(THOB) Chapter 114: Then And Now (Patreon)

Lenaria stilled under Ezril’s touch, growing quiet. Her body rigid, as though mounted to the spot where she stood.

Ezril had had encounters with time. Perceptions warped with it seeming to go on forever. During Father Talod training it would seem to go on forever when he’d want only for it to end. Or during Priestess Ellenel’s private sessions, ending in a heartbeat when he would want nothing but for it to go on. Time had proved itself countless times capable of teasing his perspective. But never had it done what it did now.

Everything—past, future, present—all of it fell away, unimportant. What was, and what would be as compared to this moment became an easy category of then and now. All of time seemed to compress and exist in only one moment. It was beautiful. Silent as the raging fires of shadows. Loud as the thunders any maelstrom could conjure. Searing as the heat from a thousand forges. All-encompassing as the dark. It was his moment of truth.

And nothing else mattered.

Then her hand came up to his chest, taking handfuls of his shirt. She kissed him back. In all of his life she had kissed him twice, but this was nothing like them. It was as though all the fury he had seen in her eyes and heard spill from her words found a new outlet.

She kissed him with a hunger he hadn’t known she had and he pulled her closer to him in a need to satisfy it. Their cloths proved too large a distance between them and it took only a moment to realize she simply kissed him with equal passion as he kissed her.

His hands slid to her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. His grip tightened on her waist. He pushed against her and she let out a moan between kisses. What had begun as part of a means to silence and a simple need to appease her had long evolved into something else. Words forgotten, he could feel his hunger, his craving, and with it, he wanted all of her. He wanted to know the ten years of her he had missed. The ten years of her that couldn’t stand between them. He wanted to know every curve, every scar, every swell, every growth, every change. Tasting her was not enough.

He wanted more.

A shrill whistle filled the air and their lips broke apart. But their foreheads stayed, Ezril’s resting upon hers as they gasped for air. When his eyes opened they met with hers looking at him with so much intent that he smiled at her.

“Crazy tribe people,” she muttered between gasps, “couldn’t they have been silent for a while longer?”

Ezril’s smile deepened. His hands had slid to her hips at some point and he held a large portion of her gown in them. He noted how the hem of the gown which had once threatened to sweep the ground now stood high above her knees, its fabric bunched in his hands. He released it and it dropped to rest just below her ankles. She took her hand from his waist reluctantly where his belt laid unbuckled. He looked from it to her, cocking a questioning brow, wondering when it had gone there. She shrugged but didn’t move. The whistling had long transformed into hoots from the audience they had unknowingly racked up and Ezril was forced to take a step away from her. She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout but said nothing.

“Are we staying?” she finally whispered.

He heard the hope in her voice. It would have hurt him to dash those hopes, but he knew better; it was a choice no longer.

“Yes…” he answered… Until they come for us.

And they would. This he knew with childlike certainty.

Before long she spoke again. “Nurala asked me about us,” she said.

“Nurala?” he asked, curious.

“Mm-hm.” Lenaria nodded. When he said nothing she added, “The girl that keeps looking at you.”

“She speaks the realm tongue?”

Lenaria nodded.

“And what did she want to know?”

Lenaria shrugged. “If there is anything between us.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“The truth,” she grinned. “I told her there was nothing between us.” Now she stepped away from him, hands clasped behind her. She leaned forward as one would when regarding a child, but her eyes never left his.

“Aria,” he called after her, suspicious.

“Ezril,” she replied with coy innocence, still retreating. She brought a hand forward. “This,” she motioned between them, “is inevitable.” She took another literal step back. Passed another tree. It was the fourth she had slipped passed.

“Aria…” he choked on his words as she beckoned him to her with a finger, continuing on her path deeper into the trees, away from inquisitive eyes. And in a moment, he caught the glint in her eye and saw the mischief. The hunger.

“I have… I have to…” he stammered.

Lenaria smirked and he coughed, choking and silently cursing the saliva that had chosen to go down the wrong path.

“You have to what, Ezril?” she asked; she teased.

“I… I have to take my meal,” he finished, poorly.

Lenaria grinned. “I thought you weren’t hungry.”

“I am now.”

“Lunch hasn’t been served.”

“I’ll eat what they served for breakfast.”

“It would be cold by now.” She had stopped moving now. A brief pause on her retreat. Ezril couldn’t believe her boldness.

“I don’t mind cold meals,” he blurted.

“Yes, you do,” she countered. “You hate them very much.”

It was true. He’d always hated having to eat cold meals. It had been the major problem he’d had with food Olnic gave in the Underbelly. It was the only thing that irked him enough to make him complain. And he had complained to Lenaria.

He took a step back and she stood straight.

“Really?” she demanded, hands flying up in resigned frustration. “You are really going to leave, Ezril? Now?”

He took another step back. The woman before him looked as though she would pounce at any moment and he knew for all his self-control the moment she did, he would lose. He nodded once, turned on his heels, and beat a hasty exit in what he hoped were calm, controlled steps.

Lenaria sighed behind him. But the sound did nothing to ease the discomfort brought upon by the smirk he had seen in the last moment.

When he arrived at their tent, no intentions of eating the mashed rice that sat at his side stool in a bowl grown cold overtime, he was met with a surprising sight.

At one end of the room where his Sunders and bow rested untouched in over a week stood a hunched woman. She stood, her back against him, wearing a mud brown gown, with greying hair braided at different sides with no defined pattern, decorated with beads of different colors. Everything about her screamed age, but the shadows that clung to her was the least translucent of the elders he had come across. They were more like that of the young adults. She turned her head slightly, regarding something in her hands and the beads in her hair sang a note in response. When her shoulders heaved Ezril thought something was to be expected, but her shoulders drooped again and the wisps clinging to her remained undisturbed.

“Cursed things,” she muttered to herself, and Ezril wondered if she was even aware of his presence.

She turned her object of focus in her hands then, returning it to its place, she turned. His eyes following her hand Ezril was surprised to find his Sunder, and more so at how easily she had handled it. Then she spoke.

“We finally meet, young Antari.”