tea, Saphienne’s eyes glimmered.

“…I don’t believe the gods are real, Hyacinth. Do you?”

The bloomkith laughed melodiously as she stroked Saphienne’s chest. “I cannot know for sure, but I tell true: if they exist at all, they live in you. Why ask me this?”

“Because if they were real,” she admitted, dimly comprehending the significance of the bloodstained stone they sat upon as she brushed her fingers across it, “then I’d seek only one mercy from them: that I not break Laelansa’s heart.”

“What of your own, my love? Do you not deserve the same? If you might play at prayer, why not pray for yourself?”

Saphienne shook her head, rising to her feet in the sitting room as she kissed Hyacinth and stood upon the steps. “I know better than to ask for myself… but I’m willing to keep hope for everyone else.”

Hyacinth’s overwhelming compassion spilled a single, shared tear.

She turned and ascended to the library as she wiped her cheek. “Make ready your plans. To Laelansa I entrust my happiness; to you I entrust my freedom.”

 

* * *

 

Unwilling to leave unfinished business were she to quit the woodlands, Saphienne elected to handle the worst of it that afternoon.

She was dressed in subdued robes as she stood on the doorstep, having switched back to her old bangle and finger rings and reluctantly transmuted her hair into spring brunette where she wore it in a plain tail. Anxious, she would rather have been anywhere else, but what she owed had been deferred for far too long.

She knocked. Then she waited, alone with her thoughts.

To say this was being done purely for conscience’s sake would be deceiving herself; she’d originally conceived of this intervention while contemplating how to safeguard her reputation from malevolent rumours. Were she less cowardly, she might have acted sooner, but she’d told herself that she needed to spend time out and about in the village – making herself more approachable – before she dared try. She’d rehearsed endlessly in the mirror, then more recently using her mother’s fascinator.

Come to think of it, whatever had happened to the fascinator requested by Thessa after she’d been attacked? No one from the storehouses had come looking for it, which was unusual for loaned enchantments. Had it been returned–

The door opened, and the woman on the other side drew a sharp breath.

Saphienne bowed low. “Hello, Nimerna; my apologies for not visiting sooner, but people were following me everywhere I went; I’m sorry for–”

Syndelle’s mother slammed the door in her face.

That wasn’t the worst response she’d imagined.

Steeling herself, Saphienne knocked again. “We need to talk! I’m here to–”

“You don’t want to talk to me.” Even muffled, Nimerna was unmistakably enraged.

“I do. I tried, but I couldn’t do anything before–”

“You tried?” Her question was sharp; her pause seething; her next words frosty. “Leave us alone: we want nothing to do with you. Go away.”

How she felt was entirely understandable, given what had happened. “I’m not going to leave until we talk. I’m sorry, but Syndelle deserves–”

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Nimerna opened the door.

 

* * *

 

Sitting up slowly, Saphienne gingerly touched her swelling jaw. Despite the pain – and tasting blood on her bitten tongue – she concluded it was neither dislocated nor obviously broken, though her teeth felt looser than moments ago, wobbling a little when she tentatively rubbed them through her bruised cheek.

Then she looked up, to where Nimerna stood over her, shaking, ashen with dread.

She worked her clicking jaw before she spoke. “…I’m not going to be pithy. You didn’t intend to do that, did you?”

Nimerna stumbled back and sat on the step.

“I didn’t think so.” Saphienne brushed herself off as she rose. “Can we talk now? Will you hear me out, or do I have to let you hit me again?”

Syndelle’s mother folded her arms as she rekindled her glare. “Just call the wardens.”

“I’m not doing that.” Her tongue felt intact; she ignored the ache in her neck. “If you call them yourself I’ll tell them I provoked you — which I did.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you.”

“That’s fine,” she snapped back–

…Before pausing to smother the anger that roiled in the wake of her shock. “Excuse me. You’ve conveyed how you feel — more than adequately. Do me the courtesy of listening to what I have to tell you.”

Nimerna rose and went back inside, leaving the door open.

Wary at what might ensue, Saphienne quietly cast the defensive ward she’d deliberately chosen not to employ on arrival, sustaining the spell along with the Second Sense with which she’d made certain they were not being surveilled by the wardens. She closed the door behind herself, crossing through a sitting room that was so very much like the one in which she’d played as a child.

In the kitchen, Nimerna was drinking water by the sink.

“If you try to strike me again, you’ll break your hand.” Saphienne pulled a chair out from under the table, sitting and crossing one leg over the other. “I owe you an explanation for what happened to Sy– to your daughter.”