Born of Ashes

* * *

Jean-Pierre sat on the couch in the room he always thought of as the Oak Creek room. He had built the room right next to the creek, on a platform suspended six feet over the water so that with the window open, as it was now, he could hear the rush of water below. The fresh smell of the creek also flowed into the room, a soothing humidity against the arid Arizona land. Sedona was located in what was called “high” country at four thousand feet, but, oui, still very dry.

He sipped a glass of Medichi’s very fine Cabernet Sauvignon, from his own vineyard on the east side of the White Tank Mountains. His label bore a pair of wings, quite beautifully designed by the horticultural artist known as Tazianne.

Fiona stood by the open window, also with a glass in hand. Her hair was damp from her shower and she wore a flowing nightgown of cream silk, très jolie against her wealth of chestnut hair. A deck ran around the outside. She had spent an hour out there first, but in March the temperature in Sedona was perhaps too chill at midnight to be enjoyed.

His wounds, cuts, and bruises were healed, but not his soul. He had gone to Copán Two in order to be of use. Instead, the Upper ascender who had been harassing the warriors for months had been waiting for him. The bastard could have killed him outright, yet did not. Would he have done so if Fiona had not come to him in her miraculous way and alerted him to his enemy’s location? According to Endelle, the Upper ascender had rules he had to follow, and he was not permitted to slay lower ascenders. On the other hand, Jean-Pierre never wanted to be in a situation where he must discover if the Upper ascender always played by the rules.

He sipped and let the wine roll around on his tongue, savoring the almost coarse bite, the peppery flavor. He and Fiona had not spoken very much since their return to his house probably two hours ago. In this most essential way, they seemed to be alike. Grief weighed her shoulders down and kept her eyes wet with tears. He felt as though a beam had entered his chest, filling it from one side of his ribs to the other.

He sighed and sipped.

Fiona brought her goblet to her lips then drew it back, her lips trembling. “Come sit beside me, chérie,” he finally called to her. “Let me hold you.”

She turned to him, a sad smile trembling on her lips. She crossed the room to him, setting her goblet on the table at his elbow. She sat down beside him, very close. He put his arm around her and held her. She put her hand on his chest. She took an occasional harsh breath, as though holding back her pain by force of will.

He turned toward her and kissed the top of her head.

She looked up at him, her eyes swimming once more. “This war hurts me,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Je comprends. I understand, very much.”

“There is something I want to tell you, to share with you.”

He stilled. He could imagine many things she might say, but he feared the worst: that because of her suffering she had decided to leave his house despite the current danger she was in. “What is that, chérie?”

She leaned into his shoulder, and her hand drifted over his pecs. “I was the first of the blood slaves, the one Greaves experimented on. That much you do know. But what I’ve never told anyone is that I memorized the name of every woman who was brought into the facility, whether she lived one day or fifty years. I remember them all and when I can’t sleep I repeat their names.”

“Were you saying them now, by the window?”

She nodded, which made a glide against the T-shirt he wore. She plucked at the front of the shirt.

“Fiona, I would take this from you if I could.”

“I wish that I could be rid of it, yet all throughout my captivity, saying their names was sometimes the only thing that kept me from going mad.”

He loved her for this, for the tenderness of her spirit that would keep such a memorial in her heart, to those who had died.

“I almost didn’t make it back the last time I was drained. Did you know that?”

“Non.” Mon Dieu, how his heart hurt thinking of her being drained and not having the will to return. The thought that he might never have known her added new girth to the beam in his chest.

“That day, just a little over five months ago now, I was prepared to die because it was Carolyn’s birthday and my will to live was gone. I survived because somewhere in my death-dreams, I came across James.”

“James? The Sixth ascender?”

Again the sliding nod against his chest. “I fought my way back and first I met you, then a few days later there was Carolyn and Seriffe and my three grandchildren.” He felt her lift her hand and wipe away more tears. “I’m so grateful that I came back but right now my heart is so heavy knowing that more lives were lost tonight. I learned from Bev just a little while ago that Greg had a family. His wife had just given birth to their fourth a few months ago.”

“Oh, chérie. I am so sorry.”

“He told Bev that he had bought tickets to Dark Spectacle as a surprise for his wife. Now that surprise is gone and the thousand more he would have given her over the coming decades, centuries. All gone. I’m so sad.”

