Ever Again

There was no sound; it was the shadow cutting across Dahlia's face that stirred her from the tangle of her thoughts and made her lift her head.

He could have been a figure in the stained-glass window before her, a shadowed monk in tattered robes blocking out the faint gleam of moonlight that crept in through the glass.

But he was not, and it was only the fact that the altar stood in defense between them that gave Dahlia the brief moment of clarity needed to clap her hands over her mouth and muffle her scream.  Her legs, stiff from kneeling on the cold marble floor, betrayed her as she tried to scramble away, and she fell back in a heap.  A bolt of pure terror shot through her chest, loosed by the sight of that face, those golden eyes the only spark of color in this room whose pearl-inlaid walls shone far too white.  Instinct took over and she huddled there on the floor, legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her sides in a meager attempt at protection.  Muscles rigid with panic, Dahlia waited helplessly for whatever would happen next, and hated herself for it.

Nefin looked down at her.  If his expression changed, it was lost in the blurring of the moonlight that backlit him.  He slowly raised his hands, and the breath froze in Dahlia's lungs.  Then he laid his palms atop the altar, fingers spread, and left them there.  And he waited, watching her silently.

For a bewildering moment, the gesture made no sense to Dahlia, and she felt pulled in two by the dissonance between her memories and what her eyes were showing her.  This is not right; those hands should be wrapped around my neck.  The room tilted around her.  Finally something clicked into place, and she understood.

Dahlia let out the breath she had been holding, and drew in another against the tension in her chest.  When she tried to speak, her voice cracked, sounding pitifully small.  "For you, empty-handed doesn't mean unarmed," she forced out.

Nefin didn't stir from his position.  "I have no intention of hurting you."

Pinned by his gaze, Dahlia recognized the truth of the words.  If he had meant to harm her...  A shudder ran through her, and her hand crept of its own accord to brush against her throat.

Dahlia tore her mind away from that thought before it could swallow her.  "I...believe you," she said.  Still, she could not bring her frozen limbs to move, and Nefin tilted his head questioningly.  "But I remember the last time you came for me in a room like this, and this time my jailer hasn't left me a knife to stop you."

Nefin looked around at the bright sheen of the walls, the floor, even the pews that lined the room.  Understanding lit in his eyes, and then realization at the implication of her words.  He said, softly but with finality, "That didn't happen."

"Not to you," Dahlia spat out bitterly.  Tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision.  After a moment's hesitation, Nefin nodded in acknowledgment.

Dahlia swallowed against a lump in her throat.  "What do you want with me?" she asked, unable to keep her voice from quavering.  What does he always want? came the ready response in her mind, but she could no longer be certain whether the thought was her own or not.

"To repay a debt," Nefin answered.  "When I was imprisoned in the Gardens, you brought me my freedom.  I would offer the same to you."  He nodded to the rune-inscribed shackles locked around her wrists.

"No," Dahlia whispered.

Nefin's eyebrow lifted the merest fraction.  "They are looking for Reborn to scapegoat for Forsyth's actions.  If you are found guilty, they will execute you."

"Yes.  I know."  The tears spilled over, cold tracks running down her cheeks.

He blinked, then narrowed his eyes.  "You are not a martyr.  Not like this.  Not when you know that spending your life will help nothing."

Dahlia looked back at him, her gaze hollow.  "I have hurt so many people.  I will not rob them of justice by fleeing.  If they want my life in payment for my crimes, I am prepared to give it to them."

"Dahlia..." Nefin began, a low growl from behind gritted teeth.  The muscles in his arms tightened, and Dahlia felt her chest constrict in kind.  With difficulty, she drew in a breath.

"No," she repeated.  "It is my life.  It is my choice.  Leave me to it."

His eyes went hard and cold.  "Why do you think I could do that?" he asked, and a shudder ran through Dahlia as if cold chains had settled around her shoulders.

She wrapped her arms around herself in a futile attempt to still the trembling.  "Then my will means nothing?"

"When your will is to throw your life away?" Nefin countered, a strange roughness to his voice.  His hands on the altar became fists, and for a long, terrible moment Dahlia thought he meant to simply stride forward and seize her, rip her away from this place and the slim chance it offered her to save her soul.

"Stop," Dahlia cried out, when she could no longer bear it.  "Do not do this.  Do not force me, again-"  Her throat closed on the words.

"I am not the creature they sent to torture you," Nefin said, drawing out each word carefully.

Tears slid down to Dahlia's chin, falling onto her knees.  She could not break free of her paralysis even long enough to wipe them away. "Here, now, I am not certain I can tell the difference."  

Nefin let out a harsh breath, but the coiled tension did not leave his body.  "What do I need to do to prove it to you?"

In that moment, there was only one possible response. "Go.  If you truly mean to give me my freedom, do it by leaving me here," Dahlia said.  

Stone-faced, Nefin stood unmoving.  "Please," she begged, unable to stop herself despite the little snake of shame that writhed through her chest.  

The muscles of his jaw tightened, and for a few seconds, he could not meet her eyes.  Even when his gaze swung back to her, Dahlia could sense him holding an almost tangible wall between them.  Finally, in a voice like frozen lead, he said, "I will do as you ask."

Dahlia nearly let out a sob in relief.  "Thank you," she whispered.

"Don't," Nefin said sharply, the corners of his mouth twisting in something that was not quite a grimace.  He began to straighten, but paused as he lifted his hands from the surface of the altar.  He turned his palms up as if to cup the moonlight shining in from behind him, but the silver that cascaded over his hands remained even when he brought them together in his own shadow.  

Terror flooded Dahlia as she recognized the Bindings magic, but when Nefin opened his hands again, there was nothing but a long, thin leaf resting on his palms.  He laid it on the altar, where the veins glimmered with a silver that was far too bright to be the work of the moonlight.

Nefin took one slow step away.  "My offer stands.  If you decide to live," he said, his eyes cutting into her, "you can call me with this.  The magic will work itself when you whistle on it.  As I taught you."

As he taught her.  Not in this lifetime, nor any other since all three moons hung in the sky.  For the first time since Nefin had appeared in the chapel, Dahlia closed her eyes, washed away by the memory of a sun-dappled riverbank and two children playing in the shallows, making music on fallen leaves.  In that moment, she could not have said whether her heart spilled over with gratitude for the golden warmth of that memory, or hatred for the reminder of what had once been between them.

When Dahlia opened her eyes again, it was to find the chamber empty once more.  She did not move from her place on the cold floor; in the wake of Nefin's departure, terror gave way first to tremors that wracked her to her bones and then deep, leaden exhaustion.

It was hours before she dragged herself from the ground, limbs stiff and aching.  Hours more before she could work up the courage to approach the altar, and the offering that lay upon it.  By then, the dawn light was creeping across the room, burnishing every surface a warm pinkish-rose.

Dahlia brushed a finger across the edge of the leaf.  It did not cut her.  It did not send out tendrils of magic to ensorcel her.  It was...a leaf.

It was a promise.

She picked it up.