#uriori

“May I…?” I hear the words speak themselves using my voice. Urianger’s eyes widen, and for a moment I can’t tell if he’s pleased or offended.

Then I see the familiar flush start to rise on his face. “I– yes,” he says, “if thou wouldst.”

I feel myself blushing just as much, if not more. But I nod. “I would.”

The dressing table’s accompanying bench is just wide enough for him to sit and me to stand. Slowly, as if still unsure, he presents one hand to me palm-down, and just as carefully I take it in both of mine.

Always the rings first. I remove them gently, one by one, and set each one on the velvet cloth. Then the rings from his right hand, the thumb connected by a fine chain to the first bracelet. I’m no goldsmith myself, but I’ve spent my share of time among jewelry and gems– these are very fine work indeed. The crafter in me can’t help wondering who made them.

Next the arms, left, then right, each band and bracelet one by one. The metal is faintly warm after a day’s wear. I see the fine hair on his arms lift just slightly as I slide each band free, yet he hardly moves until I finish. These pieces, the ones that touch skin, must be cleaned with a smaller cloth– I let Urianger do that, watching those long elegant hands as they work. Seeing them bare of their ornaments is as intimate as seeing any other person entirely unclothed. 

For the belt he has to stand, which he does with no prompting from me. I’m careful removing the few pins, fashioned like stars, that support the drape of gold chain and pendant gems– I don’t want to prick myself, or worse, snag the fabric of his dress. I hook them to the belt instead, the way I’ve seen him do before. Then I reach my arms around him– they only just encircle his waist, and I take in the warmth of him, the feel of smooth fabric on my skin– to undo the crescent clasp, and just as carefully he steps away, leaving me with the entire constellation in my hands.

“It’s heavy,” I say, surprised. Not that I should be, knowing the properties of gold, but the way he moves–

Urianger turns to take the belt and all its stars from me. “‘Tis so on purpose,” he replies, arranging it carefully, so the chains won’t tangle. “The weight, it… groundeth me. ‘Tis a comfort, an anchor.”

“I understand,” I say, and I reach out for him. “Come back, sit.”

The gold pauldron attaches with a longer pin, its own hanging stars for counterweights, linked at the back with one last long complex chain. My knuckles brush his skin as I lift it away. I want so badly to kiss him just there, at the top of his spine where that chain hangs from the gorget, but that isn’t part of the ritual– somehow I know, without him having to say, that that would be an overstep. Instead I simply unfasten the chain from its topmost ring and lay it out on the cloth.

Last is the gorget, its clasp and hinges near perfectly concealed. It takes me a few attempts to open it. Urianger sits still and patient anyway, and only someone as close to him as I am right now would notice the slightest shiver when the clasp gives way at last. Once again I find myself reaching around him to lift the whole piece away– it’s even heavier than the chain belt, and I wonder if its weight is as comforting– and once again he takes it from my hands.

“There,” I murmur as he sets it down. My lips just barely brush his ear. I stay there, my arms over his shoulders, watching him clean the gorget’s inner surface. With that done, he closes his eyes and takes in a long, slow breath. He releases it just as slowly and I know the ritual is finished.

“So,” I say, “how did I do?”

I think he smiles. “Well,” he says. “I could not wish for better.”

“I’ll do it again. Any time you like.”

Only then does he turn his face to mine, catching my hand in his. Only then does he lean in for a kiss, and I, of course, meet him halfway there.

The way his eyes pierce through me, so full of emotion I know I ought to be able to fathom, hurts in a way nothing else does. I make myself look at them anyway. 

“The Light within thee preventeth my healing. I realize ‘tis no small task, but thou must needs hold back its aether.”

“I can’t–”

“Thou needst not tame it,” he says, before my focus can wander again, “only contain it for a short time. I shall guide thee, I promise.”

His long hand cradles my head, his thumb tracing soothing circles on my temple, one point at least where I can remember I exist. “I’ll try,” I say.

Urianger settles himself closer, kneeling in front of me where I sit on the overstuffed divan– the nearest piece of furniture to where, he’d said, they found Ran’jit and me both collapsed– the general dead, me just barely not. Gently he touches his forehead to mine. His other hand hovers at my side– I think it should sting, there at the wound, but if it does I can't feel it.

