Indigo Moon

This is just the first part of what will (hopefully) become the first book in a fanasy trilogy called Endless Sky. Read, rate, review please. Be honest :)

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"Eden." A hushed voice, barely even a whisper but it cut through the thick, summer air with the cleanness of a sword and even in the heat of the day Eden shuddered. With hands wrinkled and fingers stiffened by time she pulled the red velvet quilt higher up her chest and closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, refusing to look - if she couldn't see it then it couldn't be. Pulling her desperate lie out of her mind the owner of the voice laughed, although not cruelly. More with the weary amusement of one who has heard a joke too many times, and he was only laughing because he knew he was supposed to.
"Eden." The voice intoned again and Eden sighed, opening her old grey eyes yet again. Eyes that once sparkled with life and hope now dulled by the simple yet inescapable weight of years. With great difficulty she lifted herself into a sitting position and then rested her aching back against the cloudy soft pillows. Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she was King Mother Eden and she didn't answer to anyone, she met the gaze of the figure that had just appeared in her bedroom through the locked wooden door. The man was fairly unremarkable in appearance and Eden might have been disappointed at his ordinary-ness if she hadn't known that he would sense this and it would give him the upper hand. King Mother Eden didn't give anyone the upper hand if she could help it, although it occurred to her that this unremarkable man might be the first and the last and the end of all choices. He was fairly tall but she was pretty sure her son was taller, so nothing to write home about there. Slim and wiry, with pale skin, ebony hair and coldly handsome features that were almost elven in their delicacy, although Eden had known many elves in her long life and this man wasn't quite elven. His inky black eyes gleamed with the knowledge of generations even as they melted with a world's worth of sorrow and even though she knew what he had come for Eden was almost sad for him. She wondered if she was the only one who had ever noticed how quietly mournful his eyes were, and then decided it was probably only those at the end of their lives who would see it this way. She sighed, and felt her heart flicker faintly in her chest with the strength of a dying young bird trying in vain to fly away from a hungry cat. He smiled at her and she was surprised at the gentleness of the expression.
"How are you feeling Eden?" he asked politely and she choked out a laugh, which hurt her stomach but felt so good anyway. She briefly wondered how she was hearing him talk when his smiling lips were still but she dismissed this thought immediately - what did it matter?
"I'm dying, how do you think I'm feeling?" she coughed and the man's smile widened. With an in-built grace he walked - or maybe floated, Eden couldn't be sure - the few metres from the door to her bedside and she felt her stomach fill up with butterflies in a way she'd almost forgotten was possible. She smiled sleepily. It was...pleasant. She sighed and found to her surprise that it was a sigh of comfort and resignation and that, although she had always thought she would, she wasn't going to fight this man. Her eyes were closed so she couldn't see him smile but he did, for he knew what she was thinking and he was glad that she wasn't going to try and fight a battle she couldn't possibly win. He, with the strength of ages, the wisdom of the world and the gift of eternal life, he still had a strange sort of respect for this withered old lady who was so weak she could barely hold her own head up. He had seen countless numbers of people die. Seen children die without ever having the chance to experience life. Seen people grow old alone and become bitter and twisted and longing for Death's sweet release. He had seen people throw their lives away in battle and people too afraid of losing their lives to use them to their fullest. He had seen all these things and he had seen more and here was a woman who had not only been in the world for many years but had used those years. He knew everything about her - things she didn't even know about herself. Every thought she'd ever entertained, every idea she'd ever had, every beat her heart had ever skipped. She'd risked her life, she'd been in love, she'd born children. She'd laughed and cried. Seen awful things and seen beautiful things. And she knew, at that point, lying on her soft, luxurious death bed she knew everything that he knew and he could see the tears sneak out of her eyes and hang glittering on her weather beaten cheeks like jewels. She knew who he was, and who she was and everything that the entire world, and the myriad of ones beyond her own had to teach her and she thought her heart would break with the wonder of it. He smiled again, gently, and he placed a slim, pale hand on her chest where her ninety seven year old heart was murmuring weakly. He closed his eyes and curled his fingers to make a claw. Her heart beat once, twice and then with a sigh fell silent, having nothing more to say, and only an empty room to listen.

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Chapter One:
Welcome Home (Memory is Relative)


"Memory is relative."

