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[Eclyse Christian]

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“Ready?” Eclyse stood, armoured and polished, by the door of the tiny guest room. In one hand, a heavy leather satchel. In the other, the key to the lock on the door.

Aurelia looked around the room a moment, her expression blank and lifeless. Her pale eyes were red, sunken, resolute. “I don’t even know.”

Eclyse lowered her head to shift the satchel to her other hand, and unlocked the door. “Anything you’ve forgotten, I can retrieve later. We ‘ave to go if we’re goin’ to make Moonglow by daybreak.”

Aurelia nodded as Eclyse tied a tightly-woven silk kerchief over her mouth and nose, then opened the door and led the Countess downstairs, and out into the Umbran darkness. Aurelia, watching her, left her scarf wound loosely about her neck, opting instead to step out unprotected into the thick smoke and the choking stench of charred human flesh.

Eclyse took up a torch from the wall by the stable and lifted it aloft, scanning the darkness for any who would take their revenge while it was still flesh and blood here in Ashencrosse. It appeared that they were quite alone. The newly constructed hall had been turned into a makeshift hospital and morgue. All souls with willing hands were inside, doing what had to be done.

Aurelia lingered a moment, her gaze drifting toward the warm glow emanating from the windows of the hall as, inside, lives hung in the balance. Eclyse stepped off into the night, mounting up a strong silver steed, already packed for the journey.

“Aurelia. Now.” Eclyse held down a steady hand and helped the Countess up, positioning her in front. She breathed through the silk kerchief, but the stench still churned her stomach. Tears streamed down Aurelia’s face, but Eclyse said not a word. She quite simply reined the steed around behind the theatre, passing slowly by the camp as it smouldered. Bodies, blackened and ravaged by fire still lay in the embers.

The Countess covered her mouth with her hand, leaning to one side of the horse to retch, but she had nothing left to lose, so many times had her body been wracked by heaves since she was pulled from the fire. She was utterly empty, in every aspect.

“Take a last look,” Eclyse spoke from behind the kerchief. “Burn it into your memory.” Aurelia sobbed, trembling as Eclyse tipped her chin up and forced her gaze upon the camp. “Look.”

Aurelia watched the camp pass by as Eclyse reined the horse again toward the gates of Ashencrosse. When it was out of sight again, she found her voice and looked back to Eclyse. “You can’t understand, Clysie – the stress, the burden of leading Ashencrosse through something like this—“

“Is no longer yours.” Eclyse finished, matter-of-factly.

“Forgive me, Eclyse…please…”

Eclyse watched the night around them, still holding the torch high to illuminate their way as they left the sanctity of Ashencrosse's fortress. “I am not angry with you, Aurelia. But you are not forgiven.”

[Aurelia Bretane]

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So much had come to pass in the time since she last felt sane. Under dark of night, Eclyse had ushered her into the Lycaeum of Moonglow, one hand gripping her arm, the other holding aloft a torch. Her expression was one that Aurelia had never seen in all the years the two had known one another. In a lifetime of shared secrets and smiles, the two had been as sisters. Two sides of the same coin. But that night, she saw Eclyse for what she had become in their years since childhood.

Father Lawrence met them in the courtyard. Two young attendants flanked him, a step behind, holding candlesticks, so that the only light that touched his face was that of Eclyse’s torch.

“Thank ye fer meetin’ me with such haste, Father.” Eclyse bowed her head, having released Aurelia’s arm to approach him alone.

“Not to worry, Lady Christian.” Father Lawrence spoke softly, reassuringly. “This is a matter of some urgency. Our doors are always open to you.”

The two spoke in hushed tones. Eclyse, standing straight and self-assured, explained all that had come to pass in the preceding hours. Father Lawrence probed with a question here and there, his gaze flitting briefly from Eclyse to Aurelia, who stood several yards away. Her arms crossed, her head down. A cold permeated her that had nothing at all to do with the autumn chill.

Raising his hand in a beckoning gesture to the shadows of the hallway behind him, Father Lawrence summoned silent watchers, who, at his command, came forth with chains and shackles. “Lady Bretane, please.” And then he beckoned to her, as well.

Aurelia stepped forward, looking uncertainly between Eclyse and the Father, then to those who approached her, searched her, and shackled her. Last of all, they removed the subtle gold tiara she wore in her hair. Stripped of status, stripped of freedom, stripped of dignity, she looked to Eclyse, who squared the crimson velvet cloak on her back against the scene.

“Only for her own safety, Lady Christian,” Father Lawrence urged quietly, a gentle hand resting on her armoured shoulder. “It is for the best.”

