“I know,” he whispers, then holds Wonder while she weeps.
It never happens again.
***
When she’s of age, she serves the mortal realm. By that time, the young man is gone, having perished in the asylum.
Wonder sobs at his grave and traces the name on his headstone.
As the decades pass, she looks for him in the visage of every human male graced with sunny curls. But it’s no use, because she’ll never find the face she’s looking for.
So she gives up.
***
Fifty years later, during a break from servitude, she returns to the Peaks for an intermission. There, Wonder curls into her reading chair. The Archives aren’t busy today, the lull having afforded her time to pursue the Hollow Chamber’s restricted area and pilfer a text or two.
On the pretense of innocence, she’d then exited the section and discreetly chosen this seat, tucking into her reading material.
A slant of glittering, rosemary light from the lanterns and the Chamber’s overhead sphere wend into the space, dappling a selection of books…like a trail. The spectacle calls to mind a human library, from an era when she’d witnessed a similar effect while spying on a certain young man.
Of all things to recall, why that? She shakes her head, then pauses, her nape prickling with the knowledge of someone’s eyes on her.
Glancing up, she scrutinizes the aisles. There’s no one around. But she does spot a sudden movement in her periphery, a splash of gilded hair disappearing around the corner, evading her notice.
Her heart twitches. She’s about to rise and follow the stranger, but something else catches her eye from the book on her lap. It’s a string of words that materialize under the right slant of mystical light.
Wonder straightens. It’s another legend—something about a deity winning the heart of another deity.
17
When it’s over, Wonder has no breath left, no voice left. Perhaps she doesn’t have a heart left, either. She may have just sacrificed it. That’s the price of telling the truth—its overgrowth unfurling and spreading like a jungle, the weeds of history choking what’s left of buds and petals.
Sitting in this forbidden artery of the Hollow Chamber, Wonder’s mind drains, spilling onto the aisle’s runner. Her psyche tires of wandering, of scuttling here and there. She only has energy for two emotions: regret and loss. One of them seeps into her pores, and the other digs a ravine into her stomach.
Once, she had uncovered her first legend, a scroll about a human and a deity falling in love. It hadn’t worked in her favor.
Initially, she hadn’t told any of her peers about that scroll—not until Love met Andrew. Although the legend hadn’t helped Wonder, she’d wanted to believe it could aid her classmate.
And it had. It had given Love and Andrew a future.
From that very first discovery, Wonder had acquired a taste for unearthing such marvels. Her passion for it had eventually led to another legend, which had united Anger and Merry.
Across from her, Malice remains quiet. His silence is the loudest noise she’s ever heard, more abrasive than his temper, his threats, and his screams during nightmares.
When this god doesn’t speak, anything is possible.
When her mind empties, anything can happen.
Yes, if he’d heard about Wonder’s torture from other archers, and of the mortal boy she’d risked everything for, he might have connected the dots to his nightmares. Fortunately, as he’d once said, the tale of her indiscretion had never reached him. Him being the bookish rather than the social type—a page turner rather than a gossiper—had worked in her favor there.
Be that as it may, Wonder’s gaze makes the steep journey from his bare toes to his knees, from his navel to his slack jaw. At last, she catches his eyes, those ashes whirling, the vortex sucking her in.
His forearms drape loosely atop his knees. Only the writhing furnaces in his pupils contradict the numb expression. This is what he’d wanted, isn’t it? Just as he had vented earlier, this is the information he’s been searching for: the root of his existence.
Please say something.
Please don’t speak.
