mind of a cat?
She herself had been seen only a scant handful of times: once intentionally, and a very few times accidentally, when her emotions were strong and the observer possessed of a nature that allowed such a sighting. That had been what had happened the night young Woding had fallen.
Serena walked along the path that went around the castle, between it and the parapet of the curtain wall. Grass grew alongside the path, and in several of the bastions there were benches and flower beds, attesting to the castle’s present use as a residence as opposed to a defensive fortification. Hugh le Gayne would be calling curses down on Briggs’s head if he knew there were roses growing on his walls.
Serena sat down on the bench in the corner bastion, her favorite of the arrow-shaped outthrusts of the wall. She could see for miles over the valley from here, see the gray smudges of the villages, and the green lines of the hedgerows that fenced in the sheep, sheep that looked like so many dots of white from this distance.
The view was as lovely as it was achingly lonely, dredging up memories of what used to be. Clerenbold Keep had long since fallen to ruin and been overgrown, not so much as a crumbled wall visible from where she sat. She had watched it happen slowly, over decades, and it was as if her last link with Thomas and her family had died away with it.
It was more than the sight of her old home decaying that gave her a sweet, almost pleasurable pain in her heart when she looked over the valley, though. She had watched villages come back to life after the Pestilence, and watched them grow. She had seen, from her great distance, people at work in the fields and riding or walking along the roads. It was like listening to a story that she could not be a part of, the characters living in a world to which she could not gain entrance however much she longed for it.
That sweet ache was completely different from the pain of having living people actually share her home. That pain was a knife plunging deep into her heart, each solid step that a living person took a slap in her face, reminding her that she was all but dead. There was no buffering distance with which to shield her heart, no comforting barrier of space to keep her from knowing that they were real, and lived, and ate and drank and slept, while she would never again do any of those things.
Was it that pain that had made her visible, and made her frighten Woding as a child, whether intentionally or not? She remembered observing the boys from a distance, listening to that tale of falsehoods Woding’s cousin had spewed out as truth, debating whether it was worth giving them the fright they deserved for invading her mountaintop. She thought she had decided against it.
And then, in the middle of the night, with dawn but a few hours away, something had drawn her to young Woding as he stood in wonder upon the wall, his very soul glowing in his face, completely entranced by the stars. She had reached out, wanting…wanting to touch something she could not name, even now. And he had seen her.
Strange to think that boy was now a man, older than she herself had been when she died.
White clouds drifted in the blue sky, taking nameless shapes, as if trying to speak to her in an unknown language.Would that they could teach her all she still did not know. Would that they could tell her if there was some purpose to Woding’s being the one who took the place of Briggs.
Did he sleep now, after his night of stargazing?
Alex dozed uncomfortably in his darkened bedchamber, longing for the oblivion of deep sleep. Man, unfortunately, did not seem made to dream while the sun was yet in the sky.
He rolled onto his side, the top sheet sliding smoothly over his naked skin. Little light reached him where he lay; the heavy curtains on the windows were drawn, as were those on the Jacobean tester bed in which he tried to sleep. Despite the darkness, and despite his own weariness, his body
She herself had been seen only a scant handful of times: once intentionally, and a very few times accidentally, when her emotions were strong and the observer possessed of a nature that allowed such a sighting. That had been what had happened the night young Woding had fallen.
Serena walked along the path that went around the castle, between it and the parapet of the curtain wall. Grass grew alongside the path, and in several of the bastions there were benches and flower beds, attesting to the castle’s present use as a residence as opposed to a defensive fortification. Hugh le Gayne would be calling curses down on Briggs’s head if he knew there were roses growing on his walls.
Serena sat down on the bench in the corner bastion, her favorite of the arrow-shaped outthrusts of the wall. She could see for miles over the valley from here, see the gray smudges of the villages, and the green lines of the hedgerows that fenced in the sheep, sheep that looked like so many dots of white from this distance.
The view was as lovely as it was achingly lonely, dredging up memories of what used to be. Clerenbold Keep had long since fallen to ruin and been overgrown, not so much as a crumbled wall visible from where she sat. She had watched it happen slowly, over decades, and it was as if her last link with Thomas and her family had died away with it.
It was more than the sight of her old home decaying that gave her a sweet, almost pleasurable pain in her heart when she looked over the valley, though. She had watched villages come back to life after the Pestilence, and watched them grow. She had seen, from her great distance, people at work in the fields and riding or walking along the roads. It was like listening to a story that she could not be a part of, the characters living in a world to which she could not gain entrance however much she longed for it.
That sweet ache was completely different from the pain of having living people actually share her home. That pain was a knife plunging deep into her heart, each solid step that a living person took a slap in her face, reminding her that she was all but dead. There was no buffering distance with which to shield her heart, no comforting barrier of space to keep her from knowing that they were real, and lived, and ate and drank and slept, while she would never again do any of those things.
Was it that pain that had made her visible, and made her frighten Woding as a child, whether intentionally or not? She remembered observing the boys from a distance, listening to that tale of falsehoods Woding’s cousin had spewed out as truth, debating whether it was worth giving them the fright they deserved for invading her mountaintop. She thought she had decided against it.
And then, in the middle of the night, with dawn but a few hours away, something had drawn her to young Woding as he stood in wonder upon the wall, his very soul glowing in his face, completely entranced by the stars. She had reached out, wanting…wanting to touch something she could not name, even now. And he had seen her.
Strange to think that boy was now a man, older than she herself had been when she died.
White clouds drifted in the blue sky, taking nameless shapes, as if trying to speak to her in an unknown language.Would that they could teach her all she still did not know. Would that they could tell her if there was some purpose to Woding’s being the one who took the place of Briggs.
Did he sleep now, after his night of stargazing?
Alex dozed uncomfortably in his darkened bedchamber, longing for the oblivion of deep sleep. Man, unfortunately, did not seem made to dream while the sun was yet in the sky.
He rolled onto his side, the top sheet sliding smoothly over his naked skin. Little light reached him where he lay; the heavy curtains on the windows were drawn, as were those on the Jacobean tester bed in which he tried to sleep. Despite the darkness, and despite his own weariness, his body
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