“Easier that way, brother.” He spoke to Demetri, ignoring me entirely. “Names fade. They’re fleeting, like everything else. Why bother with them?” Nibbling his fingers, he perused over the heads that bobbed around us, eyes never lingering in one spot too long.
A pang pierced my stomach. Perhaps this laurel had never spoken to a woman outside family or formal rites. Mine and Demetri’s familiarity was heretical, after all. Perhaps he was scared—nervous—and Demetri might be the only tether he had left to a life beyond this final night. Just like me.
“What would mine be?” I asked, curving my neck to catch his restless gaze, fixing my mouth into a small, soft smile—one I hoped would be reassuring.
His fidgeting ebbed, boot stilling as he lowered his fingers. Cool grey eyes locked with mine. Not exactly grey, but nearly colourless…empty, even.Hollow,I wanted to say. But that would’ve been rude.
Wilting under the heat of his examination, I sweated. Demetri shuffled, glancing between us.
Tap. Tap. Tap.Osric’s boot struck the mosaic, renewing its assault.
“Green,” he scoffed, “like the scales of a grass snake…always spells trouble, green.”
It was my turn to scoff.Trouble?
“Better troublesome green than presumptuous grey,” I murmured, folding my arms.
He huffed, peering down at me over the bridge of a crooked nose. “Whatever you say,sna—”
“Now, now, enough of that.” Demetri slid to his side, draping an arm over his sloped shoulders, palm thumping against his chest, forcing Demetri onto his toes. “I knew you’d get along handsomely. Osric’s quite the comedian.”
Osric swung his jaw, chewing on some invisible morsel. Perhaps it was a nail, but more likely, the last shred of his humour and charm.
Silence, again.
“I was just tell—” Demetri began.
Osric straightened, throwing Demetri off, eyes locking on something south of the atrium.
“We need to talk,” he announced, hand clamping around Demetri’s elbow, readying to lead him away.
“Brother, that can wai—” Demetri began.
“Now,Hick.” Osric turned, presenting me with a mess of dishevelled, shaggy blonde hair. “You’ll have time for yourmost blessedreunion later. It’s not as if she’s going anywhere,” he insisted, throwing a thumb over his shoulder towards where I waited, hands threaded, pressed against the expanse of a pillar.
Death bound or no, what a decidedly unpleasant man. Still, Demetri was entitled to privacy.
“Go,” I encouraged, leaning around him to find Demetri. “Find me later, if you wish.”
Demetri’s final turns were not mine to horde.
Tugging again at his elbow, Osric ushered Demetri into the thicket of laurels, not seeing fit to address me again.
“I’ll follow.” Demetri yanked back, shoving Osric just enough to make him falter, his long limbs stretching outward forbalance. With one last scathing glance, Osric rolled those vacuous eyes and nodded, disappearing into the mass of white-clad bodies until even his tall frame was lost among the pillars and paxiams.
“Osric and I have some unspoken words to air,” Demetri explained, entwining our hands together. I stifled a gasp at the casualness of it, as if we were still lovers. Still friends. Like the eight cycles between us had been but a turn. “We had a little…disagreementthe last time we met, and I imagine he wants to face death with a clean conscience. It would be remiss of me not to grant him such a small mercy.”
An urge to pull him close had my toes creeping forward, but Demetri held his ground, so I paused.
“I will return to you, Ashara. I swear it.” Under thick eyelashes, those hickory eyes blazed.
I nodded, retracting my clammy palm to twist at the buttons on my sleeves, round and round, over and over.
“Ashara, I keep my promises,” he whispered, and my stomach dipped. “All of them.”
With one last loaded glare, he followed Osric, leaving me once more alone in the atrium.
Alone in the templum, with only pillars for company.
