The Custodian, Ch3

Lyx ran at him before he ever made it to the door of her tiny shack. Her tunic was askew and she wasn’t wearing sandals, her eyes dry and fierce. He stopped. She rammed into him full force, her small fists swinging at his chest. He let her, had to let her. She had the right to this, and he tried his best to hold himself together, so she could let all her grief out first.

She turned her head and without moving away from him, fists still pounding his body as if by habit, she screamed at the man standing on the stoop of the shack: “My knife, Bellard!” Belard shook his head, hands raised in front of him, eyes pleading.

“Bring me my knife, Belard,” she said again in a tight voice, her hands falling to her sides, body leaning away from Gallard, toward her lover.

“You should both come inside. We should talk,” Belard said just loudly enough for his voice to carry and walked back inside. Lyx grunted and then faced him again. Gallard looked at her face, older now, though not as old as it should be. Her skin was wind whipped and sunburnt, patches of it reddish and not as smooth as he remembered, but her eyes still held him in the way nobody else’s ever had. She stared at him, silent and still, as if waiting for him to say something. There was so much he needed to say to her, so many words he owed her, but he couldn’t find a way to do it. He was as sorry as he’d ever been, but he couldn’t say that. It was somehow too much and not enough. He stayed silent.

“Coward!” Lyx slapped him hard on the face. He flinched, rage and embarrassment setting his guts on fire. She turned away without a word and walked into the shack. He had to go in there, he knew that, but for the first time, he dreaded that narrow stoop. The small, smoky kitchen with the old benches made out of dead whisper trees. The torn up monarch seal skin by the fire pit that he used to love to curl up on. Curl up with her…. He swallowed and followed her inside.

Belard met him at the door, eyes cast down. The man never said much. Gallard liked him for that. He so badly wanted to hate him for all the time he’d been with Lyx, but the man never really gave him reason.

“She’s at the fire. I’ll leave you two to talk,” Belard said cooly, evenly. The man had his hunting bag on. That’s why he couldn’t ever hate him. He was just so damn considerate and kind about everything. He let him go without another word, not wanting to prolong this.

Lyx had her back to him, stiff, unmoving. He approached her slowly, as he would a spooked beast, steeling himself for her anger and her hurt. Steeling himself against the words she would throw at him like Cyroxian daggers, fast and sharp and always hitting their mark. He deserved it, but it was all too new, and he hadn’t slept in too long. He didn’t think he could take it without breaking down in front of her, and he’d sworn to himself he’d never let himself do that again.

He took a deep breath and knelt by her, not looking at her face.

“If you lie to me, I will stab you through the heart and throw you into the quarry shaft. I swear on Calysta’s Light I will,” Lyx said. He flushed. He glanced at her hands and was not surprised to see her holding her curved hunting knife. Her grip so tight, her hand was unnaturally white around the handle.

It was the knife he’d given her when they first met. The one she’d had then was so dull and the metal so soft, she couldn’t have killed a slug with it, and he had felt bad for her. She had always been proud, even as a half-starved girl. She didn’t want his charity, she’d told him. He’d tried giving it to her so many times, and every time she’d made him feel small for doing it. He didn’t understand then what it was like to be pitied, the hurt it brings. But finally, she had taken it, and he had been glad, almost giddy. For half that water cycle she’d brought him stew meat and pelts and occasionally a fat fish, scaled and gutted, all stashed into a rickety wooden basket that she’d stowed under his porch in the dark of night, so he could never catch her at it. So he could never thank her.

She faced him, the knife hand resting on her lap, her face expectant, but angry too. She would probably always be angry at him. “Lyx.” His throat was dry, scratchy. “Can I please have a glass of water?” He kept his eyes down, embarrassed to have to ask for something so small, but not trusting that he was free to do it himself. She pointed to the kitchen, and looked away from him into the dying fire.

He swallowed a whole jug of water and rinsed the sweat from his face. His hands shook ever so slightly and he tucked them into the pockets of his uniform pants before walking over to the fire. He wanted to ask her if she’d let him drop more wood in, but it felt hot enough in the house, and it didn’t seem right to stall any more than he already had.

He knelt next to her, looking at her face for one brief moment, long enough for her to turn toward him. Their knees were almost touching and his face heated with embarrassed at how close they were, as if he stepped over some line he wasn’t allowed to cross. Scooting back would have seemed cowardly now, so he stayed as he was and bowed his head.

“I don’t know if I can get him out of this, Lyx. I–” He stopped. Couldn’t say another word for the lump in his throat. He felt her hand under his chin, lifting his face up. He let her, but he couldn’t look at her.

“You owe me better than this, Gallard. Look at me.” He shook his head, her hand still touching him, making him ache. He felt the edge of the knife press against his chest. If it weren’t for a small chance he could still save Calton, he’d beg her to push the damn blade in. He was tempted to do it even now. Instead, he forced himself to look at her and her face broke him, the grief on it raw, complete. His breath caught in his throat and sat there like a lump of ore.

