A Miracle in Moonlight

The cabin waited for her at the foot of the mountain, sheltered in its shadow like some forsaken traveler, weathered and crooked with age, and abandon… Yet, for all its scars, for all the time apart—twenty cycles hence—it stood preserved, as if made manifest from the very depths of her memory.

A warm breeze pressed against Ahmelia Valunkroft’s back, gentle and carrying the life of summer with it. Insects chittered their songs to the evening sky while somewhere in the forest climb a valun cried out. The grass dragged its fingers against the hem of her riding coat, passed underfoot with a rasping sigh. Little purple and white flowers filled the meadow preceding the cabin; blushes of color within the sea of gray-green. She inhaled, deeply, with purpose, and some of her anxiety lifted. Some, but not all.

Not for the first time since leaving, she questioned her decision to come alone, and unannounced. Had she talked to Silvio, he might have understood; the inquisitor had proven himself possessed of a kindliness and compassion that even she could not deny, and she’d come to rely on him as a father. But, the man carried his own pains that had made demons of his memories, and she worried that those might color his perception of why she’d returned to a place of such torment.

No, she decided. It was better this way.

Swallowing, she took the iron door ring and pushed her way inside. The cabin groaned, a slumbering beast roused from its slumber. Dust swirled in the moonlit haze like fairy-things from the old fables mum would read her as a child. The air ran thick with it, damp and slightly water-sour, yet there was a freshness absent from her recollection: More of the purple-white flowers, creeping up through the rotten boards, filling the dark hollows with lushness, the thickest gathering below the old sky-window. The little plants glowed in the silvery light, suffused with the otherness of that celestial place. Their edges blurred, as if unthreading from the tapestry of reality to bleed into the Horizon. Ahmelia blinked her Creator-given eye, and their sharpness returned.

She’d made no invocations, prepared no rites save for the ones time had left behind; she could make out remnants of the channeling circles beneath the film of grime and plant life, as broken and useless as when she’d drawn them. The only talisman she’d brought with her was the knife, bundled in blessed oilcloth and secured in a warded pouch at her waist.

She fingered the pouch now, scarred flesh upon scarred leather. It felt odd not to have the weapon sheathed and on-hand, but the occasion necessitated special considerations. Besides, she was not here to fight.

 Dust trailed in her wake like a dutiful hound, putting itself betwixt her tread before settling again as she patrolled the perimeter. She sniffled. Sneezed; it echoed in the space, bouncing off walls obfuscated by gloom. Lumps of marrow candles sat bunched in the dark like clumps of fungi. Markers of her last visit. She picked up those that had fallen or become lost in the vegetation. Many of the candles were mere stubs, but the wicks were good and there was material enough to work with.

Her heart kicked: not fear, but excitement. An almost child-like giddiness that made knots of her nerves and threatened the meal she’d eaten on the ride over. Her palms were clammy, hands shaking as she rearranged the candles. She nearly tripped over her own scuffling boots as she crossed over to the center of the room and positioned herself beneath the moonlight. Every breath was tremulous; her mouth a desert. She tried for calm, worked to temper her expectations.

What if it was all a lie?

A dream, and nothing more?

What if she doesn’t show?

What if I make a mistake…

Nothing worked. Nothing could disabuse her of the notion that this was where she was meant to be. No place else. More than a notion, it tethered itself to her bones, her very soul. It tugged at her heart with hands so achingly familiar that she couldn’t have resisted even if she’d wanted. There was no distance she would dread crossing, nor tainted place fear could keep her from.

Not when there was a chance.

Ahmelia shrugged off her coat and sat, cross-legged, amidst the flowers. The bare skin of her forearms glowed, while the runic scarification acted as tributaries for the withered shadows. She brought her palms together, aware of the minuscule grains of dust trapped between, then whispered the invocation of Illumination. As the last word left her lips, she opened her hands, and the particulates gathered about her in a cloud, like silent flies, before dispersing outward into the cabin. Where they found a candle wick, a fire flickered to life. Soon, the perimeter of the room buzzed with an orange warmth, a cheerful accompaniment to the cold light of the moon.

Satisfied, Ahmelia pacified the warded pouch, thumbed the clasp, and withdrew the weighty bundle. With reverence she unwrapped it, taking care to smooth out the corners of the cloth. Holy oils slicked her fingers and anointed her senses, the pungency leaving her feeling light-headed. She stared a moment at the knife revealed, a beautiful curve of bluish steel hilted in leather-wrapped whalebone. Runes of protection and strength were worked into the flat of the blade with an exacting precision, not a notch or whorl out of place. Craftsmanship worthy of the Moonswath name, and a gift befitting its owner.

It had been away too long, she decided.

Ahmelia wiped her oily fingers on a trouser leg and settled into a meditative position. Only one thing left, now.

Wait.

Time stretched alongside each measured breath she took… measures threatened by the anticipation clawing inside her chest. The warm summer breeze kissed her cheek, ran its wispy fingers through her mess of hair. Loose strands fluttered at the edge of her vision like trailing snow. It was scraggly, splitting at the ends. Silvio’s wife had offered to cut it for her. Ahmelia had stubbornly, politely refused. So much had changed.