The rain, which was so common in that part of the country, had calmed from the ferocious downpour that had soaked the weary man to the bone and had turned into a gentle caress that was almost pleasant. He managed two more laboured steps before he shook his head and lowered himself softly onto the grass, which had begun to glow emerald as the rain ceased altogether and a tentative beam of sunlight crept across the valley. The man was exhausted, and he lowered his spinning head into his hands slowly, fighting to stay conscious. Hesitantly raising his head again, he thought his heart would break at the simple beauty of this place. How unfair that he had been too young and too impatient to notice the flawlessness of the endless sea of grass and wildflowers when it mattered...when it might have made a difference. How unfair...and yet somehow fair enough he supposed. After all, didn't it sometimes take the loss of something to make you appreciate it? Some things you'll never know the true value of until they've been torn from your heart. That was something he knew all too well.
"Memory is relative." Agreed a voice that might have been his, or might have been the one that kept residence in his head; helpful, comforting and ever present after a year spent travelling alone. It hardly mattered if he was talking aloud or not anyway; there was no one to hear him for miles around. The hillside was completely deserted, but that was no surprise really he thought, resting his chin on his knees and hugging them tightly, looking suddenly years younger than the twenty six he had lived. To the untrained eye he was surrounded only by the grass and the wildflowers and the empty hills. He was only there because despite a promise he had kept for the past seven years, if he closed his eyes and just walked, his feet would always lead him there.
"The heart is tied to the home." He said thoughtfully, wondering in which corner of the world he had come across that little phrase. It sounded like one of Jeanette's sayings he thought, with a smile that was slightly wistful. One of her little nuggets of female wisdom like ‘hope is an anchor' and yes, he thought she was also responsible for ‘memory is relative'. He tried the saying again in his mind, decorating it with Jeanette's calm and motherly voice and the instant familiarity of it hit him so hard in the heart that it hurt, and his hand flew up to meet the sharp pain. In the way you can never leave an aching tooth alone, and not without a sense of masochism, he embellished this memory with his considerable imagination. To the voice he added her cool green eyes, her slightly freckled skin and her long, flame red curls before it hurt too much to bear and he tried to wipe the image from his mind. However, true to form, even as a memory Jeanette refused to give in, and the vivid picture didn't even blur. He closed his eyes and her face was both reproachful and sad and it was so painfully familiar.
"The heart is tied to the home." She scolded gently and he found a little rising of guilt in his stomach at her remembered words. And why not? After all, hadn't she spent thirteen years being more of a mother to him than his own could ever hope to be? Little Jeanette; a year younger than he was and yet how many times would his world have crumbled without her there to hold it together? How many times over did he owe her his life? The sudden, and very unwelcome thought of his mother had turned his wistful expression bitter and he clenched his fists tightly, forcing himself to relax. He hadn't seen his mother in seven years and in the whole of that time he had given her little more than a passing thought but had he struggled with this hard knot of bitterness the whole time? Yes, he thought he had, but so had they all, in their own little ways. Which was maybe why they'd all found it easier to simply never mention their shadowy past, even to each other. But now he was back. After seven long years his feet, his heart, The Fates...had all dragged him home. And why? Officially he was there to meet his friends after the year they had just spent apart. The little group of troubled and lonely individuals, Jeanette included, that had been far more of a family to him than his own poor excuse for relatives ever had. So yes, he was here to meet his friends but there were some demons here that needed laying to rest. All of his heartache danced a trail right back here and he couldn't live like that anymore, with his past always lurking at the back of his mind, quietly eating away at him like a cancer. When he had left, with his friends by his side, at the age of nineteen he had sworn an oath to them and himself that he would never return and he had meant it. Meant it with all his heart, which was just as bitter back then, if not quite so broken. He'd stood by that oath too, for seven years - keeping his word was never something that he'd found difficult. But he had been little more than a child back then; angry and brave and desperate. But now...now he was almost whole, almost complete, save for the tiny part of him that sometimes couldn't look people in the eye and still flinched at the word ‘home'. And that needed to be resolved. It had taken him seven years to realise that you can't run away forever, nor can you hide, especially from the ghosts you carry with you in your heart. And maybe, as with the somehow heartbreaking beauty of his home, it had taken him too long to realise it. Maybe he had realised, or remembered, too late but so what? So what the voice in his head agreed as he got to his feet. Memory was relative.