Avery (Random Romance) by McConaghy, Charlotte (25)

Epilogue

Ava

Along the curve of the bay a long, wooden bridge had been built. It travelled over the top of the cliff and down along the oyster farms until it reached the fortress. This bridge meant easy access to the small, secluded bay Ambrose’s father had lived in, which in turn meant people could quickly reach the best medical treatment in the country without too much hassle.

I walked along it until I reached the small cabin by the sea.

The cabin itself was unchanged, furnished simply, but the back of it led to a new section of housing, known as the infirmary.

Here Roselyn treated her patients, assisted by an army of physicians.

To my right the sun was setting gloriously, steeling the sky to its palest shades of pink and purple and orange. The bay water was still, but beneath its surface was a host of glistening silver teeth, the oyster shells this region of Araan was best known for.

I stepped into the crowded infirmary, walking by rows of patients. I spotted Rose – she was sitting next to a woman with an ugly red rash on her face. I watched Rose for a moment, noting the relaxed way she dealt with her patients, the kind smile at her lips, the knowing look in her eyes and the certainty with which her eight fingers moved.

She caught sight of me and her smile widened. I raised a hand, telling her to stay, and then I walked through into the private part of the house.

The fire in the living room was crackling loudly. Before it sat Ambrose with his nephew, playing idly with something I couldn’t see. A smell wafted to me from the kitchen and I wandered in to stir the massive pot of stew. Touching the end of the wooden spoon to the tip of my tongue, I tasted wild mushrooms, parsley and beetroot, smiling as I recognised the flavours Ambrose had taught me.

Words drifted in, the sound of a deep voice I knew very well.

‘… without a hope, plunging into the ice of the north. He vanished amidst blue veins and cracked fissures, never to be seen again.’

I went to the doorway and leant against it, watching them. ‘Bleak, for a kid.’

Ambrose looked up at me, smiling. ‘A kid should know how brave his da was’

Walking into the hot room, I sank onto my knees and gazed at the beautiful little boy. Only two months old, he already had his father’s strong features and pale blue eyes.

‘He’ll know,’ I murmured, reaching for his pudgy little fingers. ‘Stew’s ready, Your Highness.’

As he rose, Ambrose ruffled my hair in annoyance at the title. I smiled, leaning close to the boy’s face. ‘That’s his name, isn’t it?’ I asked in a baby voice. ‘It’s your name too, handsome. Your name is also precious, and adorable, and perfect, and—’

‘Don’t say anything you don’t mean,’ Ambrose warned from the kitchen. ‘He knows the rules – own every title anyone ever gives him. That way they’ll always remember his true name.’

I kissed his little toes, tickling his tummy. ‘Take your own advice then, Your Highness.’

‘Brat,’ I heard him mutter.

Rose wafted in from the infirmary, crossing to sit by the fire and pull her son into her arms. She was radiant – motherhood had made her so beautiful it almost seemed impossible. There was an edge to it, though, a shadow of sadness that walked with her everywhere, and I thought that this – as well as her happiness – was what made her so lovely. I spent as much time here as I possibly could, because I knew with perfect clarity what it felt like to lose a husband. I had not dealt with it like Rose had – with grace and sorrow – instead I had become angry and hateful, but there was something about Rose’s quiet, gentle manner that calmed me and made me happy.

She humbled me, and made me proud to know her.

‘Long day?’ I asked.

She simply smiled. ‘When are you leaving?’

I glanced at the door to the kitchen, then murmured, ‘In the morning.’

‘Why?’ she pleaded. ‘Why must you go? What waits for you there?’

I shrugged. ‘You know I have to. He doesn’t …’

She shook her head. ‘You don’t speak plainly, either one of you. You spend your days together and then you go to sleep alone, each as stubborn as the other and thinking the other indifferent!’

The sound of Ambrose’s deep singing drifted in to us, and I smiled without meaning to, sinking onto my back beside Thorne. He smelt like baby, that rich, sweet, clean smell. His fist found a lock of my hair and I felt near to tears.

‘Red and green and orange, all the colours of her eyes as she leapt from her tower and found the sea,’ Ambrose sang.