"Close thine eyes," he says. "Listen only to my voice. Think only of thine own aether, and naught else."

I do as he says and, with some difficulty, I let myself sink.

This– this, I feel. The Light sits heavy and hot inside me, pushing against my skin, pushing against the boundaries of me– I'm tight and tense with it, a too-ripe fruit, an over-full wineskin. "It hurts," I hear my voice say.

"Aye, I know it doth. 'Twill be so but briefly." His thumb continues its pattern, a tenuous anchor, but one I can hold. "Breathe. That aether– see its shape. Imagine thou dost hold it in thy hands."

It burns me, the effort, reaching inside of myself to hold the Light. I feel my breath catch ragged in my chest, choked with it, I feel tears like molten metal on my face. I wonder if it is still tears that come from my eyes, or blood from my wounds.

Urianger's aether, when it comes, is a cloud passing briefly across the sun, the barest sip of cool water. I feel myself reach for it, thirsty for it, needing more. I feel the Light reach for it–

"'Tis done," he says, and I release it, a gasp like rising from drowning. The Light lets my attention slide away from it again.

"Did I–" hurt him? His breath sounds just as rough as mine. 

"Nay– 'tis with the effort, no more." He strokes the hair back from my face, brushes my tears– only water– away. "I am unharmed, and thou art healed."

"For now," I say.

"I wished only to spare thee an unnecessary burden," says Urianger. He doesn't seem to dare to come any further into the room. "Not to trouble thee overmuch with– with possibilities that might not come to pass–"

"So you let this happen to me, and what? Just hoped it wouldn't get worse?"

"That is unjust," he says, and then, quieter– "yet, essentially, true."

I've put another wound in him. I squeeze my eyes shut, for all the good it does. "I'm sorry," I say, "I don't– No one will tell me the whole shape of it, not– not the Ascian," as if speaking Emet-Selch's name might summon him again, "not the Exarch, and now not you– I don't know what to believe. What's the truth and what's a lie, if there's even a difference–"

I can't go on, I’m speaking nothing. It seems if my feet can’t pace my mouth will. I fall silent and stare at the stone floor.

"I would I could bring thee aught of comfort," I hear him say somewhere above me. "Wilt thou not look at me, at the least?"

I hear him move closer, the soft hush of cloth and clink of metal as he kneels by me. I don't say yes, or even nod, but I also don't move away. His hands gently push back my hood with its hanging visor.

He takes in a soft breath. "Orishan, thine eyes–"

I know what they look like. Light-stained and ill-suited, like the sky. He reaches for me, as if half-afraid to touch me, to brush a tear from my cheek with cautious fingers.

"You told me, back at the Shelves, you wouldn't let the fate you saw come to pass." Do I tell him I know Y'shtola questioned that vision too? Did I even really hear it? 

"'Tis true, and I intend to keep that promise."

"Then what is going to happen to me?"

"I cannot tell thee," he says, "what I do not know."

I can't bear the way he's looking at me, helpless and wanting and something else I can't recognize. I want to hit him, I want to comfort him, I want to bury myself in him or never see him again– I lay both of my hands flat on his chest, and then my forehead, suddenly overwhelmed.

"Then I give up," I mutter. Another tear falls onto his robe. "I have to keep fighting for these people– for this world– it doesn't matter why. If I'm not meant to understand, if I'm to be a piece on the board for it, then that's what I must be."

His hand rests, tentative, across my back. "What wouldst thou have me do?"

"Can you tell me anything? Anything at all?" But his silence says he can't. Of course he can't. I draw a deep breath and look up.

"Then kiss me," I say.

"Orishan–"

"Please, Urianger. If I can't stop what's happening– help me feel something else for a while."

Something seems to give in behind his eyes. "Very well," he says. It's barely a breath. He removes the lower part of my mask too, half hesitant, half reverent, and just as carefully he eases his lips over mine.

This isn't exactly our first kiss. It's not exactly our first time together, either, not truly. And I'm sure it's not what either of us imagined, him kneeling on a stone floor and me only half here, a whole world away from anything familiar. For a moment I wonder if Urianger feels as lost as I do.

But right now he's here, and his mouth is warm on mine and he holds me like something he's afraid to lose, and I don't want to think about anything else.

