17

Aranya leaned onto her bedhead and thought, what was he doing now? As odd and weird as it might sound, she knew she had missed him. She knew she had already accepted the fact that she would do that before she left, even when she was ensconced into his arms, but she didn’t know she would miss him to the point that she couldn’t get some sleep no matter how tired she had been for the day.

She wished she could teleport back to Elara for just a few minutes and take a glimpse of him, what was he doing now? Had he began to miss her or he was still angry at her for leaving the way she did? And he knew he knew that she was getting married to Jaromir, or so they all thought. Had he asked Portia? Did he plan to look for her wherever she might be?

Something put a hold to her train of thoughts, she heard the sound of footsteps, Betla was coming to her room. She quickly masked up her expression and waited until she came into her room before she stood up. “I’ve been waiting for you, Betla.” She lied, she had even forgotten that Betla said she would come to her even though Aranya knew it didn’t matter how long it would take for her to come, she would always come.

Aranya watched as Betla eased, not the dangerous woman she had always been. She walked toward her like a mother would to her child and silently, she watched as she sat on the edge of her bed. That was their highest form of intimacy as mother and daughter, and Aranya knew if she wanted, she could count the number of times Betla had come to her room and she to hers, and it still wouldn’t fill her ten fingers.

“How was your trip?” Betla asked, and Aranya gulped down a lump in her throat and stared at her mother. What did Betla expected her to say? She knew that she knew everything that had happened to her in Elara, or maybe if not anything, then she knew some of the things that had happened.

“It was fine, Betla. Everything went smoothly like it had always been.” She tried to smile but something stopped her from doing that. She suddenly realized that she had been so sad since she left Elara, knowing she would never get to see Lorcán for the rest of her life.

Betla didn’t say anything, she just stared at her and Aranya knew she either changed her mind about what brought her into her room or she just didn’t want to talk about it for the time being. She realized she would have to run away from whatever it is Betla came to speak to her about, and she ducked under her bed and pulled out her luggage. She pulled out the bracelet she bought for her in Elara and smiled lightly.

Betla watched her as she smiled and stood up from where she was, she came and down beside her to the point that their hips were brushing with each other and she lifted her wrist, “I saw this in Elara and I knew it would look good on you, Betla. Can I wear it for you?” Realization hit the both of them, they had never held each other. They had never came this come, never showed any sign of affection. Their relationship was more of a master and her slave than that of a mother and her daughter.

Betla barely nodded her head when Aranya slipped the bracelet into her wrist and they watched as it glowed with the fire running through their bloods and Aranya softly chuckled, “I knew it, this bracelet was meant to be yours, Betla. Can you keep it always on your wrist?” She looked and she saw that Betla’s eyes had something in them, beyond the hatred, the fire and unquenchable desire for revenge, she was grieving.

They stared at each other for so long and Aranya did what she had always been dreaming of, she hugged her. She felt as Betla surged in a huge amount of breath and Aranya held her tightly and surprisingly, she felt as tears pooled the brink of her eyes but she dared not make them fall. No one had ever cried in Zinambra, or so she thought. Betla reluctantly wrapped her hands around her body and softly hugged her.

“You’re sad, Aranya.” It had never occurred to her that her daughter could live the life she had lived. She didn’t want her daughter to have her kind of life, but without knowing, it looked as though history was going to repeat itself.

Aranya broke their hug and instead of her to deny what Betla had just stated, which was more of a fact than a question, she rested her head on Betla’s laps, and today, like it always did when she came closer to Betla’s body, she didn’t feel the fire. That hotness that always scared her off away from her mother. She felt warmness, the warmth she had always needed in her life.

Betla began to slowly fondle her hair and Aranya closed her eyes, she wanted to speak to her about Lorcán, to tell her how much she was afraid that it wouldn’t be long before she broke down and she might make the mistake she had spent thousand of years trying to avoid. But instead of that, they sat there silently as Betla fondled her hair until Aranya fell asleep.

Betla noticed the way her breathing rhymed and she adjusted her and placed her head on the pillow before she pulled the duvet over her body and she stood, staring at her face. “I’ll never let anything get to you, Aranya. You can’t become weak when we’re yet to accomplish what we’ve spent thousands of years planning.” She pulled away a string of hair from her face and lightly kissed her forehead. “You can’t fall in love, Aranya, I’ll have to make sure I make him vanish from this world. Love isn’t for us, we live for revenge.”

