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Dawn was beautiful rising from these frozen shores. Colin had forgotten. Or maybe he never looked closely enough when he had the chance. For a second, watching the folds of frail golden light sweep over the tundra, Colin could almost forgive Deli for everything he had done—could almost forgive himself.
“Up ahead,” Deli said beside him. Past the fork in the road, almost obscured by mist, there was a small thatched hut in the crevice between two great mountains.
Colin was a little surprised. There? That was Deli’s safehouse?
“Yes,” Deli replied. Then, correcting himself, he said, “Here was where I spent my boyhood.”
They were a full day’s ride away from the closest village. Years ago, the Chieftess had told Colin how she had raised Deli outside of her clan, forsaken by her kinsmen because of a fatherless pregnancy. Here the Chieftess had nursed Deli. Then, when Deli could walk, she returned to her clan and sought revenge on the men who had usurped her and her son’s birthright.
It had only been a week since the last treaty was signed and the war had ended—the war that they were now calling the Ravening War. To the victors fell the spoils; among the victors were the spoils divided. Men who had never before dreamt of riches were transformed by the sudden flood of titles and lands from Ceresian tributes. These men eyed those in the rungs above, where among others Deli stood.
Deli’s absence in the final battle of the war was noted. His mixed parentage was reexamined among the Meatland troops. Basha was loathed to let go his best advisor, his kingmaker. But Basha’s reign had been brief, despite his military victories, and therefore fragile. Deli told Colin that he did not want to force Basha’s hand, but Colin knew that Deli was tired of fighting.
Colin was not. He could no more forget Raphaniel’s last screams and those teeth, those damn teeth of the Fellowship’s god, than he could sheath his sword. Since leaving Saprophus, Colin had been seized with a restlessness he had never before experienced. At the center of the restlessness was a terrible and intoxicating thing: a direction. All his life he had run away from this or that, drifted away, refused to engage, acted in the negative. For revenge, he now became clear-eyed. His life’s mission would be to hunt down the last of the Fellowship until the end of this land. He held this belief without embarrassment.
A hand on his shoulder. Deli’s. “Can we rest for a bit?”
Of course, Colin told him.
They set up camp by a river that was frozen over violently: the surface roiled with stilled currents, and huge solid white waves soared against the river banks. But the river itself was suffocated into silence.
Colin went through familiar motions: arranging twigs around dry land, gathering frost for water, raising the soup pot, waiting as Deli dashed together two pop rocks against the tinder. They stoked the fire. It grew warm and comfortable. Colin took off his outer coat, and Deli took off the fur draped over his bare shoulders.
They ate. This would be the last meal they would have together for some time. Colin understood this. He was serene in this fact—that was, until Deli spoke.
“We were here once,” Deli said.
Did they? Colin did not recognize the place.
“The river looks different now,” Deli said, gesturing in front of them. “It had been flowing. It was summer. And we weren’t here, exactly. We were somewhere more upstream or downstream. But we had pitched a tent around by a grand white fish-bone fir. It was steady. It saved us from the storm.”
Colin remembered now. Not the river or the fir tree, but the memory that Deli had been guiding him towards. It had been so early after they had left Comida. Deli, much younger, exuberant, had won the approval of his kinsmen and been named emissary on behalf of the clan that morning. It was all that was on Deli’s mind and in the glint of Deli’s eye.
In the evening, they had laid next to each other as usual. There had been no fire in the tent; their only source of heat was each other. The storm had lapped against the tent flap. Icy raindrops had sought to penetrate their thin canvas of a roof. They would have died of the cold if either the canvas or the entrance had given in. But little of this mattered to them. Colin listened to Deli talk about a beautiful future and a beautiful world for his people. There would be happiness, Deli said, and Colin had indeed felt great happiness. Then Deli had stopped, looked over at Colin, and kissed him.
“You were the one who told me that I should save myself for someone I loved,” Deli said now. They had proceeded no further that evening.
“I remember,” Colin told him.
“But I do love you.”
The confession stunned him, but it did not surprise him. It was a plunge into a cold pool—the body adjusted to the shock in a heartbeat. Love, love, love. Colin loved him. Of course Colin loved him. How long had Colin loved him. But they were past the time—the biological age? the historical epoch?—when a passionate confession could remedy all ills. How much time had they had to reexamine themselves and each other? How much time had they to say those words of love? Colin wanted to tell Deli that he loved him. The Colin of all of their travels together threatened to burst from Colin’s throat: I do love you too, I do. But Colin held himself back. It was restraint with the slightest edge of malice. Colin knew that he could hurt Deli then. Was it cruel of Colin to still want that power over Deli? He almost wanted to hurt him. Was there a part of him that thought the act of refusal ensured he would stay that much longer in Deli’s mind? Did he think Deli saw Karna when Deli looked at him? Was this fear that he felt fear for himself or fear for Deli?
Instead, he kissed Deli for the second time in his life. Deli kissed him back. What a lovely sight they now made: two figures intertwined together by a fire, the clansman’s bare back against the light and the cold, the man beneath him willing and pliant. How deeply they kissed each other then, as though they would never let each other go.
It would live forever in Colin: this kiss, this love of his, Deli, the young prince, his youth, Colin’s youth. Colin knew it. But everything became a memory as soon as they begun; Colin anticipated the end as soon as they started. Already he was living in the future, looking back curiously, the present in retrospective. He felt desire, he thought. He felt Deli’s desire too. Deli was trembling, was grasping at him, holding onto him, pulling him in by the collar in one moment, pushing Colin into the frozen ground in the next, clashing teeth, nipping at his lips, digging into his skin, forcing Colin to take shape as a physical entity. But Colin only held Deli in an embrace.
And Deli finally gave up on Colin. Deli’s kisses slowed, grew gentle. Then Deli broke away. Colin did not protest. Deli lifted his face to the sky and let go of Colin.
Later, on the path back to the harbor, Colin could not be sure, but he thought he spotted it near the horizon: that great fish-bone fir by the river, whose spine stretched into the heavens, next to which he and Deli had set up shelter together so many years ago.