air rose from those shadows to sting her cheeks. The columns that surrounded the chasm frowned upon her, ancient sentinels of stone. The hall was so silent Solina could hear her own heartbeat.
Finally the dusty, chipped bridge led her to the towering well.
The well was wide—wide enough for a dragon to swim in—and pale bricks formed its rim. It seemed less like a well from here, and more like a pool upon a tower top. Water rose to the brim, silver and opaque and perfectly still. A staircase led from the edge down into the water.
Solina stood above the pool. She lowered her head, and the cold wind played with her hair. She breathed deeply, in and out, again and again. All around her lurked the shadowy pit.
The place of my heart. The innermost whispers of my soul.
She stepped onto the staircase that led into the pool. When her sandals touched the first step, the water rose over her ankles, cold and warm at once, both soothing and stinging like a memory of lost love. She kept descending, taking each step slowly. The water rose to her knees, stung the jewel at her navel, and finally rose to her neck. She raised her head, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She descended the last step, and the water covered her.
When she opened her eyes, she saw feathery white light. A warm breeze caressed her skin and hair. Slowly the light parted like silk curtains and she saw it.
A tremulous smile touched her lips and tears stung her eyes.
"Home," she whispered.
Marble statues filled the small room, carved in her likeness. Tapestries hung from the walls, and plush rugs covered the floor. Upon shelves stood the wooden statuettes he would whittle: deer, leaping fish, and her favorite—a turtle with emerald eyes he had carved especially for her. Upon a table stood a plate of bread rolls, a bowl of apples, and a jug of wine. His bed stood under a window, topped with quilts and pillows, the place where they would kiss, love, sleep, and whisper all the whispers of their hearts.
Outside the windows the day was clear and warm. Birches and cypresses rustled upon the hill, and the scent of jasmines wafted. Only scattered white clouds filled the blue sky. Birds chirruped and bees bustled around the honeysuckle. It was spring in Requiem, a day of peace, of warmth, of him and her.
A day for us. A free day. A perfect day.
The cruel King Olasar, his pitiful daughter Mori, the haughty Lady Lyana and Prince Orin—they were all gone to Oldnale Farms far in the east. Nova Vita was theirs, just hers and Elethor's—a spring for their love, a spring to lie in bed and hold each other, to sit upon the hill and watch the trees, to be free, a day of no fear, no hurt.
She looked around his chamber. Marble statues. Shelves with books and geodes and his carvings. The table with the bread and wine. His bed of quilts. And silence. Waiting. A loneliness like a house after death.
"I created this for us, Elethor," she whispered. She tasted her tears. "You remember. It was the best day of our lives. A day for us. A perfect day."
She had found this old place in this old palace: the Memory Pool, a place where she could weave her dreams. The Ancients, it was said, would enter this pool to return to their childhoods in old age, to revisit old ghosts before the great journey to the world beyond. Solina had only bad memories from her childhood, memories of the dragons slaying her parents, of captivity in the hall of the Weredragon King. But this memory… this memory from only a decade ago… this was pure. This had been—was!—her one perfect day, the one perfect piece of her soul.
"You remember, Elethor." She lay upon his bed and looked up at the ceiling. Cracks spread there like cobwebs, but they were beautiful to her; she knew each one. "You remember how we lay here. We made love three times that night, and you were so lazy in the morning. You didn't want to wake up. Do you remember?"
She was weeping. Her tears flowed down her cheeks and dampened the quilt.
Why did such pain have to fill this world? Why had so much fire burned her? She was but a mortal, but a frail woman, and she had walked through fire, blood, and death. She had fought the dragons and slain