•

Lorcán stared at the vast, dark forest and wondered where he could go from here. How would he do it? Desdemona said that he only had to follow the path he did, he made sure he was meticulous at whatever he did but he couldn’t find the river she had said. Everything here was dark, was scary and it screamed of death and viciousness. He flew on the sky, moving through the long, dark trees to see if he could spot the river she had mentioned but he saw none, and when he got tired of wandering through the forest, he disappeared back to Elara.

He reappeared in front of Desdemona’s house and he knocked on the door and she came out, and when he stared at her face clearly at night, under the glowing moon, he figured she had aged younger than he saw her last time. Did she always change her appearance? He wondered.

“You haven't been able to see the river, I know.” She said sheepishly as though she had been waiting for him to come to her, because she knew he would come. Damn it, he would surely come.

He internally groaned, he knew it would be so annoying dealing with a Durush because you can’t even lie to them. “If you knew I wouldn’t find the river, why did you let me leave in the first place, Desdemona?” He asked through gritted teeth and she flashed through canine teeth at him and smiled.

“It’s always fun waiting and knowing someone would surely come to find you, isn’t it? Come in, I'm yet to eat dinner, join me. It’s been so lonely eating alone for thousands of years since I lost my husband.” That pained, she realized. She had never admitted even to herself that she had missed him and it hurt terribly bad to know that she would never get to see him again unless she worked so hard, lost her life even. But she was ready to do all it took for her to find him, she had to find Dadrek.

He walked into the house as she motioned for him to and he stared at the living room that looked like a cave. He didn't know how the Durush’s lived, but everyone knew they lived in the forest and their houses were carved from caves. And he couldn't remember seeing a cave before he entered.

She followed his look and smiled, “Oh, this? I had to do some magic tricks to make it feel homey, homesickness is real, have you ever felt that?” Now that he stared at her under the illuminating light of her candle, Lorcán realized she wasn’t the old woman she portrayed she was. She was young, even though he was sure she was older than him, far old enough to be his mother.

He realized how it felt to be sick for home, but even that was endurable. But how he was feeling now, teared up between anger and a painful feeling of longing, Lorcán had never thought one could long for someone like he did for Aranya. He had missed her, damn it. He had missed her so much that he was ready to do everything he could to have a glimpse of her even though he knew if he saw her, the next minute they would spend together will be him staring at her dead body, courtesy of him.

He sat down at the stone Desdemona pointed at him before he waited as she disappeared into her kitchen and when she came out, she was holding a tray of food and there was wine, a long jug made up bones, he didn't know what kind of animal she had killed before she did that. She sat down and smiled at him, wickedly, as though to remind him that she had known what he was feeling in his heart.

“You’ve missed her,” she stated out, giving no room for denial and he knew it would just be a waste of time if he tried to deny that he had missed Aranya. She handed him the place and he stared down at the food in front of him.

He couldn’t call this cave home, nor could he call this mysterious woman that sat across from him family, but he knew this was the closest he had ever felt a homey feeling while eating for thousands of years. It had always been in busy restaurants, with ladies dancing to the soft tunes coming out and his mind, choked up with the thoughts of how to find that woman; Dûsan’s fairy.

“I don’t think what I feel is necessary, Desdemona. Can you tell me how I can get to Zinambra?” The name itself spoke of mystery. He wondered how she was able to hold everything in without making a single mistake even though she did one, she told him her name was Avyannah. But he guessed when she did that, the gods were on his side.

“Eat first,” Desdemona ordered as she pointed at his untouched food. She sipped her wine before she looked up at him, staring at the way he was meticulously eating the food, “I’ve always known that Zinambra is not accessible to anyone unless Betla knows you’ll be there, Lorcán. But there’s only one way left, since you can’t go there together with her daughter, it’s only one way left for you to get to Zinambra.”

“What’s that way left?” He nearly choked himself up and hope rose into his eyes amalgamated with anger. “And are you still not telling me her real name?” Deep within his heart, he felt that he had the right to know her name, he deserved at least that one real thing of her.

She shook her head and placed down her spoon, “It’s like you haven’t believed me yet, no one knows her real name, Lorcán. No one in the whole world knows the mysterious daughter of Betla, no one knew she had a daughter but me and you, now. And I knew she was either Betla transformed into herself when I saw the fire in her body at the market or something happened...”

He had to tell her that Aranya had left with Jaromir to take him to her mother for their marriage, and that’s when she knew she was Betla’s mother. He knew everything, he wanted a way out now. “How do I get to Zinambra? How can I see her?” He let his words trailed off, as though weighing his next words. “How can I kill her?” He realized he had never mentioned that out loud to anyone before, and it didn’t feel as bad as he thought it would.

“Something that belongs to the lady. You have to look for something of hers, which has her breath and fire on, that will be the only way.”