Page 32 of These Eternal Bones

An Eternity of Old Pain

Lovely - Billie Eilish I don’t think I mind if it’s ever mine again.

Certainly, he gets better use of it than me.

With no great education, years slaved away behind books and taught by the most brilliant of scholars, I doubt I could come up with any worthy description for the man lying beside me.

The dark lashes that frame his dark monolid eyes, the sharpness to his features, or the torment his mind has known send tears budding in my eyes.

Sitting here in the dark, firelight illuminating his deathly still frame, I can almost pretend, I can almost convince myself that a love like the one I feel for him is infinite, that it cannot possibly be constrained over eighty, ninety years if he’ll have me that long.

It seems like an elephantine task to slip myself from the bed, holding my breath as each step leads me closer to the heavy doors.

My heart slams to my throat, pinning me in place when he frets in his sleep, his dark brow furrowing before smoothing once again.

Where I once had to sneak sniffs of him, spice and cedar cling to me now, swishing with every step as I enter the hall, shutting the doors as gently as I can behind me.

My hands shake as I grasp a candlestick from atop a candelabra, cupping my palm around the flame as I rush down the hall.

The only movement aside from mine is a rush of bronze, a dim but notable light pausing to glimpse me before continuing down the stairs.

My thoughts are blessedly empty. Guilt brushed away by my anxiety and with little input from my brain at all, I’m standing in front of the white and golden tapestry again.

This time, there is no hesitation, no weighing my options as I reach for the nob.

The mechanism’s click is soft but might as well be a bomb echoing off the ancient walls.

Something is happening to Elric; his mind frayed more now than ever.

He loses minutes, sometimes hours lost to his thoughts when he’s not spending his time obsessively clinging and tethering me, it’s as if he’s waiting for something to rip me from his grasp.

Plagued by some great fear I cannot understand because he refuses to share his troubles with me.

Every question is met with distracting touches and sweet words that make my belly fill with butterflies.

The door throws open, revealing another set of stairs, a gust of cold nearly taking my breath away, my toes already reddening as I hadn’t wanted to risk grabbing my slippers.

The stairs are a far cry from the grand ones that litter the rest of the castle.

Where others are polished stone, these are made from wood, spiraling upward into the dark.

I realize a little later than I should, this door leads to one of the towers on the star side, overlooking the lighthouse.

As if beckoned by my thoughts, its beam wraps around, lighting the hall, and I choke on the scream that builds in my throat as Tien appears in front of me.

His form is…overwhelmingly large, trapped underneath the tapestry with him.

His short, cropped fur mixed with scales still baring the lines from what I assume was his shearing.

“Miss Molly, it is quite late in the night for exploring. Yes?”

The fear and the embarrassment of getting caught quickly give way to irritation.

“No other part of the grounds is off limits to me.” It’s not a question, but one hangs there in the air between us anyway.

I had never thought his face to be very expressive, as reptilian as it is, but the sigh he releases is unmistakable, his tail swishing with agitation.

What is Elric hiding?

What could possibly be in that room that would be so terrible?

“After you.” He lifts the tapestry higher all but guiding me out, being sure to keep his claw tipped hands away from me as he heads back into the hall. “Come, it is far too cold for you out here. If he found out I left you to freeze, he’d make a rug from me and drape it across your bedding.”

I huff, too irritated to find humor in it. “He would not.”

The incredulous look the Chimera gives me says plenty while he remains silent.

Elric most certainly would.

My long nightdress drags the ground behind me, a shiver overtaking my bones the moment we hit the doorway to the library.

I don’t bother trying to be casual in the way I discard my candle, rushing toward the fireplace, my knees hitting the plush animal hide rug there.

My lips part in sudden horror, wondering if I’d spent the past few months of my life lounging on a poor creature who has the displeasure of angering my vampire.

I sheepishly track Tien as he drifts toward a far window, staring out at the snow blanketed landscape.

It hasn’t snowed since the storm, but the frigid air and fog blanketed sky ensure it never melts.

After a lifetime of silence, it is curious how quickly I’ve found my voice here.

I keep that at the forefront of my mind as I fist the hem of my nightdress. “Is he alright?”

It’s such a simple question, but a complicated one.

When Tien lets out a long suffering breath, I watch the heaviness of the years weigh on him.

His shoulders give in, releasing his ramrod posture.

“The master would never keep something from you without cause, dear girl. It is only you tethering him to his own mind.”

The instant well of tears catches me off guard, my arms banding around my stomach as if to hold it together.

“Is it because of me? Because he fed from me? Why doesn’t it hurt him when he feeds now?

I thought it always caused him pain.” It’s the first time I’ve acknowledged the change in our relationship out loud, how close I’ve grown to him. How I’ve come to love him. Deeply.

The older creature’s eyes find mine, their vertical slits blown wide in the dim lighting. “Do not doubt that your impact here is a good one. One we have waited for…more years than I’d like to recount.” Another frustrating non-answer.

“I don’t understand. The selkie says the same thing, but nobody will just tell me what’s going on–” I stop, my voice rising with my frustration. “Why does Péal act like she knows me? What does it mean to be a vampire's mate? Please, just - what is happening to him?”

“It simply is not our pain to share. ”

“If I could help him–”

“You have helped me since the moment I laid eyes on you, syringa.”

I gasp, my head snapping toward the doorway, his chest is exposed, showing off the expansive network of blackened veins that no longer seem to lighten. “You may leave us, Tien.”

My hand snaps out to stop him, only to drop at the sudden growl that escapes Elric.

My eyes don’t come near to hitting him when he blurs behind me, his tendrils snagging my arms and wrapping down their length like ribbons.

It’s an overtly possessive, warning touch that warms my chest despite my worry.

