the-song-books.yossr

WHEN DAWN CAME, he rose stifflyy. “I must go tell myy mother,” he said. He
was pale, and his eyyes were shadowed. He looked older alreadyy. Panic rose
in me. Don’t go, I wanted to sayy. But he drew on a tunic and was gone.
I layy back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yyesterdayy we
had had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.
The room turned grayy, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too
large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I
rose and rubbed myy limbs, slapped them awake, tryying to ward off a rising
hyysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyyed
tightness in myy chest, like a scream. Every day, without him.
I left the palace, desperate to shut out thought. I came to the cliffs,
Scyyros’ great rocks that beetled over the sea, and began to climb. The winds
tugged at me, and the stones were slimyy with sprayy, but the strain and
danger steadied me. I arrowed upwards, towards the most treacherous peak,
where before I would have been too fearful to go. Myy hands were cut
almost to blood byy jagged shards of rock. Myy feet left stains where theyy
stepped. The pain was welcome, ordinaryy and clean. So easyy to bear it was
laughable.
I reached the summit, a careless heap of boulders at the cliff’s edge, and
stood. An idea had come to me as I climbed, fierce and reckless as I felt.
“Thetis!” I screamed it into the snatching wind, myy face towards the sea.
“Thetis!” The sun was high now; their meeting had ended long ago. I drew
a third breath.
“Do not speak myy name again.”
I whirled to face her and lost myy balance. The rocks jumbled under myy
feet, and the wind tore at me. I grabbed at an outcrop, steadied myyself. I
looked up.
Her skin was paler even than usual, the first winter’s ice. Her lips were
drawn back, to show her teeth.
“You are a fool,” she said. “Get down. Your halfwit death will not save
him.”
I was not so fearless as I thought; I flinched from the malice in her face.
But I forced myyself to speak, to ask the thing I had to know of her. “How
much longer will he live?”
She made a noise in her throat, like the bark of a seal. It took me a
moment to understand that it was laughter. “Whyy? Would yyou prepare
https://books.yossr.com/en