With his ear leaning against ZaiWin’s chest, Snow listened as his heart slowly calmed down, until it fell back into its normal slow cadence. Warm fingers were absent-mindedly drawing small circles on his back and shoulder, and Snow just stayed there, enjoying the comfortable silence.
A deep sigh warmed the top of his head, and then the source of that pleasant heat was gone.
“You can ask questions, if you want to.”
Snow looked up at ZaiWin just to make sure he meant it, but the blue eyes that stared back at him looked surprisingly calm and clear. Hugging the arm wrapped around his waist, Snow leaned back against his chest.
“I can tell that you don’t like talking about it.”
ZaiWin sighed again.
“It’s true that I don’t like talking about it. But, on the other hand, I rather have you learn about me directly from me. Going forward I’m sure you’ll end up … hearing certain things. And although I don’t usually care about what other people say or think about me, with you it’s different.”
Snow lowered his gaze and gently touched the red scar on ZaiWin’s chest, tracing the red welt. Like the one on his stomach, if it had been on the left side, it could have easily taken his life. It was really a miracle he had survived this long.
“I got that one when I was thirteen,” ZaiWin calmly stated. “We had just received news of a feimao attacking one of the villages and were on our way there. ZenTar and I had been able to gather approximately two hundred men brave enough to join our quest. We were camping outside. One of my men stabbed in my sleep. He was actually a spy from the Palace, sent by the El’Dai herself. ZenTar tells me that I was between life and death for a whole week.”
Snow covered the red scar with his hand and sighed. Had the beautiful golden-haired Tien’Elhar he had met at the Temple watched over him and saved him then as well?
“Why do they fear you so much?” he whispered and ZaiWin’s arms held him a bit tighter, as if he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally let go of him.
“I should have never been born.”
“Why? MenTar and VinWei told me a bit about your mother. That others didn’t see her with good eyes, because she refused to name your father,” Snow said timidly, wondering if it was really all right for him to talk about such things. “But certainly there are a lot of children born in that same situation. Is knowing one’s father’s name that important amongst noble people?”
“It’s true that I was born a bastard. But, as you guessed, there are a lot of bastard children amongst the noble Clans. Of course, they’re rarely accepted as part of the main branch of the family. But they’re equally rarely treated poorly because of their birth-origin. They normally become servants or companions to the officially recognized children.”
All the more reason why Snow couldn’t understand why they had to want him dead.
“So … is it because the El’Dur wanted to marry your mother?”
ZaiWin laughed dryly at that.
“As if that would ever happen. As if that pompous, son of a bitch would ever recognize a black-haired woman as one of his official wives, even if there’s a high probability that her children would probably all be red-haired like him!” he spat, every word dripping pure hatred and scorn. And Snow snuggled closer to him, wishing his heart would go back to its calm, slow rhythm.
ZaiWin took a deep breath.
“I bet they told you, right? That my mother was killed by her Tien’Elhar.”
Snow went immediately rigid at the sound of those words, his heart drumming anxiously against his chest as he nodded.
“But Tien’Elhar are incapable of harming other people, much less take a life,” ZaiWin added, his voice full of sarcasm. It was clear he didn’t believe his own words one bit.
“And yet the impossible undeniably happened. And my mother was killed by her Tien’Elhar. Something that had never happened before. There are several accounts of Celestials dying because of their Chosen Ones, either because their Chosen Ones stray from the righteous path or because they simply die. There were even two occasions when the Chosen Ones actually murdered their Celestials in cold blood. But the opposite … it was just impossible, they said. It simply could not be. For a moment they even accused me of killing her, since I was found near my mother’s dead body, my clothes drenched in her blood. But then, just before she died as well, my mother’s murderer came forward and calmly confessed her crime. And so the impossible became indisputable.
“Since I was apparently innocent, they could only conclude that it must have been my mother’s fault. That somehow she had been cursed by the Heavens. That she must have committed some horrible sin. Something so horrible that one of the Sacred Beings sent by the Heavens had been tasked to punish her severely in a way no one had ever been punished. It had to be something so terrible and grave that her own Celestial, not only had been able to turn against her Chosen One, she had received a message from the Heavens telling her that killing her was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, even if doing so meant her own death as well. And so, if my mother had been cursed so terribly by the Heavens, it was only natural that her entire bloodline had to be cursed as well. Which meant me. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me right there and then, why they ended up changing their minds and allowed me to live.”
ZaiWin took another deep breath.
And yet, Snow thought, the beautiful golden-haired woman he had met in the Temple hadn’t sounded as if she hated or resented her Chosen One at all. In fact, NimMai had told him that she had promised her Chosen One that she would always look after her child. Snow didn’t know how that was possible, or how she’d managed to do it, but she had, in fact, been able to keep her promise. Even though she had seen the growing darkness within ZaiWin with disgust, she had still protected him and kept him alive until he had finally found Snow. What had she told him? She had bound herself to her Chosen One’s dying wish. To ZaiWin’s mother’s dying wish. It was hard to believe that she would have been willing to do so if she thought her Chosen One to be this horrible sinner, cursed by the Heavens like ZaiWin had put it.
“And so they have been trying to kill you ever since then because of what happened?”
“That’s one of the reasons, yes. The most widely known, at least.”
Snow fidgeted nervously and ZaiWin’s arms held him closer.
“You have nothing to worry about. You’re not her. And I’m not my mother,” he simply declared and Snow nodded, leaning his ear against ZaiWin’s chest again. How could he ever be like her? How could he ever even consider trying to put a stop to such a precious sound?
Language:
ZaiWin: Literally zai (blade) + win (chaos).
ZenTar: Literally zen (silent) + tar (wind)
El’Dai: Literally el (supreme) + dai (light). Name given to the Empress
Tien’Elhar: Literally tien (Heaven) + el (supreme) + har (girl child). The Heavenly Beings also known as Celestials in the common language.
MenTar: Literally men (lake) + tar (wind)
VinWei: Literally vin (hard) + wei (crystal)
El’Dur: Literally el (supreme) + dur (ruler). Name given to the Emperor
NimMai: Literally nim (gentle) + mai (hand).
