Though Aymeric knows not the half of what Keimwyda has endured—so many battles he was not there for, not yet knowing her to comfort her pains—he is more than willing to make up for lost time.
He should be accustomed to it by now, he tells himself.
His bedmates vanishing in the middle of the night, with varying indications of when they might be back, or how far they intend to roam. A return to the cycle of wondering in what state they might reappear and whether they will let him share their burdens or shy from it, believing it to be yet more weight that he should not need to bear.
Tonight, Aymeric learns that she has strayed no further than the kitchen garden, sat hunched beside a planting of stubbornly hardy herbs that have thus far refused to let the pervading chill and an absence of sweeter sunshine deter them from—
By even the dim light of the lamp that she has brought with her, he can already see that fresh greenery has shrivelled, curling in on itself as it takes on sickly ashen tones.
Dead.
Her gaze fixed upon damage done, Izeira shivers, and he strikes out towards her to fold himself down to the ground, settling at her side close enough to touch – and distant enough should she decide that she would rather maintain her own space.
“...It was me,” is an unnecessary confession, murmured as she bows her head in defeat and closes her eyes.
“Yes.”
There can be no avoiding it. Summoning pretty words to attempt to soothe her would be a sidestepping of the matter; an attempt to manage it and sweep away the reality that cannot be ignored.
And besides, she knows very well when he is crafting words that he ought to say and not precisely what he feels.
A glance back along the path that he has followed reveals hints of dust and death where once there was life, indicating where she might have paused and hesitated on her own journey.
The Izeira who travelled to the First is not the one who has returned to him.
(Except it is.
In every way that matters, it is.)
“I don’t know how to make it stop.”
He has heard her say so time and again, in varying depths of confusion and despair. Doubt and hurting and a terrible fear of what she has become.
What she has been beneath the surface all along.
Perhaps it is that he ought to be afraid as he reaches out a hand deliberately in the line of sight of eyes that have lost their sparkle, plenty of warning given – an opportunity to flinch back – before he claims one of her hands in his and threads their fingers together.
“You will,” Aymeric tells her in little more than a whisper. “However long it takes. There is an answer.”
There has to be.
In the meagre pool of light cast by the lamp, she tilts her head a fraction to brave a look at him, her hold on his hand tightening.
“You don’t know that,” she utters, all hushed tones.
“I do, because it must be true.”
She needs it to be, and he needs that for her. It is no fanciful dreaming, but a determined belief that, if she can endure all that she has, there must be a way through this too. All evidence points to the weathering of the storm.
But a storm there is – and will continue to be.
And she is lost in the heart of it.
All at once, she closes the negligible distance between them and burrows against his chest with a soft sound of agony that has him wrapping her up in a tight embrace that endeavours to promise her that he does not fear what she could unleash without thinking or meaning to.
How long they sit huddled in the dark, he does not know.
It does not matter.
Upon the realisation that she is not clinging to him quite so desperately, but tucked warmly in his arms, her breathing steady and tears long dry, a glimmer of bright light amidst the lifeless herbs catches his gaze.
Another spark.
And another, and another.
Tiny, impossibly fragile flowers unfurling.
She anchors a hand over his heart. Gives a soft, content sigh.
I believe in a merciful Fury. You know this. And yet… The Church had corrupted and twisted Her words… to use against me and so many others… and I am a fool for believing them… and I know this… but still… I find myself craving this purity, yet I know not how to attain it.