Bruises of Risk

Lilacs and Sunshine

Chapter Twelve

Lilacs and Sunshine

"It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark." - Swami Vivekananda

It took him only a moment to grab his bag and veil the expression of shock interlaced with hope back to a neutral one and leave the building. I knit my eyebrows, unsure if I had really told him about his mother quite possibly living in the city over as he was so composed that it felt like I'd imagined it all.

"Damen." He kept walking. "Damen, you can't pretend that I didn't just tell you where your mom might be."

He stopped walking but didn't turn around. "I'm not pretending that I didn't hear you. I'm pretending that I didn't understand you."

I walked up to him to look at him. His eyes were golden orbs of pain, a familiar pain he was used to, a pain he didn't want to grow with the addition of hope. "Why?" I asked, losing myself in his eyes, the only bridge I had to his feelings.

"I'm afraid," his voice broke slightly, the change in pitch twisting something in my heart, "I've been waiting for four years, for an inkling of where she might be. I don't want to not find her."

"But there's a high chance you will find her," I raised my arm hesitantly and rested the curve of his face in the curve of my hand. He closed his eyes for a brief second and opened them to stare back at me with such raw emotion that a lump formed in my throat. "But you have to take the chance first. And even if we don't find her, you'll regret not taking the risk."

He nodded and stepped away from me, my hand lingering in the air for a moment before I snapped it back to my side. "Città de Mare is only twenty minutes away from here. Do you have a plan for how we're going to find her when we get there?" he asked me in a no-nonsense tone.

"I was thinking you could morph slightly, you know when you are still human, but you have heightened senses, unless morphing completely into another animal results in even better senses," I said, pinning a piece of hair behind my ear.

"No, it's the same. I've gotten better at this, my abilities have been extending. So you want me to sniff her out?" he asked, the beginning of a smile teasing his lips.

I looked away. Well, when he puts it like that... "Yeah, unless you don't remember your mother's scent," I said, chewing the inside of my lip, thinking it impossible that he would.

"That's one of the few things I could never forget," he stated offhandedly, making me wonder what other things he could never forget, but shrugged it off. There was silence as we walked to his hovcar. I figured I'd pick mine up when we got back. "She smells like everything good in this world. Lilacs and sunshine," he said randomly, looking down and smiling. My heart broke again for the little boy that missed his mother.

The little town was cozy, strung with lights for the upcoming Atlantic festival, Camminare Con Noi that celebrated the Greek Gods. It was rumored that on that day, they would come down themselves from Mt. Olympus, feigning to be Atlantics. Naturally, people adorned their doorways with little trinkets that represented them, to invite them, as on that day, everybody left their doors open and people celebrated in random people's houses or on the streets. Although the Roman versions of the gods were more popularly venerated, as they were the ones that had helped us during our war against the Outsiders, the Greek ones were celebrated in times of peace. Yet, how much longer that peace was going to last was uncertain now.

I smiled as I got down from Damen's hovcar and looked around, noticing a string of tiny trident lights hanging from someone's roof. Foam lay on top of someone else's pond, a lightning bolt hanging from another's front door. In Essure Città, most of the houses had some sort of decoration up, but every house here had not just one, but at least a few trinkets up to honor different gods or goddesses.