She feared changing one more thing.

What if she dun recognize me?

It was a terrible thing to consider, even in passing, and it threatened to undo her.

She knows me. Better than anyone. An’ I ‘ave the knife.

What if it’s not enough?

What if it was all a dream? Just this cursed eye, playin’ tricks?

But it felt so real…

Ahmelia touched the veil covering the right half of her face, felt the cold thrumming of the metal oculus obscured beneath. The sight-unbroken; had it deceived her?

It never has before.

She balled her hands into fists against her thighs, pressed down hard. “Please,” she begged. “Let this be real. Let me see her again.”

“Then open your eyes.”

Warmth cupped her hands. Scratchy, like calloused fingers might feel. Ahmelia looked up, startled. “Vekka?”

Nothing beyond the cone of moonlight but the little flowers and the flicker of candle-flame. She could feel tears begin to prick the edge of her good eye, all her anxieties and fear bubbling to the surface at once.

Stupid, stupid drokk—

She raised a hand to swipe at the tears, but again the textured heat graced her.

“Don’t cry. Look…”

The veil around the oculus lifted. Ahmelia sat frozen, heart lodged somewhere in her throat. Trapped between hope and fear. This place seemed made for it.

Flashes of memory whipped through her head, fast as a railcar:

“Would it be proper if I… kissed you?” Vekka asks.

“Kay.”

Bodies shift. Vekka shoulders back her heavy cloak, cups her face with calloused hands. War-made, but undeniably gentle in this moment. Their lips meet, brief, tender. Awkward. Sadness punctuates the moment. It makes Ahmelia want to cry.

She waited all this time… for me.

The veil fell away. The oculus, unhindered, saw for her once more, and through its unknowable machinations took presence and threaded it into form.

“Hello, Ahmelia,” said Vekka Moonswath. “I’m so glad you waited.”

Ahmelia lurched forward into Vekka’s bulk. Gone was fear and worry. No more did she think of her changed self, twenty-years frozen on the Horizon. She could think of nothing else, wanted nothing else other than to feel that strength press against her, to have those arms swallow her up.

She had witnessed heaven. Walked alongside the father of their Order as an equal. Stopped an apocalypse.

None of it compared to this.

There were no words between them, for what could be said that they did not already know? The gulf of time and death itself had stolen them apart. To say “I miss you” would be performative. Unnecessary. Ahmelia doubted she would be able to speak regardless; emotion made of her a fountainhead for all the years of hardship and pain. She wept, ugly and openly, and Vekka, too. And once they’d drain their cups of sorrow, they renewed them with love.

“Let me look at you,” Vekka said. She stood, and Ahmelia with her, their hands clasped firm. Vekka’s broad smile widened, crinkling the corners of her eyes, still glittering with remnant tears.

Ahmelia tried not to look away. Her hands tensed reflexively. She wanted to scratch at her nose.

“Your hair’s a mess.”

Flush crept up her neck. “I wanted yeh to rec-anize me…”

“Ahmelia.” Vekka stroked her face. “I’ve never forgotten you.” Her thumb brushed against scar tissue, then the oculus. “All I see is the woman I love.”

Ahmelia choked. “I never thought I’d see yeh again.” Her abused body shuddered, every pain and injustice visited upon it awakening as if called to action by her words. Hers was a well of suffering, and she wanted to cry again, to throw up until nothing remained. She wanted Vekka to understand—

“Everything I did, everything that ‘appened, I deserved. I failed yeh when yeh needed me most.”

“You did nothing of the kind.”

It took Ahmelia a moment to realize Vekka was replying to her, that she’d spoken those words in her head aloud. She flinched from Vekka’s grasp; only a half-step, but it might have been a continent’s-width for all the ache in her chest.

“I canna trust me own mind,” she moaned. “What I see, hear… It ain’t felt like mine in so long. And I’m scared, Vekka. Scared that this—”

Isn’t real.

She swallowed the words. Ashamed.

Vekka stood across the divide, showered in silver and sleeved in a reality that should not be possible. Untouched by time, cloaked in the vestments of their klaerichood, healthy and strong as Ahmelia had ever seen; every inch the woman she knew.

“What does your heart tell you?”

It came in a whisper, so soft that Ahmelia perceived it as another loose thought—until she saw the way Vekka looked at her. The way she’d always looked at her.

Like nothing else matters but me.

Ahmelia’s heart kicked. She stepped forward to put a hand on Vekka’s chest. Felt the pump of the heart nestled within; the warmth of a face flushed with blood beneath her palm; the tickle of Vekka’s dreads against the back of her knuckles. And in those eyes she saw reflected all their years. The Academy, Rullenroot, Belfrost, Avangale, this place; all of it. Every adventure. Every victory and tragedy. A history no amalgamation of the Horizon could ever conjure accurately.

Everything that they were, and are now.