Her eyes were spilling water down her cheeks, her neck, but they stared at him, into him, accusing pools of hurt and sadness and heartbreak. He reached for her and felt the sharp point of the blade pierce his skin. The pain of it surprised him, but he didn’t dare defend himself, didn’t dare move at all. He took a slow breath, keeping his eyes on her, giving her permission, if that’s what her eyes were imploring him for. Anything to make it stop, to make the ache he felt in his chest and in his guts leave. But Lyx didn’t move, just held him with the blade’s edge and with her eyes full of the shine of pain in them.

He dropped his hands to his sides, watching her, waiting, half hoping that maybe she would do it after all. He was so unbearably tired.

“I’m so tired, Lyx,” he whispered, unwittingly, without thinking. She winced, as if startled and let go of his chin. The knife clattered to the floor–a small speck of cheap wine-red marking the white seal skin. He stared at that drop, remembering Calton’s blood on the edge of the sword, and he couldn’t hold himself together. He shrank away from her and curled into himself, hiding his face in his hands, and quietly let his tears spill.

Lyx let him be for a long time, not touching him, not saying a word. When he could finally look up again, the fire was blazing hot, and he was alone. He stood and walked to the small, dusty window. The light had changed to something dusky, a lifeless soupy gray, all the color leached out of the sky and the trees. He’d always loved the trees here, all the different kinds of trees that seemed so much more like trees should be than the whisper trees in the city. These were more like the trees he’d grown up with, ones that didn’t carry memories of anybody, not even themselves. They simply grew and died and made more of their own kind, and only the wind and the cycles moved them or changed them….

“You hungry?” Gallard startled at her voice and turned, Lyx standing right in front of him, looking at him with concern. Maybe pity. He couldn’t tell with her any more. It had been too long.

“No, not hungry.” He hadn’t been hungry in days if not weeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate, but he wasn’t hungry.

“You should still eat something. Your hands are shaking.”

He drew his hands into fists and averted his face. “I don’t think I can stomach anything.” His voice shook. A hot flash of anger towards her blossomed in his guts. He fought it. It wasn’t her fault that he felt so bloody weak.
Lyx wrapped her hand around his wrist and pulled him to face her. “I made you a plate, and you will eat, and then we’ll talk,” she said, and he had no choice that he could see but to follow her into the small kitchen. Lyx served him a plate of bland fish and something that looked like rice, only he knew it wasn’t, as nobody could grow something like that where she was. The food tasted like chalk and he had to force every bite of it down, gulping water as if he were washing down rocks, but he managed to finish most of it, enough to where she’d let him be about it.

“Did you know?” Lyx looked up at him as soon as he set his fork down.

“Did I know what?” He glared at her. “That he’d choose that? That he’d rather die than kill his best friend over some tradition, some ritual that he doesn’t even understand?” His voice rose despite the sadness in him. He stood and walked away, keeping his back to her. She could stab him now if she wanted to for all he cared. He’d welcome it. But she stayed silent and he couldn’t take the tension, the fight of it all for another minute.

He faced her. Lyx stood against the small wall by the fire pit, leaning on it, by the looks of it. Her hands were empty, laced in front of her, a waiting look in her piercing eyes. He could never quite assign a color to them, not even back when they were both young. It mutated from gray to the color of new born grass, never quite staying still long enough for him to name it. But they still haunted him, her eyes, after all this time. They still visited him in his dreamscapes, looking right at him, unblinking, intense, searching, always searching for some answer or another. He had always loved and hated it about her.

“No, Rion. I didn’t think he’d kill his best friend. I never could think that of him. He is truly your son in that.” Gallard winced, dropped his eyes, then forced himself to look at her again. It had been too long since anyone had called him by his given name. Too long since he’d heard it in her voice, and she’d used it to hurt him.

“I shouldn’t have said that–” She took a deep breath and shook her head, her eyes cast down, making it easier for him to breathe. “–I was only asking if you suspected it, if you could tell…. I need to know if there are others that would maybe help. We have to help him. We have to save him somehow,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

He’d never seen her so small before, so afraid. By Calysta -- he’d never seen her afraid before, not of anything. He took the few steps to her, holding his hands out in front of him, asking permission. He needed to hold her, needed to inhale her warm-bread smell, needed to clutch her to his chest and let her cry for their lost boy so he could do the same.

Lyx shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. He stumbled to a stop not two steps away from her, embarrassed that he dared ask, embarrassed that it hurt as badly as it did that she didn’t let him.

He had to get out of this shack. He dipped his head to the only woman he ever loved, whispered, “I’ll do what I can, Lyx. You have to know that. If there is a way, anything at all, I’ll find it. For him. I have to go….” He turned to the door, not looking at her, not looking at anything but the old wood door he was close enough to touch now. He stopped with his hand on the handle waiting for permission to run, not daring to take his leave without it.

“Will you see him?”

“No,” he lied, and swung the door open, a gust of wind catching him in the face, making him stumble. “I’ll be back in two sunrises, I promise.” He slammed the door shut behind him.

He wanted to run, but he felt too drained to move his feet as he was. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t come after him, not after this. Not ever again after this.

Here are links to previous chapters of this story, in order:
Chapter 1, Part 1
Chapter 1, Part 2
Chapter 2, Part 1
Chapter 2, Part 2