Ark(48)

He saw me then, sitting on the yoke of the plow a few feet away, watching him.

“Aresia . . .” he eyed the basket, “are you going somewhere?”

I shrugged one shoulder and glanced out at the rolling hills beyond the plowed field. “I would like to take a walk together. I packed some food.” I lifted the basket, unnecessarily.

He blinked at me for a moment and then nodded. “Very well. Let me change, first.”

I shrugged, risking a small smile. “No need.”

I thought Japheth understood what I meant by that—his lightning-blue eyes flashed, and a ghost of a smile touched the corners of his lips, and I felt a moment of hope. But then his gaze darkened.

He rolled a shoulder. “A moment, only.” He averted his gaze, conflict in his posture.

I sighed as he turned away, ducking under the low lintel. He returned a moment later, buckling his belt over his sleeveless tunic. He took the basket of food from me, lifted it to his shoulder, and stood gazing at me.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded, and we set out, skirting the plowed and planted field. Beyond it, the hills rolled like gentle waves of verdant earth, waist-high grass waving in the gentle, ever-present breeze. Into that tall grass we walked, the stalks brushing my hips. It was a beautiful day, the sky clear of clouds, an endless azure bowl above our heads. The silence between us was tense, awkward in a way it had never been before. In the months before our discovery and Japheth’s capture, we often spent quiet time together, and were both content to simply be together in that silence. We hadn’t needed constant conversation to be at peace together. Now, however, the silence was palpable, our comfort together broken.

There was a distance between us. A realization that, perhaps, all we’d shared was a physical connection. I didn’t understand his family, and I certainly didn’t understand his father. His brothers were simple enough: I was Nephilim, and thus the same as all my kind—brutal, savage, amoral, and godless in my worship of so many gods. To Zara, I was a creature to pitied. To Sedele and Ne’eletama, I was not worth considering, a thing that barely existed. And to Neses? I was less sure of her than anyone else.

And to Japheth? For a while, I’d believed we loved each other. While I was in the hands of Sin-Iddim, the thought of Japheth’s love, his body, his touch, his kiss, his presence . . . it had succored me. Comforted me. But now . . . I doubted it.

We’d been walking together now for several leagues, and neither of us had said a single word. We may as well have been walking on our own.

After another half a league of unbearably thick silence, I could stand it no more. “Japheth, stop. Put the basket down.”

He nodded, setting the basket on the ground, making a clearing in the tall grass, and then began withdrawing food. He did not look at me; it was as if this was merely . . . somewhere to have a meal.

I sat down in the grass and watched him for a moment, willing him to glance my way. When he did not, I put my hand on his arm, stopping him. “Japheth . . . why—why do you not look at me?”

He turned his gaze to me, shifting backward to sit facing me, the basket between us. “I am looking at you, Aresia.”

“I feel . . .” I sighed and started over. “I feel as if I do not exist to you any longer.”

“You exist, Aresia. You are here.”

I felt the urge to snarl at him but did not. “You cannot merely counter everything I say with the opposite, Japheth. What I feel cannot be erased or soothed with quick denials.”

He sighed. “Then what? What do I say? What do you want me to say?”

“The truth?” I suggested. “You do not see me any longer. You do not touch me.”

“You’ve been healing—”

“It has been months, Japheth. I am as healed as I can ever be. Some hurts will never heal, but . . . others, they . . . they need healing of a kind mere time cannot provide.” I nudged the basket aside, so there was nothing between us. “Do you know I have nightmares, Japheth? Are you aware that I wake up every night crying? Losing the child, the agony so terrible death would have been preferable . . . Mirra’s head in a basket, delivered to my rooms. Irkalla, bribing the gate captain with her own body. I live all of it over and over again, Japheth, every night.

“But now I’m surrounded by your family, and they—they hate me. Your brothers hate me, and your father despises me, but I’ve done nothing to him . . . or to any of them. Only your mother treats me with any kind of decency. And Neses, oddly enough—she too accords me some semblance of . . . basic kindness. Even you—it seems you’d rather spend your days in the field, working, than with me. I have no place, Japheth! I have . . . I have nothing. Not even you, it seems.”

Japheth was silent for so long I wondered if he’d gone deaf or mute. But then he heaved a sigh, and finally turned his gaze from the grass to my eyes. “I cannot erase those memories, Aresia.”

“I know, but . . . can you not even attempt to—to soothe them?”

“How?”

“Hold me? Touch me? Kiss me?” My voice cracked on the last word.

He shrugged a shoulder uncomfortably. “I—after what happened, I thought—” He sighed again. “I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

I inched closer to him, taking his hands. “What we had before—the way things used to be between us . . . I do not know if it can be that way again. Or if I am even capable of that kind of intimacy, yet . . .” I blinked against the pain in my heart, the onslaught of loneliness I’d been feeling for so many weeks. “I need comfort, Japheth. Something. Anything.”