Don’t, I begged him. Don’t sing about Kaya. Don’t make me love you any more than I already do.

‘I should go,’ I tried, clearing my throat.

‘Ava,’ Roselyn said softly. ‘I spent a lifetime not telling my husband how I felt about him because I was afraid of his response. I’d give anything to go back and tell him how I loved him, on that first day that I knew.’

I nodded, meeting her eyes. I kissed Thorne first, and then I kissed his mother, brushing her red hair off her forehead. Then I headed for the kitchen.

‘I … I’m leaving now.’

He turned from the stove. I couldn’t read his expression. It hurt to try, so I moved out into the bay, my footsteps taking me down to the waterline. Drawing a deep, deep breath, I willed my body to iron. Ambrose arrived beside me, his hands in his pockets. Together we watched the sea.

Ten months, since the day his brother died. Ten months I’d spent in his fortress, unable to leave, working for the treaty he and I had established together. Ten months we’d spent alongside each other without really saying a word, without letting a look linger too long, without touching each other the way I longed for. Neither of us admitted the fact that the peace treaty we were working for would not be happening if the first king were still alive – that was too bitter a fact to acknowledge. And neither of us spoke about what Thorne had claimed – that there might be a kind of magic that could set us free of each other – because that was so confusing it would drive us both mad. In any case, I was certain the idea of it had to be a lie. Falco would be searching the world for the spell if he thought it existed.

A sickness had pervaded my life, a sickness made of yearning and of silence. I couldn’t allow it to go on any longer. Even if this could be enough for me, just to be around him, it surely couldn’t be enough for him. We couldn’t have only a little piece of each other – if we couldn’t have the whole, then I had to leave him be, leave him to find a life of his own.

‘You’re really leaving?’ he said, but it didn’t sound like a question.

‘I am.’

‘I’ve had Migliori tended to,’ he went on calmly. ‘It’s a long flight home.’

My heart constricted.

‘Will you leave in the morning?’

I could do nothing but nod.

Ambrose smiled a half smile. ‘Your family will understand, when they see you. They’ll know it was right for you to live.’

My throat was too thick to speak.

‘Things will be different now,’ he murmured under his breath, eyes darting up to the horizon. ‘Our countries are finding ways to live alongside each other without bloodshed. They’re finding ways to forgive.’

I nodded jerkily.

‘And I’ll muddle through as best I can.’ He grinned.

‘Ambrose,’ I said. Panic struck – blind panic – and a sense of my own foolishness. Speak, I willed myself. You must speak.

‘Mm?’

The water had been still but suddenly I seemed to be able to hear the sound of crashing waves in my ears. I could feel the rocks hard and smooth beneath my feet.

Ambrose turned his back to the sea, looking at me with hooded eyes. He was beautiful in the sinking sunlight. He was always beautiful.

‘What’s wrong, Ava?’

‘Nothing,’ I murmured, voice scratchy. Then I said, ‘I love all the pieces of you.’

He froze, his tall frame finding an impossible stillness.

‘I’ll do anything for you,’ I whispered. ‘You’re so … you love so big, Ambrose – so bravely. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’ve saved my life and taught me what it means. You give so much and ask for nothing in return – nothing. I’ll— I’ll do anything, if only you’ll consider me the way you once did. If you could just … think about it? One day, when you have time? Because I’ll be here, forever – for the rest of my life and yours. I’ll wait until … I mean, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you everything I have, which I know isn’t much, but I’ll love you, as high as the sky and as wide as the sea. I’ll love you like a wild thing who cares about nothing else. I’ll be yours, every piece of me. I’ll fight for you. I’ll die for you – gladly. I’ll—’

He held up a hand, a quick brand that stopped me in my tracks. There were tears streaming down my face and I hated them, but they didn’t matter – only he mattered.

Ambrose stared at me.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear the terrible vulnerability. I knew what was coming, the rejection. There was no way in this life that he could feel anything other than resentment for me. In ten months he hadn’t said a single word about his feelings and, in truth, I believed they died when his brother did. Yet here I stood, rambling like a lunatic, unable to give up hope.