It’s when his hand snakes around my neck, cupping my chin, that I go deathly still, waiting to see what he’ll do next.

“If you leave my side again, I fear the next time I find you, I will not be myself. Please bear that in mind if you do not wish for me to spoil the floors with blood.”

“But you are fed…” I whisper as his fingers brush my pulse.

“It is not the only hunger that plagues me.”

“Please…Elric, something is wrong. I can feel it. Nothing has ever felt so right, but there is a hollowness to my chest. I keep waiting for it to ease, but it doesn’t.

So many things don’t make sense here, and I’m tired of being kept in the dark.

If I am to stay as your companion, under your employ–”

“Do not cheapen yourself. You are my–”

“Your mate, yes, but what does that mean ? Why are you always so…troubled? The veins on your neck, they reach your lips Elric, they don’t go away anymore.

Is that normal for vampires? Where are the others?

” He holds me tightly, letting the words and questions spill from my mouth without interruptions.

He never attempts to slow or organize my thoughts.

It’s another reason why I adore him so much.

“They are dead.”

My lips part. “All of them? ”

“Yes.”

“My god, how? Why?”

“My children were slaughtered on these grounds, all of them. Those who did not scatter to the winds, those that did died off over the years.”

“You-you are a father…”

It’s an odd thing to get caught up on, a selfish, silly thing, but the idea of him–

“No and yes, my sweet Molly. I am The Father, although they took to calling me by a different name.”

My chest rises and falls, his fingers never stopping their striations as if to reassure himself I am fine, that I am here. His tendrils tighten on me almost painfully, literally binding me to my spot in front of the fire.

“I created them, all of them.”

“The only being capable of creating life is God.”

He laughs at that, but it’s a cold, bitter sound.

“There are many gods, and humans have long overstated their purpose. I didn’t create life, Molly, I ended it.

I took the beauty and sanctity of life and perverted it because I could not stand to be alone.

I created many and set the scourge loose in the world without as much as a thought spared for them. ”

“You-you’re a god?”

The expression that falls over him is best described as a grimace, one that bears his fangs, and with it, he snaps.

“It did me little good when I could not save a single life! All my godly power and I could not prevent this fucking hell! You cannot understand because you can forget ! You always forget, and I am cursed with the memories, the ghosts of you!”

“What do you mean?” I sniffle, tears streaming down my face. “What did I forget? ”

A savage growl tears through his throat as he shifts away from my back, leaving me tied down by his tendrils.

Mere seconds pass before his hands grasp my face, his forehead thudding against mine.

“I will not spend what little time we have speaking about old pain. Even within an existence of agony, I have you! That is enough. Let it be enough. Every waking moment, I am ridden by this need, this sick fucking impulse, and I cannot stop it. I cannot stop myself from killing you!”

An ugly, ragged sob breaks free from my chest. “You would never hurt me, never . Please, please tell me so that I can help you.”

If it is possible for a heart to bleed, mine does.

The moment that inky black substance that fills his being pools in his eyes, a single obsidian tear spills over as his lips capture mine in a kiss.

It’s not the soft, adoring ones I’m used to, nor the heated ones that raze my soul.

This kiss is desperation, longing unlike anything I felt before.

“I have loved you in all of your lives.”

Péal’s words flood me, Tien’s odd comments rushing with them to the front of my mind. “Elric I–”

His lips silence me again. “I have kissed you more times than there are stars in the sky, and somehow each feels like the first. Molly, you said you had held onto your love because you were saving it for me . You have no idea how right you were, because for all my immortal life, you have been mine . One hundred and seventy-two years, I waited to see you again.”

I nearly choke on the sob that bubbles up my throat. “I am not–”

“But you are, my love. Your soul is tied to mine. It is why you feel incomplete. It is why you wander in every life until you find your way home to me . ”

I shake my head, my heart bursting with grief for him. His mind is so riddled with grief and loss that it has fractured with time. Can a god go mad?

Surely not.

But he is…right?

“I am just Molly,” I breathe.

The smile he offers me is sad, my hands shaking as I wipe the inky tear from his cheek. “And you are perfect, wondrously beautiful. I wouldn’t want anyone else. I am sorry.”

“Whatever for?” I sniffle.

“Because you have paid the price for my crimes more times than I can bear, and you will again. There is nothing I can do to stop this. To stop from losing you. To stop this horrible grief. There is nothing I can do to make you remember me, but God, how I have loved you. There is no being or creature alive that could compare to the way my soul bleeds for you . I am an open wound until you come and balm the ache.” His words rush out, like he’d been holding them there on the tip of his tongue for a lifetime.

My mind races wildly, thoughts battering the walls of my brain like wasps. “Then why are you so sad?”

“Because I will lose you again, and it is my fault.”

The sounds that leave me next are guttural at best, because despite all his madness, his weaning mind…

his words feel right. My soul seems to throb and pulse with the weight of them.

For a moment, I can understand how he’s gotten to this point.

I can understand the blank, lifeless stares, the weeks without sleep, pacing, and agonizing.

If one moment sends me tendering over the edge, I cannot fathom an–

How long, god, how long has he suffered this?

It is fantastical and heartbreaking when my disbelief leaves me.

My mate .

A god.

“How long?” I sob as he gathers me to his chest. “How many times have I died?”

He doesn’t answer with anything except that song, the eerie soft humming battling with my sobs as he blurs to his bedroom and settles us on the bed.

Not a word is traded between us as I cry, as I grieve a part of myself that I can barely wrap my head around, let alone recognize.

His comfort comes in his closeness, a shared pain that lurked between the cracks of my very being, one I had no name for until now.

There are no sweet mumblings that can fix an ache like this, so he holds me, I suspect, long past the point that the sobs stop and my body gives in to exhaustion.