Darkness carved in bone

Chapter 27

Helen

Ten seemed to be insatiable when it came to dancing, because he pulled her with him and made her dance to another slow-paced song.

His hands pulled her closer, making her hips push into him. He had placed a hand on the lower portion of her back and the other was entwined with her own hand. His hands seemed to pour some kind of magic into her. To make her blood boil and surge as he swayed her to the steady music.

The intoxicating smell of him became even more alluring as the warmth of his body seemed to add more flavor to it. She inhaled his smell slowly, savoring it as she let her body relax. She looked up at him with heavy eyelids and gave him a seductive smirk, thinking she could stay like this forever.

A sudden gust of cold air from a nearby ajar window cleared her fogged mind, as if the stars themselves had intervened, not letting her miss her chance to ask him again.

"I need to know Ten," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

Ten looked at her, his eyes narrowing and flickering for a moment, and Helen could almost feel the chaotic thoughts that seemed to be running through his mind. As if he were weighing every option and obligation he had, over every possibility and choice he could take.

Helen suddenly felt a grim mood come over her. What if he asked her the same question? And would he not be entitled to ask the very same thing of her, that she was asking of him now? What would she do or say or choose if he asked her to choose his side? Because wasn't that what she was doing? Perhaps her side was easier to understand that he could join, because she was not on a path to make the world bath in eternal sunlight. All she wanted was to stop eternal darkness. Which meant that things would stay the same? She realized she hadn't really considered what would happen if she stopped the eternal darkness. What if the prophecy ended with her bringing eternal light to the world? She found to her surprise that that thought nearly disgusted her as much as eternal darkness.

Did she really have the right to ask him what she was asking him right now? Could she ask for him to join what she believed and wanted to be a fight for status quo? Was status quo something to fight for?

She searched for Jenny in the crowd, considering if she was better off with status quo. She would most definitively be better off with light and darkness in her world. But was life for her or any of the other light-girls better if everything just stayed the same?

Those thoughts were stopped as Ten finally decided to speak, to answer her question. Neither of them had noticed that the music had stopped playing.

"I feel like I am discovering that a world without light would be a world I cannot live in." He didn't look at her as he spoke, only looking forward, a distance in his eyes as if his words and thoughts were difficult to both voice and think. "And I don't know how that is going to play into this prophecy, but Helen -,"

Her breath caught in her throat as his eyes met hers.

"- I am-," but the next words never came. Never to be fulfilled or voiced between them ever again.

Helen was grabbed by the elbow by a younger girl and pulled away from him and into a traditional dance where only the women danced together. The men who still stood on the dancefloor, Ten included, were pushed away by the throw of women.

An initial hint of frustration made her glance at Ten who had been pushed over to a wall with the rest of the men, as she nearly froze on the dancefloor. But his carefree smile and laughing eyes made that frustration melt away.

When the initial dismay slipped away, Helen laughed as she danced and clapped her hands together in unison with all the woman who attended the feast. She let the rhythm of the music fill her as she moved her body in the circle that they formed, a broad and unreserved smile on her face. She let the unspoken words between them fly away and vanish. She left the uncertainty and worry of not knowing where Ten stood on that matter for later. She let the darkness that surrounded the problem just be there. She let it no longer influence her and what she felt about Ten. Because in the vacancy of an answer and the pure joy she was felt at the moment, she was free to decide what she felt about him, not his choices or decisions. But decide what she felt about him, as a person, what his soul made her own soul voice. And that was like no freedom she had ever felt before.

The rhythm of the song was fast, and the dance energizing and she could feel her entire body warm and thaw as she moved. The rhythm became a trance, and the rest of the world ceased to exist. But when she somehow spotted Ten, standing with the ale in his hand talking to and toasting merrily with the man from before, the one who had seemed to take everyone's attention when he had entered the hall, she could only focus on him, on Ten. Suddenly Ten's eyes were on her, eating her up, taking her in with intent eyes. She was dancing for him now. There came almost something primal or dark over his eyes as he took her in. As if her soul had somehow communicated her newfound discovery from moments before. His eyes told her that they both knew. That they both knew what would happen.

He was now entirely ignoring the men who had been talking to him and had only eyes for her. Helen could feel how her chest became heavy and the air became hard to breathe. It felt like her entire body would burst into flames as he looked at her.

He kept holding her gaze, until he started moving towards the doors that led to the hallway, and Helen couldn't help it, but had to follow him. As he slipped into the darkness of the hallway, his body facing her, his hands stretched out towards her, giving her a shining smile, Helen followed gladly into his light and darkness.