‘I would never presume to deserve you,’ I whispered.

He shook his head, very quickly. ‘Ava—’

‘Please, listen to me. I don’t … I could never expect to have you. I’ve been cruel and selfish. I didn’t understand what a gift you were, but I need you to know that there’s someone in this world who loves you more than life, more than anything. Who admires you and respects you and trusts you. I belong to you, Ambrose. Only you, and I’ll die for you—’

‘Stop, Ava!’ he said very loudly.

I stopped. My chest felt empty, like someone had hollowed it out and left me only the ugly, bleeding remains.

‘I don’t want you to die for me,’ he said clearly.

I held myself very still, knowing I had to endure this – had to endure the heartbreak I deserved, the heartbreak my dumb blindness had earned for me. But then he moved, my Ambrose. He turned very, very slightly, just enough that the light of the sunset caught his eyes and showed me how they glistened.

I froze, not understanding his tears.

And then he said, ‘Are you really so blind?’ Smiling, he shook his head. ‘I’m yours. I’m completely yours, and all I want is for you to live.’ And then he crossed the rocks and took me in his arms, ducking his head to kiss me breathless.

Our gazes were gold, but it didn’t matter, I didn’t even care. I would have loved him no matter the colour of his eyes.

Roselyn

I didn’t make wishes anymore. These days I had so many to make, but as most of the wishes were impossible they hurt me too much when I did make them. I still counted. Out on the coast of Pirenti, next to the oyster farms, there was a lot to count. I was finally away from the fortress, from all the people with their pitying, staring eyes. The only people who came here were the ones who needed my help, and that was all I’d ever need – my medicine, and Thorne, of course. Out here, with my son, there was a great deal to count.

Sometimes I counted the rhythm of the waves slapping onto the shore. Sometimes I counted all the fish I could spot. Sometimes it would be the birds I saw, or the many thousands of oyster shells I could see out my window. Often I counted the steps between patients’ beds, how many centimetres of liquid I gave them to drink, how many stiches they might need.

Mostly I counted my son’s breathing, how many times he cried during the night, all the little sounds he made during the day, how many times he laughed in a week … I’d named him after his father, and they shared the same deep blue eyes – eyes that seemed to make the laboured beating of my heart so much stronger.

And always, every night, the three of us would count the stars until we fell asleep.

Ambrose

Slowly, very slowly, we started to see the change that came over my country. When she was here, Ava would tell me stories about all the men and women and children she came across – all the stories of how happy they were and how well their families thrived. No longer were the men employed to leave their families for military training or to fight in wars that killed them.

She would tell me softly, in the darkness of night, how a child’s laughter had made his mother smile, or how she’d seen a woman working in the field alongside her husband, or how the oyster farmers on the coast had waved to her in the sky as she flew past on Migliori.

Most days she would also talk about Avery. She told me story after story and he grew so vivid, so real in my mind that it came to me quickly that I missed him. I actually missed this man I’d never met, with an ache that set my bones alight. It was a strange emptiness I couldn’t fill.

One day I told her a thought I’d had on one of my nights alone. It was simply this: the bond didn’t tear a couple apart when one of them died – instead, it finally joined the two halves of one soul together, and that’s why there was so much of Avery inside her.

The day I told her that was the day she asked me to marry her.

Then she told me more stories about Avery, long into the night, and I felt my eyes change colour, as they often did now. When she disappeared, as I always knew she must, off to her duties, I was comforted by the fact that I knew without needing to be told that she would come back to me. For all the days that the world turned.

She didn’t dress as a boy anymore and sometimes I found that I missed Avery – the Avery she had been, as well as the one in the stories. That’s when we would ride into the forest and stay there for days at a time, surviving only on the food we caught ourselves, sleeping by the fireside at night, swimming in the ocean and telling each other stories. Once, not long ago, we even sailed back to our island and visited the Kayans there, setting free all the prisoners and sending them home. In doing all of these things I’d remember that my best friend – the determined little pretty boy who’d started all of this in the first place – was still there, inside the woman I’d come to love more than I’d thought possible. He was still there, in her spirit, her passion and her arrogance. He was there when we argued, when we cried, when we laughed and made love.

