Departure.
Winter 510 AV
Winter 510 AV
“Moz seh krevas dav'ene obris zhevat.”
The words written in blood that streaked down one otherwise pristine wall had been left to crack and dry for several bells before their discovery in the light of early morning. Beneath the hymn lay the eviscerated body of a man in his middle-age, once olive skin turned ash pale, heeding the gruesome realization that Viratas’ blessing had been written with his life. Several swaths of cloth, stained dark with gallons of blood, surrounded the crumpled mass of flesh. It would have taken their owner to know that they were once linens of bleached ivory. Any stranger would think them the deepest, most beautiful vermillion; sheets too lavish for such a simple room.
All of Lhavit heard the Woman’s screams.
Aviakittis: the stolen day.
From the depths of winter came this celebration of thievery from the very calendar itself. Winter afforded them an extra day, perhaps a slip-up by Tanroa herself, or a reward for a year of hard work. On every peak of Kalea’s Diamond, Lhavitians celebrated with foolish acts of impersonation and subtlety; and where trickery ran rampant, gluttony was never far behind.
The twins and the Woman were gone; work had called to them days before and Aviakittis would have to wait until the early hours of morning the next day. By then it would be spring. “See you next season!” Seven had chirped as his beloved sisters left him with his father; they’d laughed, drawing armloads of silk high on their chests to sell at market and clumsily waved their goodbyes.
“Eat,” Zhao’s voice broke through the weave of silence so commonly held by his daydreaming son. “You’re too damned skinny as it is.”
“Not hungry.” Seven’s blatant contempt had earned him the sting of his father’s backhand several times before. “Asho spoke of a spider.”
Spider. Zhao cursed Remiani Asho under his breath. The man was a family friend; one of the few Lhavitians that pitied Zhao rather than scorned him for his mistake. That didn’t seem to stop him from bringing up the incident before the very boy’s ears. An incident Remiani remembered well, as he and Zhao had been close since either could remember. Wine had done its part in loosening lips, and after an evening of dinner, the three men had fallen victim to the whims of alcohol-driven conversation.
“Years ago, boy, your father was as virile as an Okomo in the wet season, if you know what I mean.” Asho’s laughter rang off of the walls in a smooth baritone, his grinning face showcasing a line of teeth as yellow as his eyes, “Aviakittis does strange things to man and creature alike. What was the name of that lovely little Symenestra you bedded a life ago, Xu?” He paused, and before Zhao could respond those fat oily lips burst into song,
The woman he wedded bore no child inside her,
So old Zhao ventured out and bedded a spider,
With sweet cunny like honey and two eyes like red torch,
Zhao fathered a bastard he found on his porch!
So old Zhao ventured out and bedded a spider,
With sweet cunny like honey and two eyes like red torch,
Zhao fathered a bastard he found on his porch!
It had not been long before Zhao ushered his drunken old friend out of his family home, claiming he had quite enough of his wine, and that his son was feeling rather tired.
“He spoke of my mother,” a bold accusation filled the small dining room and made Zhao’s blood run cold.
The pressed bow of hard lips thought to lie, or dismiss the boy; it had not been the first time he’d asked such a question, but never had the fact been so unceremoniously shoved in both their faces.
“Tell me about her.”
“It’s time to go to sleep.”
“Tell me something.” Had the song not told him enough?
Zhao rocked backward in his chair, allowing it to balance precariously on its back pair of legs as he looked hard into the garnet stare of his son. The boy was growing into the sharper features of manhood, and beneath the layer of moon-pale skin and hair, he could see himself. He could also see Nesyria, trapped forever in those gorgeous eyes.
“Dra-Nesyria Plicata,” Zhao’s brow furrowed as he mumbled the name. It sounded foreign on his tongue. “We met during Aviakittis, at the Red Lantern. After a few Kina, she told me her name, a bit about the hanging city she came from, and then gave me my coin’s worth …” he trailed off, tearing his face from his son’s vice-grip gaze, “She was not supposed to return. You can imagine the look on your mother’s face when you showed up at my door.”
“She isn’t my mother.” Seven’s voice was heavy, but he still managed to protest the Woman’s association with him.
“She raised you.”
“She isn’t. My. Mother!”
“You’re right,” Zhao was at his limit. The boy ran thin on his nerves at the best of times, with his accusations and childish outbursts—he was hardly a man, though he insisted on being called one—wine had loosened his tongue where sobriety had often saved him, so why stop now?
“You’re the bastard son of a whore, who was the bastard daughter of some Widow demonspawn from Kalinor. You were meant to go with her, but she dropped you on me and made a mockery of my reputation and my marriage; of my life. Instead of leaving you to die in the cold, I gave you my last name and raised you into the contemptuous twat you are today. Is that what you wanted to hear? Are you happy now, Dra-Seven? You’re the latest in a long line of pale, venomous bastards.”
Nesyria had all but faded from the vapid stare on a blank face.