He kissed her forehead again. “Chérie, chérie.” He kissed her once more and she lifted her face to him, her sweet, drenched, mourning face, and he pressed his lips to hers, meaning only to offer comfort, as much as he could. How much he valued her tender heart and her openness with him.

But she shifted just a little more and her fingers rose to his neck and she began to stroke very gently. He groaned and pulled back. He looked at her. “I would not distress you for anything right now, but you fill me with desire when you touch me over my vein.”

He waited, willing her to understand his dilemma, but a sudden drift of croissant flavored the air. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

“Jean-Pierre, I have need of you right now. I know it isn’t proper, but will you make love to me?”

There were so many reasons to refuse her request. The death of the Militia Warrior had reminded him of the impermanence of the fighting man. He was such a man.

If he continued down this path with her, taking her body beneath his, making these intimate connections, where would it all end? What did he truly have to give her? For all this time, he had kept his heart free of the commitment to a woman, any woman. His occupation was one reason, but the other, he believed, touched the core of him: He did not know if he could trust Fiona.

His wife had been so much like her, tenderhearted, kind, perhaps even driven in her own way to shape the world around her to her tastes and liking. She had made a home for them in impoverished Paris, battling for rooms, selling off the ancestral possessions he had brought with him after renouncing his estates—not for gain, but to furnish their new home and to buy food, all the necessities. His activism in the revolution used up his energy. But what had he not seen? Had his obsession with creating a new, freer France blinded him to her true nature? Or perhaps living in poverty had battered at her resolve so that one day, she had given him up to Robespierre. What had he not seen?

And if such a woman, of fine character and worth, could betray him, then why could he ever believe in another woman again, even Fiona, whom he admired?

The answer was simple. He could not.

So what was he to do with these vast sentiments that swelled in his heart when he held her like this, when he looked into her silver-blue eyes, when he felt her need for his touch, for his embraces, for the pleasure of his body?

There was only one answer: He could not deny her. So he suppressed thoughts of the betrayal that had ruined his heart. He rose to his feet and held his hand out to her. When she took it, he lifted her up then bent down to slide a hand behind her knees so he could carry her in his arms.

But he did not take her back to his bedroom. For this, for a time when her heart ached and he still had a terrible beam in his chest, he went to the northernmost part of his house and there began to make a three-story climb up a narrow tower.

“Where do the stairs lead?” she asked, her arms around his neck.

“To the sky,” he said.

Fiona would love this. As he climbed, his chest began to ease.

* * *

Fiona leaned her head against Jean-Pierre’s shoulder. She forced herself not to think about what was lost tonight, but about what was gained: one more night with the man carrying her in his arms, one more day with Carolyn and her children, one more stretch of life in which she had the chance to keep living.

She couldn’t have changed the outcome of the fighting tonight. She had acquitted herself extremely well in that she’d helped Jean-Pierre stay alive.

Beyond that, what control did any one single person ever have over the horrors of life, over the chance events that thrust one warrior beneath a blade and pushed the other out of harm’s way? No control.

What could she control? That she was safe for this moment in time and nothing more. If the Upper ascender were to come after her, or after her family or Jean-Pierre, could she stand against him? Probably not.

But she was safe, bouncing in Jean-Pierre’s arms as he carried her up the winding staircase, up and up. She focused then on what she might find at the very top of these stairs and on losing herself in his body, perhaps even tasting of him for the first time.

As he reached a landing, she opened her eyes and saw that he was pushing open the door. He carried her onto what proved to be an open platform high in the canopy of the tall Arizona sycamores.

The air was so fresh and clean and carried the somewhat sharp scent of the sycamores. He put her on her feet. She looked up. Through the gossamer web of Endelle’s mist, stars filled what was a large open space between a circle of branches.

“Jean-Pierre, this is so beautiful!”

“I thought you would like it.”

She turned in a circle on the solid deck, looking up. The railing had widely spaced natural wooden pickets, weathered by the elements and time, but beautiful. “I would like to sleep up here tonight. Do you think we could? Would that be possible?”

He smiled and moved her close to the railing. “This will require some maneuvering, but yes, it is very possible.” She could tell he was focusing hard so she kept very still.