And so it made Thorne’s absence just that little bit easier to bear, having someone with whom to share his loss. I had my people spend a moment each month remembering him, always frightened that his memory would somehow be entangled with the memory of the Barbarian Queen. His son would come and live with me when it was time for the boy to start learning how to rule Pirenti, and even if I had children of my own, Thorne’s son would always be heir to the throne. It was all I could do, in this life, to show my brother how much I loved him and to acknowledge all that he’d sacrificed in order to make us into a new country.

Ava

Grief is a funny thing. It can make you feel like you’re broken, can make you believe you’ve lost a part of yourself, that you’re incapable of smiling and laughing, but the truth is, it’s all an illusion. The only thing that can allow you to see through it is the people in your life, no matter what size or shape or sex they are, no matter which country they come from or whether their eyes change colour. Just the people.

On the eastern side of the fortress, there was a wide balcony that curved around three walls of the top floor. It was a different balcony to the one that overlooked the courtyard where all our ugly memories waited – this one overlooked the ocean. At the end of this balcony was a large iron statue, and standing before this statue was where I found him, as I’d known I would.

This feels like coming home, a newly awakened part of me acknowledged as I arrived here after having been gone a month. He was as still as the statue itself. Ambrose had been this way since his brother’s death – quieter, more thoughtful, and gentler. It was always the stillness that struck me, though – it wasn’t something I could understand, as I had restless tremors beneath my surface at all times.

Footsteps as light as I could make them, I approached soundlessly and slid my hands under the back of his shirt. He didn’t startle, and I knew he must have heard me. The warm pulse of his blood beat beneath his skin and muscles, and I pressed my lips against his spine.

‘Maria, I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said.

‘Very funny, idiot.’ I dug my fingernails into his skin, making him wince and grab me.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, kid,’ he smiled.

‘Sure you wouldn’t prefer Maria?’

‘After much comparison, I’ve decided she’s not as good at kissing as you are.’

I punched him in the shoulder and he laughed, kissing me soft and sweet. I breathed in the scent of him, relief swelling at the simple pleasure of having him close.

‘Your parents?’ he asked softly, resting his forehead against mine.

‘Tired, sad and kind.’

One of his large hands moved to cup the back of my neck. ‘I want to meet them.’

‘Da won’t even speak your name.’

‘He’s a wise man,’ Ambrose replied. ‘I haven’t earned that right yet.’

I shook my head. ‘You’ve earned it a thousand times over. He’s just old-fashioned.’

‘A name is a powerful thing.’

‘Yours, King Ambrose of Pirenti, belongs to you.’ I swallowed, meeting his eyes. ‘And so does mine.’

He nodded, the smile in his eyes growing sad and proud at the same time. He ran his fingers along my jawline and then we turned together to look at the statue.

Thorne’s bronzed face was in shadow as the sun sank behind him. I thought it a perfect likeness, except for the eyes. I believed they were much cleverer in real life than they were in this statue. In two days it would be the anniversary of his death.

I watched as Ambrose reached out and ran a thumb along the smooth surface of Thorne’s clenched fist.

‘You were the giant,’ I heard him tell his brother.

Sighing, he turned and faced me, and I saw him pull himself out of the grief, as if he could be strong enough to do so by will alone.

‘I have an idea,’ I said.

‘You, my love, are full of ideas.’

‘Would you like to go for a ride?’

He smiled slowly, pale blue eyes sparkling. ‘With you and Migliori? I can’t think of anything I’d love more.’

 

The people of Kaya have always died in pairs. It is our gift; it is our curse. For a woman who has bonded twice, who has loved two men in her life and who knows the intricacy of both the pleasure and the pain of it, you’d think I would know the answer, but I don’t. I still don’t know whether the bond is good or bad. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say that you can choose – you can make it whatever you want. If you let it, it will seem like a curse, but if you are strong enough, and brave enough, you can make it a gift, the most precious gift you’ll ever be given.