Chapter Seven
Emerald Cove

 

Cinero was standing. He was sure of it. There was the ground, almost six feet below him. But all of the hallmarks of standing — the weightiness of it, the pressure on the soles of his feet, the sense of “down” being a direction — were missing. He looked around. He appeared to be standing in… a space. It was hard to make out exactly what, or where. There was a sense of forest-ness. The ground was covered in moss. Patterns of light, like sun through leaves, painted bright greens around him. He saw trees, twisted in shapes he’d never seen, thick trunks with reds and yellows on top. A blue sky somewhere overhead. Like a glade on a warm autumn afternoon. 

“Where am I?” he asked, and then realised no sound had come out of his mouth. He reached up to touch his lips, his throat, and found that he had none of the above. No hand. No face. He simply was. The words he had spoken had appeared as a concept in the air, but it was voiceless, like a whisper on the wind. “Am I dead?” 

“I certainly hope not,” Aesling said, from a direction that could have been ‘behind him’ if something like that had any real meaning when he didn’t have a corporeal form to speak of. “I’m working hard to make sure you don’t. But while that’s going on, I wanted to talk.”

Cinero turned his attention to her. Aesling was beautiful. Ethereally so. Her face was sharp, with high cheekbones and a hard-lined jaw. Dark lips. A skin that seemed to almost have a glow to it. And bright, vibrant green eyes. She was wearing flowing robes, in various bright colours, that seemed to ripple and flow like an unfelt breeze was slowly stirring them. Her auburn hair, woven in a messy braid, hung lazily over her shoulder. 

“What’s your name, child?” she asked. Cinero floated forward and back a little bit. 

“Cinero,” he said. Aesling nodded, and pursed her lips. Even though he didn’t really seem to exist in this place, wherever it was, she was looking right at him. 

“Well then, child,” she said, “to answer your earlier question: You aren’t anywhere. This is the inside of your own mind. Though I did make myself at home in this little corner somewhat.”

“What is this place?” Cinero asked, looking around. “I’ve never seen trees like this.”

“It’s home,” Aesling said as she walked through the glade, running her fingers over the barks of the trees. “Or rather, it used to be. Before the Emperor had them all burned down.” Her voice was sharp, but not regretful. “I carry it with me.”

“That’s… sad,” Cinero said, and immediately felt like a fool. Of course it was said. The woman’s home had been burned down, and ‘sad’ was the best thing he could come up with?

“It is,” Aesling said, ”but for now, it’s a refuge. It’s a place where we can talk while I keep you from dying. I take it you have questions, but I’m afraid those will have to wait until I’ve had the time to get some answers out of you first.”

“Oh?” Cinero was a little surprised. “I don’t know what you’d ask of me,” he said. “I’m afraid I am not that interesting. But I’m happy to answer, if you’ll hear my questions.”

“You are most definitely interesting, child,” Aesling said, “even if you don’t believe so yourself. But yes, of course I’ll hear and answer what questions you might have. A gift for a gift, a boon for a boon.” Aesling sat down on a large root that stuck out of the ground. “I used to have a place, much like this one, when I travelled with Prince Clarus,” she said. “There was a major difference, though.”

“What’s that?” Cinero asked, trying not to linger on the image her words conjured. 

“He visited me, here. He was so tall, so handsome, the way his hair lit up in the sunlight,” she said. Well, now Cinero couldn’t avoid the image. Prince Clarus, golden hair in golden light, leaning against a tree, relaxed and happy. “Do you see how that is different?”

“I am not him,” Cinero said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I mean, child. And not something to apologise for. Much as he and I… grew closer, I’d rather be able to see him with my own two eyes.” She sighed. “But that’s not it. Prince Clarus was here. He stood, right where you are.” She raised an eyebrow. “In the flesh, as it were.” Cinero looked down. There was just the ground. No flesh to speak of.

“Why don’t I have a body, Aesling?” he asked. “You say I’m not dead, but…”

“I know,” Aesling said. “Quite the conundrum, yes?” She stood up and walked over to him. “But I can sense you. You are here. While all of this is… well, I’ve not had a lot of experience. But in here, you are as you believe yourself to be. Would you believe Prince Clarus imagines himself to be several inches taller than he actually is?” She sighed wistfully. “I did not mind.” Cinero would have frowned, if he’d had a face.

“How can I not have a body, then? I exist. I believe I do. So why then?”

“That’s the question,” Aesling said, “though I believe I have an answer for you. While we speak, you are on the floor, still bleeding, I fear, quite profusely. Thought not as badly as before. I am doing what I can.”

“How?” Cinero asked.

“Magic,” Aesling said. “Old, deep magic. None of that… noisiness you people are fond of. Magic from before the first clay was made into brick, before the first wheel turned. Before words.” That was almost impossible to believe. And it would mean Aesling was…

“Not human,” Cinero said. Aesling just nodded. 

“Not human,” she confirmed. “Something like but unlike. A bit older, I think.” She smiled softly. “And as I am mending that broken body of yours, I find that, perhaps it need not be the way it was. And then I am in here, and there’s nothing here for me. No frame of reference. I have a canvas and no model.”

“What do you mean? It’s not possible to simply change, is it?”

“It’s magic, child. It can do whatever the fuck I want it to.” She cocked her head. “Within reason.” 

“Then… what?” 

