shaken in my faith: master of illusion - part three
wayyy too much dialogue in this update, for which i apologize, but i swear this story is going somewhere eventually! it won't always be this slow (i think)!
parts one and two here.
Shaken in My Faith: Master of Illusion - Part Three
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Tell me why you reach
Grasping for my knee, my wrist
The ladder on this beach
Connecting you to me, like this
-Andrew Belle, Reach
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Sunrise galloped a blue banner across the Elysian sky, and asphodels tilted their faces up to sing its drumming hooves; they made music for those who desired revelry. For others who craved respite from the world, Elysion’s endless summer passed in the brief season of a sigh, and sounded no louder.
Jadeite remembers that haven with surpassing clarity.
The oath he swore so long ago, there, where footsteps were few and favored. There, at Earth's sacred center, bound eternally to its crown Prince. Since that day, the golden general has sought nothing from the field of dreams, but he considers himself lucky to have felt that calm wind caress his hair, stretched out lazily on the temple's bleached steps.
There is peace in the quiet places of the world. But barren silence, Jadeite finds, only breeds more sinister noises.
The Martian Oracle's citadel is no less holy, but its artificial stillness makes him long for the cries of gulls and murmurs of tall grass. Here is a place of encroaching walls and smothering smoke, nothing like the home he's coming to miss too dearly. The only whispers here speak of intrigue, sometimes louder than they ought, as Jadeite passes her closed door.
“…my guest. I’m tired of returning here, finding my Council more deranged than when I left last. What makes them think to interfere in my personal business?”
The witch-queen’s scorned his company since yesterday’s altercation, and avoids him on suddenly obligatory business. Having been abandoned to his own devices of late, Jadeite can’t help but slow his stride when it appears that he’s their primary topic of conversation.
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“I don’t wish to interfere, myself, Lady, but as the Fire informed you of his coming, will you tell me when he’ll be going?”
Another horrified voice - “Deimos!” - but Rahi laughs, unoffended.
“If only I could. But…” she sobers. “I’m starting to worry that no matter how long I delay him here…”
“Is - is the Fire still - “ the last attendant ventures, before her mistress cuts her off.
“Nothing. Nothing but his face, Phobos. He’s…completely unpredictable.”
Deimos snorts. “Maybe the Fire doesn’t care for Earthly doings.”
“Keep your tongue in your empty head, Deimos.” This time, Rahi doesn’t laugh. Her swift reproof cracks out precisely, like bone snapped in two. “There are five Far Easterners for every Martian, and Earth now sustains more people than any of us put together, in our little domes. I’d be foolish to not know - and worse, not care for a growing omen when I see one.”
“I’m sorry, Lady,” Deimos mumbles, subdued.
“I don’t know what’s worse. The old complacency or the new fear. But he’s a harbinger of something, I know that much.” She exhales sharply. “If only the Fire would tell me what…I don’t enjoy meeting him unprepared.
“Don’t you?”
There’s humor in her voice again. “You seem to have warmed to him, Phobos.”
“He makes you smile, Lady.” Jadeite can almost see Phobos’s studied shrug. “But…his own laughter doesn’t reach his eyes. I don’t need to tell you this, but be watchful, Lady.”
Deimos sounds grim - and alarmingly close to the entrance. “He always is.”
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The portal still ripples the air behind him as she leaves her chambers. Phobos and Deimos have already gone.
“Lady Rahi.”
If it were possible for her to produce a more mutilating stare, Jadeite’s sure that even his father and grandfather before him wouldn’t have a pair left between them. Though he’s thought of her name often in the night, he’s well aware that not even her attendants dare to use it.
“Names have power, Lord Jadeite,” she turns away, dismisses him with a sweep of her eyelashes. It’s meant to infuriate, but instead centers him. Coils his resolve. “Here…you have none.”
“If names have power, why have you given yours up?” he inquires, falling in beside her smoothly. “Are all Oracles pallid icons, not flesh-and-blood women?”
“Is that what you call camp followers on Earth?” Rahi retorts, speeding her steps. “Bastards don’t bear the names of the flesh-and-blood women who birth them, but the fathers who raise them.”
