Текст книги "The Golden City"

Автор книги: Kathleen Cheney

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

She no more wants to go than I want her to leave.

He should be pleased by that knowledge, but instead it hurt, an ache in his chest that must be his heart breaking. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he wasn’t going to batter against her resolve. He finally settled on, “I’ll walk you down to the quay.”

Epilogue

Spray lashed up over the prow of the rowboat, the waves at the mouth of the river rougher than Oriana had expected. The sun’s first light streamed across the water, a red dawn. She cast a glance back to where Duilio sat at the oars, his face grim. His linen shirtsleeves fluttered in the wind; as chilly as the autumn morning was, he’d given her his frock coat anyway to keep her warm until she dove.

The boat breached a low wave and landed hard as they passed the stone breakwater that protected the river’s mouth from the open sea. “The storm is coming,” he called to her.

“I’ll be under,” she called back. “I’ll be safe.” She looked eastward, past Duilio at the city rising on its hills in the sunrise. The whitewashed walls of myriad houses gleamed in the morning light. But the time had come to leave it behind.

It wasn’t the city she would miss.

Duilio shipped the oars, and the boat began to drift outward on the tide. “This thing doesn’t fare well on the open sea, not if it’s rough.”

Meaning that this was as far as he could take her. Oriana rose cautiously. She looked out at the red-stained waters to the west, smelling the salt and the coming storm, still hesitating. She turned back to Duilio, trying to decide what to tell him.

She didn’t know what would happen to her once she got home. She couldn’t even be sure that her leaving would keep her father safe. The only thing that seemed clear to her was that she wanted to return to the Golden City, to come back for him.

Duilio had risen to stand next to her. The boat heaved as another wave came, and he steadied her with a hand under her elbow. He regarded her as if he suffered the same lack of words she did. He ran fingers through his dark hair and then said, “Please come back.”

Oriana reached up and set one bared hand against his cheek, feeling the feathery warmth of his breath on the webbing between her fingers. Duilio turned his head and pressed his lips to her palm, his eyes drifting closed. She pulled away, afraid she would lose her resolve.

“I will try,” she said, her voice breaking. It was the most she could promise. And then, because no more words came to her, she drew off his frock coat and passed it into his hands, shivering as the cold air clutched at her bare skin.

“Go,” he said softly.

Oriana dove, going deep beneath the waves. She didn’t look back.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. Kathleen Cheneyis a former mathematics teacher who has taught classes ranging from seventh grade to calculus, with a brief stint as a gifted and talented specialist. Her short fiction has been published in such venues as Fantasy Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her novella Iron Shoeswas a Nebula Finalist in 2010.