“Well, that is up to you, isn’t it?” Aesling said. “Why do you not have a body in here, do you think, child?” Cinero thought about it. He existed, right? Certainly, there wasn’t much to him. He’d never really considered himself worth exploring. No hidden depths. Barely a person. Because he didn’t want to be, not really. No ambitions to be a great man, a great lord. No desire to be anything. Just a slow forward momentum.

“Do I not exist, Aesling?” he asked. The phrase had come to him derisively, almost as a sneer, but when they’d left his mind, he realised he genuinely didn’t seem to know. 

“Perhaps not the way you think,” Aesling said. “Do you know why, in a roomful of powerful men, mages, warriors, I asked to be in your head?”

“You said something…” Cinero said, the sentence, the memory, fresh in his mind and yet refusing to come forward. Not for a lack of ability, but for a lack of trying. He didn’t want to really acknowledge it. At the time, it had been drowned in the noise and the confusion, and it had stuck out to him regardless. 

“I did,” Aesling said. “In a roomful of men, I found you.”

“But I am…”

“Are you?” Aesling cut him off. “From where I am standing, you aren’t anything.” She crossed her arms and paced back and forth. “You are shapeless. Consider me… a shaper of clay, if you will. I’m currently sculpting your body, your real one, back together. But perhaps there is work to be done within as well as without, hmm?”

“What kind of work?” Cinero asked. He knew the answer, but the only steps he felt he could take were incremental ones. “What do you mean?”

“Child, I will not spell all of this out for you,” Aesling said. “I am doing what I can, but some leaps of faith you have to make for yourself. Why did I reach for you?”

In a room full of men, a woman chose Cinero to exist within. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? And it’s not like it hadn’t been a recurring thought, for a long time. The conversation with Caerella came to mind. “I’m no man,” Cinero said. Aesling smiled and clasped her hands together. 

“There we are.” She seemed so satisfied. Proud, even. 

“How could you tell?”

“A feeling,” Aesling said. “So you are no man, child. What are you? Who are you?”

“I’ve known. I have always known.” 

“How?” Aesling asked. 

“I’ve felt it. I did not know it was possible, something that could be.”

“It can,” Aesling said. “I suspect it is not uncommon. I’ve seen and met a great many people, before meeting Prince Clarus, although few with your… certainty.”

“But I’m not certain,” Cinero said. “I don’t know who I am, who I am supposed to be.”

“But you’re no man,” Aesling said. “It radiates off you. Your desire not to be one shines like a beacon for those who know where to look. So if not a man, who are you, child?”

It was there. A word, a thought, there for the taking. Out loud, it would be spoken into reality. Could it just be said, like that? “A woman?” Cinero hazarded. 

“If you wish,” Aesling said. 

“It can not just be that easy, can it?” Caeralla had said as much, back then. But then… Caerella didn’t know everything, and the possibility that it was that easy, that they could just not be Cinero, not be who they’d always been told they were, the possible impossibility of it, was so tantalizing it could be felt in the air.

“It can,” Aesling said, and with those two words, a tempting world of possibility began to bloom into existence. “Who you are is decided by none but you.”

“Could I be?” 

“You could,” Aesling confirmed again. They didn’t want to believe it. If that was true, there’d be no going back. Knowing oneself would be a curse to carry with them forever.

“Aesling?” 

“Yes?”

“I think I might be a woman,” she said, with all the terrifying certainty that came with knowing herself.

“Congratulations,” Aesling said. “Is that woman named Cinero?” That name felt so strange now. It felt wrong, now that it was clear that that person did not even really exist. 

“I don’t think so?” Words still formed in the air, without a throat for them to come from, but the voice was different now. Lighter, more feminine. “But what name, then?”

“There’s a name that I think could fit you,” Aesling said. “It means many things to many different people, but I think it could mean the truth, for you.”

“What is it?” 

“Vera,” Aesling said. 

“Yes,” Vera said. It was like someone had gently tapped a crystal, a silver ringing sound that reverberated through her soul. It sounded right. “I think that’s my name.” 

“You don’t have to be certain,” Aesling said, holding up a hand. “You have time. A lot of it, I think. I plan to grow very old.”

“How is that possible?” Vera asked.

“This glade is my home,” Aesling said, waving her hand at the surrounding landscape. “But it is only a reflection. Once, I was keeper of the woods. I was once the life in an acorn, the apples on the branches. I was the forest and it was me.”

“You are a forest spirit?”

“If that word fits your understanding.”

“So what now?” Vera asked, and she realised her voice had rang out clearly through the glade. Spoken from her mouth. She reached up and touched her own face. Soft fingers touched sharp cheekbones. She looked at her hands. 

“Now,” Aesling said, “I have something to work towards, little sapling. Is this you?” Aesling looked her in the eye with a burning intensity. Vera didn’t have to look down to know her body felt like hers, possibly for the first time in her life. She didn’t have to, but she did anyway, because she knew she’d like what she’d see, and she did. 

“Oh my,” she said, and realised that she hadn’t imagined herself wearing clothes. She felt her cheeks blush. It was good to have those again.

“Very modest,” Aesling quipped, and turned away, looking up at the sky. “Now, Vera,” she said, and turned to look at her, “you are about to wake up in the world as yourself for the first time. Are you ready?”

“No,” Vera said with a smile.

“Good. I’d be very suspicious if you were. Now, open your eyes, child.”

Vera opened them, for the first time, and smiled. Then she coughed up a little blood, and pushed herself to her feet.