Something gives in inside me as well. I return his kiss in a rush and he all but sweeps me up, suddenly breathless and desperate, his hands at my waist and back pulling me closer, mine catching in his silver hair and in the gold jewelry at his shoulder. He bends his head to kiss my ear, the skin beneath it, my throat, and then my mouth again, and I can hear myself making soft desperate noises of my own against his lips. 

"Take me to bed," I murmur, between kisses.

"Art thou–" but I interrupt him, tugging at his lower lip with my teeth, and I savor the sound he makes– "Art thou certain thou dost–"

"I want this–" I punctuate my words with kisses along his jawline– "I want you."

He catches me up, holding my face between his hands. "Wait," he says, serious despite the flush in his face. "We must wait."

I can't help but lean into his touch. "We have waited,” I say. “I don't want to wait anymore, I want to be yours."

"With my whole heart I long to give thee thy desire," he says. "I should bring every star down from the heavens and count each one upon thee with a kiss, and thou shouldst be the brightest of their number." His voice is low and rough with holding back, his eyes burning golden through the bright haze. Heat coils tight in my stomach.

"You're not making me want you less," I protest. He stops me with his hand, resting his thumb over my lips. I kiss its pad instead and feel the shiver run through him, hear him draw an unsteady breath.

"But if ever I have thee, I would have thee certain. I would have thee wholly." He has that look again, helpless. Searching, maybe. "I pray thee, for my sake, if not for thine– wait but a little, my star."

"All right," I say. I can hardly hear my own voice. "All right. I trust you."

This time, when he kisses me, it’s slow again and steady. Deliberate, as if he’s telling me something with his lips that he can’t with words. Or as if he already has told me, and I don’t have enough pieces yet to put the puzzle together. I close my eyes, and he kisses first one eyelid, then the other, brushing the tears that won’t stop welling up.

"You won't go?" I say. 

"I shall not leave thy side," he replies, something approaching reassuring.

"Stay the night, then."

“Come now,” he says, with a shy smile, “‘tis surely not the first time thou hast beheld these features. I have merely taken up astrology, and my present attire better suiteth the art. Though the night be lost, behind the shroud of blinding light, doubt not but that the stars shine still–”

Then he seems to catch himself. That’s definitely a laugh from Thancred. Urianger gives a polite little cough, as if to cover it up, but he’s still smiling just a little.

“But enough of myself. Let us now speak of our task…”

-

It’s not a bad walk from Lyda Lhran toward Pla Enni, uncanny sky notwithstanding. Urianger walks ahead, talking quietly with Minfilia; Thancred disappears once we’re outside the settlement, scouting, presumably. I find myself falling to the rear, admiring the scenery as we travel– the hills, rising and falling, blooming in a riot of color; Longmirror Lake, its waters so clear I can barely tell where land ends and lake begins; the castle of Lyhe Ghiah on its soaring heights, spreading its brilliant wings. Even if– even when– we can restore the night to this place, I think nothing will dim its brightness.

How characteristically strange of Urianger to have taken up with the stars in this eternally shining place. I feel, if I’d known him better– before– I might be less amazed to see him now, like the night sky walking on the earth.

“I know that look,” says Thancred, next to me.

I credit myself that I at least don’t jump. “What look,” I say, “I don’t have a look.”

He folds his arms. “You realize I’m the least likely among us to believe that.” When I, stubbornly, don’t respond, he adds– “Time was, you directed that look at me.”

I sigh. “So you did catch that.” Too late, I realize I’ve given myself away.

“Not that I don’t follow you,” Thancred goes on. “Takes you quite by surprise, doesn’t he?”

“Entirely,” I admit. “Wait- oh gods, you don’t- you and he aren’t-?”

He laughs. I’m glad to hear it, even if it is a bit at my expense. He’s so serious now, so much beneath his surface.

“No,” he says, “we don’t and we aren’t, though not for lack of interest. Truth be told,” he adds, when I look at him amazed, “there is much else that demands our attentions… and the both of us were too concerned for you.”

I stop dead in my tracks and stare at him.

“That surprises you?” he says. “Well- I suppose it does. You never do realize how much the rest of us care for you, do you? You, Orishan, not the ‘Warrior of Light’– or Darkness, or whichever other title of the hour. And I’m sure our friend there would say the same.”

