For Nick,
and our journey around the words.
Et in Arcadia Ego
When a black aquila falls from the golden sky, it will spark a winter of a thousand fires. Or so Grandpa used to say. Yet this day was iris blue in bud. Colour enough to steal a girl’s thoughts. And the ground was green with the sweetenings of spring as the bird fell. It was noiseless at first, before the hollow barrelling of wind, like a meteorite powering directly towards Arafel’s forest. And as though it was Pantheon’s ice-bitch herself, I ran.
‘Tal?’
Max’s whisper steadied me, like the steadfast branches of the Great Oak in the middle of monsoon season. And I strained through the nightmare towards the voice that could take me away from the fear, the watching forest, and the distended white faces that loomed and receded, jeering. Always jeering.
‘Tal?’
The second whisper pulled me back. It was the way it worked. The first reached through the haze of distorted images; the second caught and pulled me home.
I rolled in to his chest, burying my face in his outdoor scent as my room loomed into focus. Everything was just as it should be. The wizened branches of our white oak were still entwined above my simple reed mattress, mirroring our bodies. I drew a steadying breath, and forced my tight limbs to relax. I was home.
‘The same?’
His gentle question said everything, and I nodded before turning away to stare out at the kind night sky. It blinked its forgiveness. Somehow it knew Max’s care was bittersweet. That, after Pantheon, I’d understood three things:
One, that for some inexplicable, never-to-be-understood reason, Max loved me; two, that I loved him back, fiercely; and three, that his forest-green eyes were entirely the wrong colour.
I’d nearly whispered it once, after a dream, but managed to stop myself just in time.
Commander General Augustus Aquila. It helped to think of him as Pantheon’s new leader, untouchable and distant somehow. It kept him at bay from my everyday thoughts, even if it didn’t work in my dreams. And yet somewhere deep inside, Max knew. I saw it in the way he glanced at me when he thought I was distracted. And the guilt was suffocating. Which was why I kissed Max, why I wanted his body to warm mine before the dawn shift, why I listened when he talked about the future – our future – ignoring the twisting deep inside.
And according to the seasonal crop chart, it had been twelve months. Twelve sunlit months since I’d escaped the Lifedomes; fifty-two grey weeks since Grandpa had left; three hundred and sixty-five fragile dawns since he’d touched my skin.
August.
I closed my eyes, and this time my oblivion was like the fathomless sky.
***
‘Brace of pheasant! Enjoy ’em now before the monsoon! Coming early this year so Mags says … Enjoy nice fattened birds, two for a good price!’
I grinned at Eli, ignoring Bereg’s overloud prediction that the late summer rains would wash the wildfowl clean out of Arafel. He said the same every year, even though everyone knew he and Mags, the village fortune-teller, had a long-standing arrangement. And despite his gloomy warnings, I’d never once eaten squirrel all winter.
‘Split shifts this week,’ Eli signed as I traded two of Mum’s woven garlic and shallots chains for a loaf of sunflower bread. It was her favourite.
There was a buzz about the market this morning. The warm spring sunshine glinted off the ripened beef tomatoes, and early corn-ears were piled high like edible gold. One of the perks of wholesale climate change was the chance for two harvests if we farmed carefully, though the monsoon rain always threatened the last. This year the first crop was good though, and that took pressure off us all.
I nodded, stifling a yawn.
‘My best lychee source for your morning shifts?’ I signed, watching my twin’s face break into a mischievous smile.
Now twenty, Eli had changed the most over the last twelve months. Isca Pantheon had scarred us all in more ways than one, but when Max, August and I thought Octavia had beaten us, Eli had found strength in his extraordinary gift. And that day had bred a new quiet air of authority in him.
He’d left the shy boy behind, along with his dependence on his sister to communicate with the world. And while I found it disquieting at first, it was also oddly freeing. I’d always loved with him a protective intensity, but he’d forced me to see the man he’d grown into. And he was a man who’d saved us all from a barbaric death; a man who looked after those he loved; and a man who understood animals better than anyone else I knew.
‘Your best lychee source – and you muck out Celia for a week!’ Eli bartered, winking.
‘What? She’s in season, isn’t she?!’ I protested, alarmed at the thought of going anywhere close to Eli’s heavy boar sow at her most unpredictable.
‘Think I’d rather snooze in the Great Oak,’ I added, watching his smile fade.
‘Still not sleeping then?’ he signed.
We made our way out of the busy marketplace towards the wizened wisteria tree at the edge of the forest. Its aged branches and lavender fronds created a natural canopy under which hunters gathered on days like today – the last day of our working week, celebrated with traditional tree-running trials.
I shook my head lightly, shifting the woven basket of traded goods on my arm. My disturbed nights weren’t exactly a secret, but I was wary of talking about them with Eli. Because of Max.
The tension between them was so real, and yet I couldn’t have survived the last twelve months without my best friend. A brief glance over the village fire, and Max and I were both back in the dark clawing tunnels, trying to breathe through the swirling dust of the Flavium. Those memories often clung to the edges of my consciousness until dawn crept through