With a deep and cleansing breath, Eclyse thanked him and turned to face Aurelia. One of the guards pressed the gold tiara into Eclyse’s hand as she steeled herself against the image before her – one which would undoubtedly haunt her on the long ride home. But a resolved glimmer in her eyes was illuminated by the light of the torch she held.

“Tonight is nay th’ end, Aurelia. And what I’ve done this night, I’ve done t’ ensure that t’morrow will bring the first glimmer o’ hope to us all.” And with a quick bow of her head to Father Lawrence, Eclyse turned and walked away, without looking back.

Aurelia watched Eclyse until the darkness swallowed all but the torch flame. Eclyse, who had held and contained her. Who had kept the torrents of emotion at bay with her steadfast presence. Finally, bereft of her shield, Aurelia turned back toward the others, and uncertainly stepped into the flood.

[Aurelia Bretane]

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The roses were screaming. Briars and thorns dripping with blood as the fire consumed their tender stems. She stood in the garden alone, the roses crying out, and she watched helplessly as they curled inward on themselves and the fire drove life from their petals until all that was left was the flittering of ashes, spirited away by the wind that drove the fires.

“No!” the child screamed. But the fire tore voice from her throat, and all that could be heard was the roar and crack of fireborne destruction. The roses – her mother’s precious roses - perished one by one, a death lacking in dignity or even closure. Senseless and unnecessary. Still, she held fast to the torch and watched in horror.

A golden-armoured knight emerged from the flames, carrying a child no older than she. Long past the screams of anguish, the child convulsed and anguished in his arms, the lick of flames still fresh on the flesh that melted and slid from her bones as the knight watched her with eyes that smouldered like embers in the dark behind his helm. “Aurelia, you have to take this.”

Young Aurelia backed away – the girl was as big as she – and Aurelia could not fix what was wrong. Gutteral sounds emanated from the child’s throat, borne not of fear or pain, but of the soul’s recognition that its vessel has been shattered.

“Aurelia.”

Her eyes focused, and she inhaled sharply as she came back to the present.

“Aurelia, you have to take this.” Father Lawrence held a vial of liquid the colour of licorice, cloudy and black, to her lips where she sat in the corner, knees curled to her chest, and drank the elixir that he administered.

“What was that sound you made? As I approached?” Brother Lawrence corked the empty vial and watched her expression.

Aurelia watched him without speaking as he waited for an answer he had to have known would not come.

“A deep groan…Was it sorrow? Grief? Regret?” Father Lawrence waited patiently for a moment longer, and then nodded resignedly and retreated to his desk again to write.

Wrapping her arms around her knees to hug them tightly to her chest, she sighed soul-deep and began to rock gently. Her chains jingled softly with a rhythm that numbed her, and quieted her mind. At this point, it was all that she could ask.

[Aurelia Bretane]

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“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.” ~Toni Morrison

***

It was nighttime that she dreaded the most. Drawn into herself during the day, at least the comings and goings of scholars and healers in the lycaeum somewhat distracted her from the screams and cries that still tormented her mind. They spoke to her, but she rarely understood what they said. And so she still had never answered. Their lips moved, but all she heard was death by fire. She stared at the healers blankly, unable to form the words they wanted her to say. Unable, truly, to discern what they wanted to know. She had only spoken with one person since the day she came here. Something about that woman had the ability to part the fog, diminish the screams, reach her from the outside.

Eclyse had visited as well, on occasion. Her attempts at reaching Aurelia had evolved over time. She had tried to reach Aurelia through questions, accusations, tearful pleas, and expectant silence. But what the Countess could not tell her was that there was never silence. She could not make out Eclyse’s words any more than she could those of the scholars here. She could not form words to ask for absolution. She could not find her own voice among those who cried out in her mind. And even if she could, would she ever deserve the atonement any more than those who cried out deserved their peace?

But nighttime was its own entity. The ghosts in her mind crowded her, and the screams became unbearable. Visions thrust themselves upon her – fire and death, withering, twisting, tormenting. And death itself, a silent spectre looming there, waiting for Aurelia to have her fill and rest in his greedy embrace.

If there was anything that kept her from seeking death’s embrace, it was her need to find absolution. For indeed she had nothing else left to live for. But how does one atone for the atrocities she had wrought? How does one find solace when she has left so many without it? Could a lifetime ever be enough?

As the sun set, an attendant came to her with a thin vial filled with a pale purple elixir. Lips moved, but she did not hear the sounds. He handed over the vial, and Aurelia lifted it to her lips and drained it. The attendant disappeared through a doorway, and Aurelia hugged her knees to her chest, shackles clinking quietly as she began to rock herself in the corner of her bed, silently pleading for the sedative to take effect before the darkness did.