“Thancred-” I start, and then can’t think what else to say. The moment stretches itself out.

“Go on,” Thancred says, nodding at the path ahead. “I’ll catch you up.”

-

“‘Tis quite a view, is it not?” He’s stopped ahead, allowing me time to catch up- with his long stride and years of use he hardly seems to notice the steepness of the trail. “If the path striketh thee as precipitious, ‘tis because it was once a mountain trail. Where the lake now lieth, there was a valley, in whose midst thrived the city of Voeburt.”

The ruins under the lake, of course. The water is so clear I can still make them out from this height. I think of Thanalan’s blasted desert, and the highlands of Coerthas transformed into ice, and I’m not sure I blame the Fuath for drowning it all afterward. 

Urianger seems to be thinking the same thing. “‘Tis not merely the hand of the fae folk that altered this land so. The blame for that lieth rightly with the Light– that it should have been allowed to rise unchecked is the greater regret.”

There’s a quiet passion in his voice that makes me look up. His expression, the golden glint in his eye as he looks out over the drowned valley– perhaps he’s always had this intensity about him and I simply never noticed, but I doubt it. I think his time among the fae has altered him just as much. And suddenly, just for a moment, his transformation makes perfect sense.

“I meant what I said, you know,” I say impulsively.

Urianger looks down at me, his brow furrowing a little as he tries to catch up. “When I said– you looked beautiful,” I clarify. “I didn’t just mean your clothes. You look… yourself. You look happy.”

“I… suppose I am,” he says, slowly, as if realizing it himself. “In spite of the tragedy that surroundeth us, full glad I am to be here. In it I find a kind of purpose, a strength of resolve. I can no more ignore the plight of this world than I can choose to stop breathing. If that to thee is beauty…”

He trails off, for once, and I feel something grip my heart. I reach my hand up and he reaches his down to take it.

“You know this world better than I do,” I say, “but I’m here. Whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”

"'Tis beyond imagining," he replies, not turning so much as his head. "To study the heavens, absent of their sight, to learn each unfamiliar star and sign, the geometry that yet connecteth them, and only then to see… 'twas for this," he says-  and at last he turns his gaze toward me- "for thee, I have long waited."

I feel my breath catch. "How did you know?" I hear myself say. "Defeating the Lightwarden, restoring the night, all of this… how were you so certain I could do it?"

"Save that thou hadst achieved it once already?" Urianger smiles- fond, indulgent, gentle. "Thou seest not thyself. These several years, though I saw not the stars, I yet believed they shone- to think aught else would be defeat. And so I knew… and so do I know thee."

"Urianger, I-" I can't think what to say. He's so close- we haven't been this close since, well- at any rate his face and mine are of a level, and his golden eyes look into mine as if he's seeing a second sky. I could take one small step and-

He leans forward to close the slight space between us-

-and I step back.

"Forgive me," he says immediately, "I overstep-"

"No, it isn't that," I interrupt, before he can keep apologizing. But I can't bring myself to say the rest.

And he doesn't press. He just watches me, and waits, and all at once a dam within me breaks.

"I'm afraid," I admit. "I hurt you once already. After Moenbryda-"

"Nay, blame not thyself," he says. "'Tis true I was heart-struck, but not by thee. 'Twas simply…not the time."

"And now it is?"

"That is for thee to say." 

Urianger reaches for my hand, and I let him take it, his long fingers with their golden rings folding gently around mine.

"I have waited ere now," he says, "and 'tis a practice most familiar. 'Tis no burden, then, to wait a while longer." And he gives me that smile again, soft and fond, and Twelve help me, I want to see that smile again and again.

He knows exactly how I feel about him. I hear the voice as if it's here, next to us among the flowers. And he knows that whenever he needs me, for whatever reason, I’ll be there.

"I'll tell you," I say, just as soft. "When I'm ready. I promise." 

"I can ask no more." He raises my hand, gently, and brushes the slightest touch of lips there. This time I don't pull back. I feel just as breathless as if he'd kissed me full on the mouth.

"Hey," we both hear Alisaie call from the road, "what are you two doing up there? I thought we were going!"

"And so we should be," Urianger says. He unfolds himself from the ground, a few stray petals falling from his robes.

"Will you tell me about the stars," I say, "on the road?"