Eagles and Swans
Chapter 43: Titles, Glories and Other Inconsequential Things
The sky gleamed like the back of a coin as they lifted into the air. They followed the winding bed of the River Colura, and at Ruthenia’s request, the flight sank low so they could listen to its burbling. She tilted over Benedice’s right flank to stare at her reflection.
“Don't go falling off,” warned Aleigh as Benedice’s hooves skimmed the water.
She swatted him away. “I didn't survive drowning and execution just to die here,” she exclaimed. In answer, he flicked the reins, and their flight ascended suddenly. Ruthenia yelled, snatching for his waist as her shout turned to laughter.
By the twentieth minute of their flight, the sky had washed orange around them. The warmth made her feel lazy, and she yawned, head falling against his back.
“You're almost home, Most Blessed Lady,” he said.
"Please, don't call me that." Ruthenia watched Helika's border segue into sinking grassland beneath them.
For many minutes, she listened to the beating of Benedice’s wings and the rustle of the wheat below. Then Beacon Way peeked over the horizon, the houses in an undulating necklace through the sky. Her home resolved into visibility beside Tanio's turbine-topped construction.
“The shed,” she said, leaning out to point, one arm still hooked around his waist. “That’s mine.”
“You live in there?” he replied. “It's smaller than my bedroom.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're the Arcane Prince.”
With a tug of the reins, Benedice lifted from the wheat in a billowing of wings and a rustle of stalks. He climbed through the sky in a dizzying lurch, and circled Tanio’s house once, before braking and landing on her patio in a clatter of hooves.
Ruthenia slid off the saddle and landed with a thump on her patio. Without the wind in her face, the heat crept back into her awareness. Then the sound of birds on the bubbling river rose into audibility, alongside the rustle of wheat, ready for harvest, and the creaking of Tanio's turbine overhead.
It was as if she had never left. The place looked and sounded as it always had.
Well, almost. She heard Aleigh leap off Benedice behind her, and turned to find him examining the tiny wooden shed. The Arcane Prince looked out of place beside the unevenly-sawed wood. She watched as he crossed the porch and lifted his gaze to regard the sunset spilling red and pink all over the sky, hair fluttering in the wind. Her mind drifted off into a haze of euphoria.
“Ruthenia?” She hardly noticed him turning. “Perhaps you should turn in for the evening.”
“Y…yeah, maybe I should.” She rolled back on her heels. “Erm, why don’t you come inside? I’d like to show you my home, since you're here.”
His eyebrows rose, and he said, “Well, I haven't any plans this evening. I would love to see it.”
Heart leaping, Ruthenia threw her front door open and waved him inside.
The light of the sunset cast a golden streak across the dim floor. “Well, here we are,” she said, twirling with a wave at the room as they strolled in. She kicked tools and crumpled paper under her desk. “Sorry about the mess.”
He laughed. “It doesn't surprise me.”
Unexpectedly giddy with his laughter, Ruthenia strode to her workbench and pointed at it. “This is where I build and repair things,” she said. “People bring stuff in, and I beat it into shape, weld it, tighten screws, whatever it needs.” Then she pointed a thumb at the hammock behind her. “And that’s where I sleep.”
His eyes followed her gesture, and he frowned. “In that? How?”
“By not falling out,” she replied. At her desk, she patted the stack of papers atop it. “And here's where I do my homework. And where I fixed your mum's clock, by the way.”
“Ah, how lovely.”
Leaping to sit atop her trusty desk, Ruthenia took in the whole haphazard room, and the strange image of Aleigh inside it. The sunlight was orange as fire, warming the back of her head, falling in a streak that clove her shed in two. Somewhere far away, a bird was calling upon the marshland.
She leaned back on her palms, watching her shadow move on the facing shelves. Aleigh was by her workbench now, inspecting its array of tools. Motes of dust danced in the air like sparks. He lifted his gaze to meet hers.
“So, what do you think?” she murmured.
They gazed quietly at each other across the glowing room. Then a smile lit his face. “It's very cosy,” he said, as he wandered towards her, to join her in the glow of the sun. “And patently yours.”
Ruthenia snorted. “Because it's a mess?” She tried to ignore his unwavering gaze, but he was too close.
"It’s everything it has to be, nothing more and nothing less. Not like the palace at all.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing like the palace,” she laughed. “I hope it's not too lowly for your tastes.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “All it's missing are some bookshelves.”
“Bookshelves. You're so predictable.”
"I'm not a terribly surprising person, I'll admit," he said, laying a hand on her desk, two fingers overlapping hers. Her breath hitched as her skin lit up with sensation. Like a stoked furnace her heart roared hotter. “Thank you for the tour—I enjoyed it.”
“No trouble,” she breathed. Ihir help her, she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold out. “Thank you for the ride home.”
“Of course,” he answered softly. “Unfortunately, I must be headed home soon myself.”
Bravado blazed through her veins. “Aw, couldn’t you stay a little longer? We haven't seen each other in a week.”
“Five minutes more, perhaps?” he replied.
“Five minutes is perfect,” she whispered.
