I really tried, Cylene. I intended to give her the world, but I was afraid. Had we left Fossa in pursuit of the life she desired, the Neherians, in all likelihood, would have found me. I didn’t want her to be hurt.”
Cylene’s face softened. “You tried to protect her, to keep her from being hurt, and in doing so hurt her nonetheless. Noetos, do you intend to protect me?”
“No,” he whispered, not knowing what she wanted to hear, afraid that every word he spoke might be the word that drove her away. “I cannot. You have already faced many things I am unable to protect you from, and we are all threatened by forces beyond my power.”
“Even if you could keep me safe, you ought not,” she said. “Otherwise you will smother me as you smothered her.”
So different: gentle where Opuntia was abrasive; calm where Opuntia was excitable. Brave where she was fearful. Yet every time Noetos looked at Cylene’s face he saw Opuntia’s features.
This is what she meant when she said she’d haunt me, he realised with dread. His punishment was he would always see Opuntia in any woman he desired. The future stretched before him and it appeared bleak. With one stroke his dead wife had stolen everything.
* * *
An hour or so later Cyclamere returned, his rough clothes slathered with mud and grass stains, frustration in his eyes. Noetos managed to struggle from a lying to a seated position, though the effort cost him. One look at Cyclamere’s angered visage ensured he did not have to ask his former tutor whether he’d been able to catch Kidson, which was fortunate, as he had insufficient breath. He gulped a few deep lungfuls, the last of which set him coughing.
“Listen to the old man,” Cylene said, leaning into Arathé, who was sitting next to her. She raised her voice. “You’re not going to peg out on us, are you?”
The two girls laughed, genuine mirth mixed with a deal of relief.
Noetos couldn’t help himself: he felt a surge of emotion for Cylene. He had never met anyone like her. Though she was the same age as his daughter, the cheerful girl seemed a full generation older. Attributable to the life she had led, of course: the appalling childhood, having been used by her father, suffering guilt over the loss of her twin sister and the deception that followed; and more recently the prostitution she’d acceded to as a way of escaping her family. Noetos could barely credit her survival, let alone the shining beauty of her personality.
He felt ludicrously happy that Cylene seemed to be making friends with Arathé. Anomer acted a little more standoffish, though that was understandable. The boy continued in his unreasonable anger at his father, still blaming Noetos for his mother’s death. Noetos was prepared to acknowledge there had been a degree of reconciliation, but Anomer still harboured a serious grudge. The boy would not sanction anything that made his father happy, and of course refused to acknowledge Cylene as any sort of replacement for Opuntia. Noetos wondered how long his patience with his son would last.
“No, I’ll draw breath for a while yet,” he answered, and waved his hand in their direction. “I can see a number of reasons to keep breathing.”
Cylene smiled, but did not gush, and Noetos silently thanked her. He had seen old men fall for young women and had been of the repeated public opinion that there was no more pathetic sight. Janne Lockleg, who ran the largest stall at Fossa market, had made a fool of himself mooning after the long-limbed daughter of his business partner. Enela had exploited the man’s obsession, leading him on, the inevitable result being a brawl on Lamplight Street and the subsequent acrimonious termination of the business partnership. The girl had been sent away somewhere west. Noetos sighed. She was probably still alive—unlike Lockleg and Petros, who were probably both dead, killed by the Neherians.
The only survivors are those who left Fossa, Noetos realised. A message in that perhaps: I should never have stayed. Opuntia, he admitted, was right. In fact, had Arathé not left for Andratan and later returned, drawing me out of that cursed village, I would likely have died there.
Cyclamere nodded to him, having waited patiently for the exchange to end. “I pursued the sailor for some time,” he said, “but I lost track of him in the rubble of Long Pike Mouth.”
Noetos groaned as he adjusted his position. “The town is