Dryads and Nymphs

Chapter 23-Eavesdropping at Night

“Salem!” a voice broke her sleep, and she woke fully attentive to her surroundings, adrenaline clearing away the last of the sleep from her mind.

“Salem,” the voice repeated. Maryse, Ariana realized with a jolt. She lay still, keeping her breathing deliberately even, listening hard. She opened her eyes a notch, peeking through her eyelashes.

Salem lay a little distance away from her and in the light of the dying embers she could see Maryse bending over him, her hair escaping from the bun, into fringes that covered her head from her view.

“What?” Salem said, sitting straight as soon as he woke up. Catching sight of Maryse he moved a little away, his back to Ariana. “Maryse,” his tone was tainted by confusion and anger.

Maryse lent back, and her face caught the light, and Ariana saw that her features were set into hard lines, her mouth thinned into a white line.

“What do you want Maryse?” Salem snarled at her.

“In simple words I want your forgiveness. I never got the chance to apologize and you never let me,” her tone was tight.

“Why now? After all this time,” Salem asked his tone gentler than before.

“Yes. I still want to say I’m sorry. Tell me that you forgot about it and I’ll admit that I’m exaggerating.”

“I didn’t forget. I never could,” he said in a low voice.

“Salem I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. But I was little back then and I lost my temper and I didn’t know how else to convince you. I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry,” Maryse was hysterical now, her voice becoming high pitched. Her eyes were twinkling with tears in the dim firelight.

Salem was quiet for a little while before saying, “Maryse that’s not what I meant, I did actually forget after a few years that you had said what you did. I meant I was never able to forget you.”

Maryse looked up, hopefully, “You mean…”

“I kept thinking of what you had said before and I realized that you were not making fun of me. But I did love Ariana and I was never able to forget her either.”

Maryse dropped her head again. “I know. At least you remembered me.”

A hand cupped Maryse’s chin, turning her face upwards. Ariana watched as Maryse stared into Salem’s eyes. “I could never forget you. I would have to be dead to forget you. But I love Ariana, just as I did back then, just as I did back then. So all the time I tried to get away never changed a thing then?”

“I don’t think so,” Maryse whispered, “but do you know for sure that she loves you too? Can she ever love you more than I do?”

Salem dropped his hand, and bent his head. “I cannot. But I have to try. In the meantime I suppose you should try the opposite.”

Maryse looked at Salem as if searching for a hint to ensure that he was joking. When she found nothing, she set her jaw stubbornly. “No. you do what you want and I will do what I want.”

Salem looked up frowning. “Maryse—” he started to protest, but she raised a hand to silence him.

“Salem don’t,” she warned and got up walking away into the darkness without looking back. From between her eyelashes Ariana saw Salem’s face lit by the dim, muted glow of the dying embers, looking after Maryse’s receding figure. He looked heartbroken. There was no other word for the look on his face, one of immense grief and misery and also, Ariana saw, desire.

*  *  *

“No! You need to pull the string all the way back. the target’s far away so to shoot it at a long range you need to pull it back till it goes no more,” Dylan said, leaping to his feet from where he had been sitting, observing her.