Celoslind 10th chapter

He guarded my steps away from those places and towards the endless sea.

“If there is no peace for you on this shore, take sea road and leave it. You will not return to the one that killed one of our own as long as I draw breath.”

He embraced me one last time there, on the shore and he was lost to me for he had more revenge to take and more duty to respond to before he could find his own peace in life or death. He was not there anymore to hold me but another oath, taken upon drops of blood of my blood that she shed and over the corpse of one who I fought back to back with, and that she killed, bound me to the shore as thik chains bind the grey ships so that no storm, no matter how strong, can wrest away before their fate calls them on their one way road across the sea.

A shadow between worlds I was, unable to leave anywhere, growing old and mindless, heartless, fateless.

I do not know how many years have passed, each day like the previous and following one. I was forever watching the ships or watching back towards the grave of my heart, until, in a red moon night, a dream embraced me and I realised I had no more dreams after I lost her up to that day.

The dream was of the mountain spring and of the small cave hidden among peaks, and cliffs, and valleys, and mountain moors. Our short love’s home and the grave of my heart. I felt that she was not living there anymore. She, my Meldaini, was there but she was not inhabiting the cave or the spring anymore, she was all over, all around them, a diffuse presence, barely clinging to an identity, as bountiful, splendid, wonderful vegetation flourished from every bit of dirt it could cling its life to. I saw small villages scattered among forest and moor and I felt their life pushing to thrive under the bright sun and cloudless blue sky. It was their time and ours was gone.

Then, with the voice that I once loved, the water of the spring winding in its rocky be whispered and then the wind caught the whisper and carried it places until it reached me.

Her whisper was:

“Go on your way.. I forgive you”.