And then, the fuse on her self-control blew, and she snatched him by the shoulders and wrenched him towards herself, watching his eyes fly wide open.
Her lips met his in a full-mouthed kiss—or her best approximation of one. But the shock of the warmth of their mouths connecting short circuited her thoughts, threw her mind into a tailspin.
Even as she grew dizzy, she felt his fingers come to cup the back of her head, and he leaned into her invitation, returning the kiss with burning conviction. He bore against her, knee pressing into her shin—
Then the back of her head banged against her window, and with widening eyes she shoved him away by the shoulders, face and neck blazing. “Oh, damn it! Damn it!” she gasped, arms swinging wildly, knocking her pencils all over the desk.
Aleigh stumbled backward. “I’m sorry!” he gasped, covering his eyes with a hand, although that did nothing to hide his steadily darkening blush.
"No, don’t be!”
He shook his head. “I forgot myself, I'm sorry—”
“No, I—I started it? Come back!” She sat paralysed while he brisk-walked to the door, and she only barely found it in herself to leap off her desk and follow him. By then, he was already mounting Benedice in the reddening light.
“I must go,” he called down. “Good evening to you.” Seeming to sense his rider's anxiety, the equine galloped into the sky, white wings unfurling.
When Aleigh had vanished from view, Ruthenia buried her face in her hands and screamed. “Ihir, save me!”
The next time they met, Ruthenia realised with a sinking of her heart, it'd be in school.
Remembering the afternoon still sent chills through her. The memory seemed much too dreamlike, anyway, all full of strange light and unimportant details—so perhaps that’s all it had been. Yes, a dream, and she would soon forget it.
Ruthenia spent the remains of the Saturday in Tanio's living room, trying to reconcile herself with all these incongruities that were trying to pull her life apart. She was a holy figure now. Everything she did had to mean something. And all because she had stood up to the law.
Is this some sort of cosmic practical joke?
That evening, Tanio introduced her to the tower of signed letters that had formed on his coffee table. A good majority were overwhelmingly pacifist, even adulatory. A number were job offers, reinstatements of membership, and well-veiled pleas for partnership. Majority of them were from people whom they’d never met.
One particularly important-looking letter among them bore the Sign of the Swan in many places—in the seal, the watermark, the letterhead, and stamped beneath two very pretty signatures. It was the formal apologies of the royal families, printed on the sort of paper that she imagined was reserved for diplomatic letters.
A sigh left her. She wielded so much power that she didn't understand, like an invisible sword she swung wherever she turned. She only hoped she wouldn't accidentally thrust it straight into someone's gut.
First New Holy Law in Three Centuries Delivered by Now-Acquitted Convict!
Archbishop Wins Case Against Kings, Rebel and Recently-Imprisoned Team Absolved Under New Decree from Ihir
Arcane Prince Reinstated Following Acquittal of Ex-Criminal Friend
Turmoil in the Flightless City! Rebel Groups Have Rejected Offer to Parley with New Town Law Enforcement
It was amid such a dizzying cascade of front-page headlines that Ruthenia returned to her first post-Lilin day of school. It felt like her first day all over again, as she clung for her dear life to the sides of Tanio's surfboard, ricocheting between queasiness and nerves. She slid off at the arch, and offered him a groggy thank-you.
“Hope you enjoy your tea,” he said meanwhile. “I packed something special.”
She nodded, forcing herself not to picture its contents. “Is it weird that I'm nervous?” she murmured.
“You'll be grand today,” he answered with a smile, reaching down to pat her shoulder. “Can't be as bad as breaking house arrest and flying out to obstruct the navy, eh?”
She sighed, straightening her back. “Yeah, you're right.” Then, bracing herself, she descended the stairs to the hallway.
When she stepped through the door of 2-I, there was a clamour—classmates she'd never talked to declaring they had missed her, Orrem and Iurita eagerly welcoming her back, Calan and Alacero dumping her missed homework on her desk, and one Arcane Prince who buried his face resolutely in a book until classes began.
Although none of the teachers addressed her any differently, they let her be when she fell asleep at the desk. At tea break, she thought of joining Aleigh as before, but a lump formed in her throat, and she decided against it. Instead, at her desk, she unwrapped Tanio's new offering: a beef patty and cheese sandwich that somehow decidedly agreed with her tongue.
At the chime of the five-thirty bell, Ruthenia packed her bag and sighed in the golden light. The exhaustion still hung on her bones, but she willed herself to stand.
Just like four months ago, she waited at the classroom door, arms folded, until the Arcane Prince passed, books stacked in his arms. Just like four months ago, she lifted her arm to bar his exit.
He cast a glance about and sighed. “What is it, Ruthenia?”
She folded her arms. “What else? You kind of left me hanging yesterday.”
“Ah.” He pursed his lips. “Could we...discuss it some other time? I don't think I've had enough to think.”
Ruthenia could not fathom what there was to think about. But the pleading in his voice made her heart ache, so she sighed and nodded frustratedly. “Fair enough. But can I join you for tea tomorrow?”
“By all means.”
And of course, though they would resume their teatime rendezvous like nothing had happened in the past week, they would not speak of the events of that evening for two weeks.