Tower of Dove

Chapter 20: The Flames

Tower of Dove Chapter 20: The Flames

The next days passed at an agonizingly slow pace. Calanthe no longer wanted Lilyana at home, so the Vauters opened their door and Lilyana fell into a sort of strange routine. Wake in the morning, wear whatever Miette threw at her, go to the market, ignore the stares and hushed whispers of the villagers, go back to the Vauter’s home and sometimes meet with the Mostyn’s to discuss wedding plans, and then sleep.

Lilyana observed more than she actually took park in the interactions, but she could tell Miette was trying to be strong for her. Posy had been like a sister to her, too, and she till greeted Lilyana with a smile each morning, always put together and pretty. The best friend anyone could ever ask for. But Lilyana couldn’t constantly suffocate her. She was engaged to someone she—at least seemed—to like fairly well. So Lilyana often left her alone to wander around the village and receive the whispers and stares alone. It was as if she were the ghost of a girl, or a drifting rumor.

One of these days in particular, she found herself walking down the road which led to the graveyard. It was twilight, and the cold wind numbed her just the way she wanted it to. The trees lining the sides of the road littered the ground with red and yellow leaves, and her feet crunched them hollowly as she walked. What month was it now, anyway? November? She wasn’t sure. Those summer days spent with Hiero seemed like an eternity ago. Dry, hot air, the constant bloom of flowers, and warm nights spent daydreaming on her balcony. Was it really her who had shared light kisses snuck in the dark, frustrated scowls, and bits of laughter? Had that really been the same lifetime? It didn’t feel like it. It felt like a long dream she hadn’t quite woken up from.

She stopped outside the gates of the graveyard and looked into it, into the rolling green hills that dipped into the distance and the endless white headstones lined one after another, like dominos spotting the land. Posy wasn’t yet buried there. At the wish of Erielle Racine and Lilyana, they requested that Posy and Kissa be buried together. They’d never know exactly what had happened to those two during those travels, but . . . Lilyana knew that they should never be separated. Where the two would be buried hadn’t yet been decided.

She stared into the graveyard as the sun sunk lower beneath the hills. For the thousandth time since she was eleven years old, she wished her father had never died. She wished it so badly that her heart ached, and she found herself curled into a ball on the cobblestone, hugging legs to her chest and staring at the road from a baby’s point of view.

She saw feet as they walked towards her, the legs of a man dressed in casual jeans. The man’s brown shoes echoed almost obnoxiously in the still twilight and Lilyana could hear it doubled, with her ear so close to the ground. The feet stopped in front of her and just when she wondered if she should be scared, she heard a voice say, “You’ll catch a cold that way, Miss Lilyana.”

She looked up, squinting against the harsh light of the setting sun, to see Dobry silhouetted above her. She could vaguely see the shadowed crease of his worried eyes, the slight frown as he looked down at her. When she didn’t respond, he silently reached a hand out to her. Slowly, she took it. He pulled her to her feet and they looked at each other for a long moment; the last time Lilyana had seen him was at the masquerade. His hair had grown even more since then, curling around his ears and falling in his brown eyes. He stood a full head taller than her, which wasn’t all that difficult to accomplish, but she realized, staring at him as he wore jeans and a grey jacket, that she’d never seen him out of uniform before. He looked much younger this way, vulnerable somehow. The heaviness burdening his eyes and slouching his shoulders reminded Lilyana of a child.

“Dobry,” she began, not quite sure what she was supposed to say, but he pulled her into a hug and she didn’t have to say anything else. She was just stunned.