Sung in shadow, p.41
Sung in Shadow, page 41
She had been dead, surely she had been, and now she lived. And Romulan, not her good angel, not her slave, nor her master (though she could remember this), but herself. And she was Romulan. Yes, she could sense him now, his eyes, her eyes, behind the wooden eyelids, looking back at her. And the colossal gate between them. But she would bring him back through the gate.
She called his name, very low. And once more. And once more. For, as with her kiss, it seemed to her the resonance of her voice could fill him, so he must give back some echo, as the wind or the sea sang in a shell, they said.
Later, her voice grew hoarse and dry with calling, became a whisper, and she no longer felt her hands, they had become his hands, or her body, for it had become his body. And as she breathed, she breathed for him.
The night gave up its light and the moon went away. The night was a score of nights, a world of nights. And eventually the night entered her mind, and she lay down beside Romulan and upon him, in his arms and he in hers, as once before. There was a distance now in the blackness beyond the windows, and the stars were out, having masked themselves humbly before the intimation of sunrise. Iuletta’s heart beat slowly now, slowly, unevenly, but also swiftly, urgently. Her heart beat twice at every beat. Her heart, and the heart of Romulan, beating also, beneath her hand, her breast.
Without amazement, for she had known he lived, she drew away again and looked at him. The torn doublet and the shirt, disturbed by her hand, revealed a slender seemly scar, like a rivulet. Maybe such a scar was only the impress of some pleat or fold of cloth, or a strand of the coiling hair of the girl who leaned above him.
Her face was like the face of any woman who lives, and description unwrites itself. As his eyes opened, lighting on her with, for the moment, no memory or demand, he smiled. He had found only what he had thought to find. He took her down into his arms once more, and they lay in silence and comfort together.
When the dawn broke, when the astute servant came, there would be means and human cunning enough to invent tales to shelter the truth, for others, for themselves. That, and the fury of the broken tomb, the rumor of death to leave behind, and all the wide world to fly to.
But for now they were only nameless lovers, and the shadow of the night had passed them by.
About the Author
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) was a legend in science fiction and fantasy writing. She wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories, and was the winner of multiple World Fantasy Awards, a British Fantasy Society Derleth Award, the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror.
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Tanith Lee, Sung in Shadow
