With his hand still wrapped around her throat, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. She was gone. His eyes were stinging as he clamped his eyelids shut, for he had maintained eye contact with her from the second he blocked her airway. He felt it so important to share every single moment of that intimate encounter, that he had disallowed himself the basic necessity to blink. He wasn't sure whether that desire was an expression of trust between the two, or whether it was a way for him to reinforce the fact that she wasn’t alone; that he would be there, by her side, protecting and caring for her throughout the end of her life. Or perhaps he wanted her to share in his discomfort, to experience the pain of being asked to perform such a horrific task on one of the few people that he genuinely cared for.
It would have been so easy to have closed his eyes or simply look away, but that wasn’t the objective behind this encounter. No. She wanted to face her fears, embrace her demons, and she wanted him to experience every, single moment of it with her. Opening his eyes, he looked down at her still and silent form.
"Why, Prathet?", he whispered at her lifeless corpse, knowing she was unable to answer. "Why did you make me do that?"
Her demons may have been laid to rest, but his were still stalking him; moving along the beach, rising and falling over each sand dune as every white, wild horse crashed upon the shore. For the shortest time, he thought he could hear a woman laughing, taunting and teasing him as he cradled Sahriah’s body. Closing his eyes tightly once again, he listened for the sound of her voice. He was unwilling to accept that Illana had returned from the dead, and was mocking him for killing his Prathet – though it was in this exact spot that her earlier intervention had rendered him mentally unstable and caused him to attack Sahriah without provocation – an attack that had resulted in his own death at the hand of his Prathet. That was the catalyst for her fears. That moment on the beach, eleven years earlier... The taunting was getting louder. Caw, caw, caw. It continued.
A break in the low-level clouds that littered the bay revealed the majesty of Thakala’s star and cast a golden ray of sunlight across the beach. Feeling the instant warmth of the sun on his neck, Tiger tilted his head back to look up at the heavens. He wasn't a religious man, despite having spent his happiest years with a beautiful Amarrian wife, but something, deep within, encouraged him to seek spiritual meaning from the golden sunbeam illuminating the beach. He even considered, momentarily, whether it was the conduit for Sahriah’s soul escaping Thakala, or whether it was Sahriah herself, smiling down on him, proud that he should fulfil her request without faltering. But why could he hear the ringing sound of constant mockery? Caw, caw, caw. Then, overhead, he saw a squall of birds, flying and swooping between the clouds, gliding on the thermal layers with their mournful cries and mocking accusations.
"It's just the fucking birds", he grumbled with a modicum of relief.
Looking back down at his Prathet’s lifeless body, he felt something else. He felt alone. It was the strangest feeling; she was here, but she wasn’t. That joyous moment of meaningful conversation with a dearly trusted friend had ended suddenly, plunging him into the overbearing silence of despair and isolation. Raising one hand to her face, he placed his curved fingers across her eyes and carefully lowered her eyelids.
"I’m sorry, Prathet", he whispered softly. "I've failed you."
She had trusted him to protect her, and guard her against those that would harm them for their beliefs. He was supposed to be her mentor and tutor, not her murderer. He wondered whether she even considered stopping him towards the end – why else would she grab at his wrist as he drained the life from her body? No. She knew what she wanted. She had only ever requested one thing from him, in the entire time she had served him with steadfast loyalty, and that alone was the reason that he accepted her request.
Shifting from beneath the weight of her head and shoulders, he laid her softly down on the fine white sand. She looked almost peaceful, despite the blueish tinge to her lips, the bruising to her throat, and the deep imprint of his thumb across her trachea. He wondered where she was, at that precise moment; how in a universe as vast as New Eden, she was ‘nowhere’ – just dead. Her entire future laying within his hands.
Lowering himself down onto the sand, by her side, he cuddled up against her, refusing to let her go.
* * *
It had been several hours since Tiger had taken the life of his Prathet, and darkness had already fallen, shrouding the bay in its thick, black veil. He had fallen asleep with her in his arms and had only started to stir as the cool wind brushed against his skin. She was still lying in the same position, though her hair had become windswept in the last few hours, covering parts of her face from the converging stars overhead. It was time to head home and lay her body to rest. It had been an emotional day, and he was both mentally and physically drained. Leaning towards her, he placed a single, soft kiss upon her cold forehead.
As Tiger rose to his feet, he gathered up Sahriah’s beloved Sani blade – the one that he, himself, had gifted her when she became his Prathet – and the small, black data recorder that she had set upon the sand. It had likely switched off hours earlier, and to some degree, he hoped it had. She had already accused him of being weak for loving his ex-wife as he did, for stubbornly refusing to accept that Shalee wanted nothing more to do with him, but to compound that with a lecture over the way he dealt with the death of his own Prathet – it was too much to bear. It mattered little that the sight of her desperation, during those frenzied last moments of her life, would likely haunt his dreams forever more. He just had to appear strong and brazen, unmoved by the most desperate of scenarios; to remain unaffected by anything life had in store. No. He wouldn’t hide his humanity from her. If she thought him weak for loving Shalee, or for being emotionally affected by the death of his Prathet, then so be it. He felt no shame in that.
Scooping up her crumpled form in his arms, he carried her steadily back towards his house, ignoring the shuttle left in the grassy clearing. It took most of the night to reach his estate, but finally he was ready to lay his Prathet to rest. He had decided, during the long walk home, that the most fitting place for her body would be in the grounds of his Manor, near to the resting place of his first wife – a location of outstanding beauty, with breath-taking views over the picturesque valley below.
In the darkness of the night, with just the glow of the moon above, he set about laying Sahriah to rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment