59
~ FOUR YEARS AGO: JOSLYN ~
Spring was Joslyn’s favorite season in Port Lorsin. During the summer, the heat within the city could feel practically as blisteringly hot as the Great Desert. During the winter, rain pelted the cobblestone streets and flooded the sewers almost daily, making the entire capital a stinking mess for weeks at a time. But the stinking wet of winter nonetheless created a fresh and lovely spring. The bluffs overlooking the sea became carpeted with orange and yellow wildflowers; the palace’s northern gardens grew flowers and fruits so readily that the air itself was sweet to the taste.
She lay upon her back with her eyes closed in those very gardens now, using her keen senses to tease out the interwoven scents of jasmine, honeysuckle, and orange blossom.
“What are you doing, love?” Tasia’s tone was amused.
Joslyn opened her eyes. Tasia lay on one side next to her, propped up on an elbow and gazing at Joslyn with a smile playing on her lips.
“Enjoying the smell of spring,” Joslyn answered.
Tasia turned, reaching into the basket behind her and popping a square of cheese into her mouth. She held a second square up. “Want one?”
Joslyn nodded and opened her mouth. With a giggle, Tasia dropped the cheese in.
The cheese was tangy, salty, strong; it provided a pleasant contrast to the flower scents hanging everywhere in the air around her.
“Do we have any wine left?” Joslyn asked once the cheese was gone.
Tasia laughed again. “More? I don’t remember you ever drinking so much wine at one time before, except the time we … The time we …” She trailed off with a slight frown.
Joslyn sat up, the motion triggering a gentle fuzziness in her head that told her she’d probably already had more than enough wine. Once, it had seemed important never to imbibe so much that such a fuzziness dulled her thoughts and senses. Now, lounging here in the springtime northern gardens with Tasia, where the air smelled like flowers, and butterflies flitted about in bright triangles of color, maintaining a perfectly clear head didn’t feel nearly so important anymore.
There were no threats here. There would never be any threats again.
But this place isn’t the gardens,a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Joslyn knew from experience that if she drank a bit more, the voice would grow quiet.
“Yes,” she said, answering Tasia’s question. “More wine. Please.”
Joslyn leaned over, her lips finding Tasia’s. The kiss was closed-mouthed at first, but Joslyn felt a fluttering of passion within herself – perhaps it was the wine – and the kiss became something more. For a moment, when her tongue met Tasia’s, she thought she tasted something foul there. Something rotten. But then the moment passed, and the only thing she could taste was the sweet taste of red wine.
They had both already had enough to drink. Yet they would both drink more, as they had done every afternoon this past week. Or had it been this past month? These leisurely spring days in the gardens with Tasia seemed to stretch out infinitely, and Joslyn was glad for that.
Nothing here is real. You dream,said the voice. Wake, you fool!
Joslyn ended the kiss and reached over Tasia for the half-empty bottle of wine. She uncorked it with her teeth and glanced around for the delicately fluted wine glasses. The way the wine glass stems artfully corkscrewed reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“Shall I pour you another glass, too?”
Tasia pushed herself up into a sitting position and smiled. “Please.”
Joslyn found the glasses and handed one of them to Tasia. She poured, momentarily mesmerized by the way the red liquid caught the sunlight. That, too, reminded her of something, but it probably wasn’t important. So distracted was Joslyn by the light playing through the wine that she overflowed the glass. Wine streamed over the lip, spilling down over Tasia’s fingers.
“Joslyn!”
Joslyn laughed. “Whoops.” Leaning forward, she put her lips on the rim of Tasia’s glass and drank until the level lowered. Then, with a mischievous glance into her green eyes, Joslyn dipped her head lower, extended her tongue, and licked the wine slowly from Tasia’s fingers.
Tasia’s lips parted; her breathing became heavier. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up my mess.”
“Maybe … maybe you should make a bigger mess …”
Joslyn gave her princess a wicked grin.
She’d known someone who used to grin like that all the time. Someone with a gap between her front teeth. Joslyn couldn’t recall her name – Joslyn was certain it was a her – but she did remember that she’d never particularly liked the woman, and so she pushed back down on the pesky memory trying so hard to sprout in her mind.
There were more important matters to attend to at the moment anyway.
Joslyn took Tasia’s wine glass from her still damp fingers and poured its contents over Tasia’s bosom. The Princess wore a scoop-necked dress today, and the dark wine spilled across both breasts and down the narrow space between them. Tossing the wine bottle aside – if it broke or emptied, another would appear; she had learned this from experience, too – Joslyn laid her princess down onto the spongy green grass. Ever so slowly, she licked the wine from the space between Tasia’s breasts, drawing a soft moan from the Princess.
“Should we … don’t you think we should go inside first? What if someone sees?” Tasia asked.
“Let them see. I’m tired of hiding.” Joslyn’s words were harsher than she’d meant them to be, so she added in a gentler tone, “I’m ready for everyone to see how much I love you.”
There’s no one else here,the nagging voice whispered. All the others you see are shadows playing the roles you put them in.
Joslyn wished that voice would shut up. Fortunately, she knew of one method that silenced it every time, at least for a time.
She put a hand on either side of the scoop-neck, then pulled hard. The dress ripped down the center with a satisfying sound of tearing fabric, and both Tasia’s breasts bounced free.
Tasia mumbled something – perhaps another argument that they should do this inside, perhaps an exhortation or Joslyn’s name, but Joslyn couldn’t hear her. She caught one of Tasia’s nipples between her teeth, giving it a soft bite before kissing away more of the wine and moving on to the other breast.
“I love you,” Tasia whispered. “I love you more than you can ever know, more than –”
But before Tasia could say more, Joslyn silenced her with a kiss.
This part is real,Joslyn thought, even though the thought itself confused her. Tasia’s love for her, her own love for Tasia. None of it was an illusion.
Though why would any of it be illusion? Or perhaps a better question: How could it be an illusion? Joslyn could taste the wine upon Tasia’s lips, feel the smoothness of Tasia’s skin beneath her calloused hands, smell Tasia’s scent, perfume mingled with a subtle smell uniquely her own.
How could it be illusion? Since when had Joslyn’s senses ever lied to her?
Tasia pulled up on the bottom of Joslyn’s tunic, slipped a hand up Joslyn’s flank until she cupped one of Joslyn’s breasts. Joslyn wore no binding across her chest, and both her breasts were smooth, unmarred. She couldn’t understand why that surprised her. Another memory, a far darker memory, tried to push its way to the surface, but Joslyn batted it away.
Your breasts are both scarred,whispered the voice. They’ve been scarred since you were thirteen summers, since –
Joslyn broke the kiss and put her lips beside Tasia’s ear. “I love you, too,” she said over the voice in the back of her mind, and nipped at Tasia’s earlobe.
There were no illusions here. This was real, this love they each carried like a secret treasure within their hearts, and nothing could take it away from them. It would save them one day, Joslyn thought, though she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.