“This is real,” she said with all the relief of a long-held breath finally released. A laugh came unbidden, messy and choked with emotion. “Creator, this is real!”

Vekka chuckled. “It is.”

They embraced once more. Vekka spun her off her feet, both of them laughing now, voices filling the room with a joy it had not previously known. A summer’s breeze shadowed their dance, as if it could carry their mirth back with it to the world outside.

They came to a stop under the moon, breathless and alive. So blessedly alive.

“Thank you, Ahmelia,” Vekka said as they swayed in the otherwordly glow.

“For what?”

“For making this possible.”

Ahmelia tilted her head back to look at Vekka. “Me?”

“Every path you’ve taken has led to this. Every sacrifice, a preparation. It’s because of your resilience that I can see you again.” Vekka smiled at Ahmelia’s hesitation, and spoke the words her former Oath-Sister could not. “All this time staring into the Horizon, believing it to be some unreachable thing, a distance-eternal, and you closed the gap. You survived the impossible, and from your ordeal begot a miracle.

“Which is how I know you’ll survive this, too.”

Vekka kissed her, then stepped out from her arms. Ahmelia struggled to catch up, her thoughts racing. “W-What do you mean?”

“I can’t stay. Not forever.” Vekka’s smile dropped a few notches. “When the moon’s light passes, so too will I return with it. This,” she gestured to herself, “is temporary. A permission granted me by the loosening of the veil that separates here from there.”

“Yeh mean the Horizon.”

A nod.

Some part of her understood that this was always how things would end tonight, had made peace with it long before Vekka had even crossed the threshold into reality. Of course she couldn’t stay.

Because that would have been fair.

Above, the moon waned. It wouldn’t be long now. There was no time for tears. No time to beg. Only one thing left.

“Then I’m goin’, too,” Ahmelia said, and surprised herself when the fear sloughed away. She straightened out. Took Vekka’s hand. “I’m goin’,” she repeated.

“You can’t…”

“I can.” She pressed closer, trying not to let the hurt show. “I’m not afraid,” she argued. “Yeh said so—I did the impossible. So dun tell me I can’t!”

“I saw what the Horizon did to you. What it will do to you again. I won’t let you hurt yourself for me.”

Vekka’s sympathy stoked a fire in Ahmelia’s chest. She held up an arm, pointed at her scarred face. “I already did! I’ve done nuthin’ but hurt myself since yeh died. Yeh was the only thing that kept me goin’ all these years. I wun lose ye again. D’yeh hear me!”

“Yes,” said Vekka. “But do you?”

The question tripped her. “What?”

“We’re supposed to better one another,” Vekka explained. “Not hurt each other.”

“But being with you does better me. It always ‘as.” Now, Ahmelia found the space to plead. She could feel everything slipping out of her grasp. Just like before.

“As you better me,” Vekka said. “But I cannot be all you have. There are others who love you now—differently, but it is love all the same. It would be selfish of me to take you away from them, and those who might know you later.”

“I dun care. I’d give up everything for you.” She fought back sobs.

Vekka smiled, and it went like a knife through her heart. “I know. But you’ve given enough.”

The moon’s pale wash dimmed. Vekka looked up, and she was already starting to fade despite the oculus.

“Almost time.”

“Vekka, wait!” Ahmelia stepped toward her, uncertain of what she hoped to do, resigned to the inescapable truth that there was nothing she could do.

Something skidded beneath her boot. Vekka’s knife, nearly forgotten in the reverie of their reunion. She scooped it up, gripped it tight to fight the tremors. “If this is goodbye, then take this. It’s yours, after all.”

Vekka’s hand closed over hers. Pressed the knife flat to Ahmelia’s chest. “No. I don’t think I will.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Why?”

“Because one day the moon will rise, full-bodied and suffused with miracles. And when it does, I’d love to find you again. Just promise me one thing.”

Ahmelia nodded.

“Don’t wait for me. Go, and find your happiness in this world. You’ve worked so hard to make it a better place. You deserve to enjoy it.”

She wanted to argue. To fight back, gnash her teeth and stomp. To stop Vekka from leaving, or find a way to go with her. But, every path she pondered only led to hurt, for one or both of them.

I wun do that. Not to her.

And deep down, even though it tore her apart to acknowledge it, she knew Vekka was right. For so long, her life had not been her own… and this was the last piece. The past she still needed to put away.

Candle flame struggled to push back the gloom as moonlight faltered. Vekka met her gaze, and Ahmelia saw that her former Oath-Sister understood. They embraced, one last time. A final kiss beneath the moon before the clouds came and swallowed it up, Vekka along with it.

A sliver of moonbeam struck the blade Ahmelia still held; it glittered on the edge like a tear, before slipping away, leaving her all alone.

No, she realized, looking at the knife. Not alone. Never alone. She’s always been with me. And she always will.

No matter where life took her, whose heart she might become tangled in, she would always have her best friend. Her first love. Nothing could keep them apart.

She looked up past the clouds, past the skein of reality and into the Horizon. Knowing she was there… It was enough.

Ahmelia smiled.

It had always been enough.