Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

68. A Farewell and a Promise

Poets do away with centuries with a wave of a hand in their tales. A Commander lives through every fall of the sand grain in the hourglass.

A few weeks passed since Xenophonta reanimated a bird and sent it to Idezza with a message for the Duke. I mustered the Deadhead Company. More precisely, I mustered all I could muster without an open conflict with the other Commanders gathering in Palmyr. I had two cohorts I brought back from the South and four hundred green recruits nobody had plans for. In total, I had sixteen hundred swords.

Meanwhile, the spring took hold of Palmyr in earnest, covering the hills with swathes of flowers. They didn't require a gardener's hand to perfume the air, no vases to look pretty.

Kozima's weak constitution did not favor a lengthy ride. It was fine with me, for my thighs would tire of Breva's flanks in the weeks to come. We stretched out in the shade of an olive tree as soon as we found one. He traced letters upon my naked back.

"Ismar," I guessed the first one.

"Of course!" He laughed and traced 'K', the letter 'kakara', that also means a 'champion'.

I flipped on my back and kissed him. "Kozima."

He pushed on my shoulder gently. "Wait for it!"

"Still Kozima!" I said.

"Right!"

Then he spelled 'love'.

I guessed it all from the first letter.

The only word that gave me trouble was the final one.

"Hmm." I raised on an elbow and cocked my brow at him. "Was it 'stay'? Stay, my love?"

He nodded.

My back tensed, but he wiped the imaginary words off with a chuckle. "Sorry. I had almost convinced myself that you could retire."

His fingertips returned to writing sweet nonsense. I started to relax, but I should have known better.

He expelled a deep sigh. "Ismar, I wish you didn't let Taffiz influence you. That asp! He didn't just steal you away from me, but Xenophonta as well."

Taffiz the Asp had nothing to do with my decision to sign up Xenophonta for the Idezza campaign. However, the sun rays were too gentle and the wildflowers smelled too lovely to snap at my husband of many years. I caught his hand and draped his arms around me, then pulled him closer. I nibbled his ear. "Our daughter is without peer in any Hall of Scribes. She'll thrive as the Company's High Scribe."

"But she is fifteen!" Kozima argued.

"She'll be sixteen by the time we arrive at Idezza, sweetheart. She can't stay tied to your pants forever." That came out more sharply than I would have liked. I was going to ride out tomorrow, leaving him behind for the Divines only knew how long. I softened my tone.

"I used to worry that Xenophonta didn't have the temperament to join the Company. Until that one morning in the sparring yard with Marezhka."

Kozima smiled. "When Ondrey tried to train both of them?"

"Yes. Marezhka was maybe twelve or thirteen back then, and you know how she is in the sparring yard."

He smiled again. "Oh, yes. She always hacked at Ondrey in earnest and would drop from exhaustion before stopping."

"Meanwhile, Xenophonta was drawing symbols in the sand with a stick in a corner, seemingly oblivious."

"That sounds like the daughter of mine." Kozima's eyes twinkled.

"But she is also my daughter. As the two duelants came near her, she didn't even look up from her runes, she just jammed Ondrey under the knee with her stick. It wasn't a tickle either."

"Really?"

"You better believe it! Ondrey stumbled and Marezhka got him down... and then Marezhka high-fived Xenophonta."

"And Xenophonta?"

"She went right back to scribbling in the dirt."

He laughed with delight. "I had no idea, but I can see it as clear as day."

"That was the day I stopped worrying about our daughter." I drew him into me without turning around, the lazy way to couple for the last lazy afternoon for a while. "And you should too."

"Take me with you this time," Kozima whispered, unerringly finding his way inside me. His thrusts were just as attuned to my needs. "Please."

Once I could think again, turned, cradled him to my chest and thought about it. His gaze caressed my face all the while.

Kozima and I were blood intertwined. We belonged to one another in a way that other people couldn't. Kozima was the first person who loved me since I left my mother's womb. His aunt adopted his sisters, but left him to grow as a Gala's orphan without hesitation. His sisters had never come looking for him, neither as children, nor as adults. I also was the first person who loved him since his mother had died. Or, at least, the first woman he permitted to love him.

The sole difference between us was that I went out into the world, seeking love from more people, and he didn't. Instead, he fretted that I would leave him like his mother, aunts and sisters. Perhaps, if he hadn't rejected Anastasia or those after her, if he believed that they truly loved him, he would have lived a happier life. For the reason I couldn't fathom, I was exceptional in his heart.

"I can't risk bringing you right away, sweetheart," I said.

"Please..."

"If Idezza's castle is sturdy and there is enough resolve to fight, so the campaign is likely to last, I'll send for you."

He reached to kiss me, but I locked his lips with a finger. "One one condition."

The beauty of the sunshine shifted in my memory to the darkened room and the other farewell that wasn't blissful. The shatters were closed because Basilissa's eyes could no longer withstand the bright light of spring. It was stuffy and smelled of despair despite the best efforts of the nurse, despite Parneres' vigils, despite the medicines I had procured.

Xenophonta's clipped tone accompanied this sorrowful image. "Mother, you must accept the inevitable. My sister wouldn't live to be my age. And if Parneres keeps on the way he does, he would follow her into the River Vash. If you don't accept it, it will destroy you as well. So, accept it."

I didn't accept her truth or repeated it to Parneres. I simply couldn't.

Instead, I embraced him, the only gesture of affection I attempted in the past two years since Basilissa's health took another turn for the worse. I no longer tried to convince him it wasn't his fault. Words and tenderness only stoked the slow burning fire of guilt that was consuming my beloved's soul. I didn't know how to deal with problems I couldn't attack head on, with an ax in my hands.

That's why I told Kozima, "When I send for you, you'll bring Parneres and Basilissa with you. I'll never forgive myself if she dies in my absence. I must be there for her. I must hold her hand until the end."

My jaw clenched. This was the first time I put death and my youngest daughter's name in the same sentence.

Kozima pressed my hands to his cheeks. "I will."

For the first time in many years we didn't bicker for the rest of the day.