“It serves you ill to throw my parentage in my face,” Jadeite returns calmly, keeping his eyes steady on the dim hallway before them. “My blood is no more common than yours. Did your mother hide your burning hair and eyes from her village? What name did she cry when the Council tore her daughter from - ”
Rahi’s palm abruptly slams into the nearest lamp. She doesn’t break it - although, peculiarly, the torch behind the glass flares. The general precipitously halts just behind, near a recessed stairwell.
He doesn’t need to put a hand to her, to feel that she’s held as tightly as scant breath underwater. But when the Oracle releases her words, they convey terrible finality.
“What my mother named me no longer matters, Lord Jadeite. Because the Fire is my father and husband both.”
Every instinct urges him to move in. To make her prove it. The shadows are long and tempting here, where Martian sky doesn’t reach and indolent smoke rises. On Earth, it’d be a place for him to try her certainty with his touch, let her mouth dry at the thud of his heartbeat. But he never makes the same mistake twice, and Rahi’s far from what he’d call tolerant. It’s crucial that today not be like yesterday, and so Jadeite allows untested principle to divide them.
“You’re lucky,” he tells her instead. “To be so young, and possess so much conviction. I wish I was as certain of - ” the words escape before he can reclaim them, and he draws a fortifying breath. “Must we always fight?”
The hallway seems to darken further, like twin candles winking out when Rahi squeezes her eyelids shut.
“It’s all I know, too,” he agrees with her silence. “But armor’s a heavy burden even when you’re accustomed to its weight. It’s…comforting, isn’t it? To find someone who understands you?” Jadeite’s about to give away too much, but it’s worth it if his secrets unlock hers. “That’s why I can’t bring myself to regret years spent fighting. It’s what led me to the undying peace of Elysion. To my brothers. My Prince.”
“They are dear to you,” Rahi whispers, without hesitation or surprise. She’s wise to close her eyes, for her voice never trembles as they do. “I can understand that well.”
“You see how easy it is, when we speak of what we share.” Her red hair stirs even in this stifling place, as though life seethes within. He pictures Elysian wind kindling it under the sun, and the image both thrills and strangely grieves him. “And a Fire that's both father and husband must share your joys and sorrows more than any man could hope to. I’m sorry. For doubting its embrace.”
At that last, her eyes flare open on his, and the girl has vanished. In her place again stands the Oracle.
“Then will you see the Fire, Lord Jadeite?”
It takes him a moment to absorb the meaning of the invitation - yet another unprecedented honor she bestows upon him. And suddenly, Jadeite's curiosity is sparked, in the childish way he usually teases Zoisite for. “My presence isn’t forbidden?”
She’s already descending the stairs, footfalls swift. “Why should it be? Nobody can divine it but me, though the Fire has its own stray mirages,” Rahi adds opaquely.
Jadeite begins, and then forgets to ask what stray mirages when they reach their destination. The Fire’s searing intensity, even behind mountainous double doors - it’s unlike any heat he’s ever felt before. And yet, familiar.
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He suffers pitifully akin to the unfortunate beasts he used to choose for celebratory feasts, turned on spits until their skins bubbled and crisped. The general tugs off his shirt with a muttered curse. Propriety be damned. The Fire’s temperature has no Earthly like, not in the jungles of the subcontinent and not in the desert caravans traversing sea to sea. He’d leave, but the soaring tower of flame holds him as securely as a lioness mouths her cub, fangs gentle but unmistakably there.
Across his shoulders, the dragon of the Far East spreads its wings - those which mark him as king. Perspiration dews his chest as Jadeite stares, mesmerized. He understands why his father braved every written and unwritten law for a chance to stand here. The ambitious mercenary was callous, driven, and no less so with his gifted son. But he loved nothing better than to talk of the Oracle’s mighty Fire. His father believed the Martian deity’s gift of prescience would give them victory over his descendants on Earth. He died believing it, and though Jadeite never misses him, he wishes now that they could speak. He stands as god-king of the Far East, guardian to the Prince, and he’s done it without begging the Oracle any favors.
Perhaps this hubris is some seduction of the Fire, he realizes suddenly, chastened. The general’s panting slightly, and sweats not just for the heat. He silently admires Rahi’s mastery; no fever transports one who is mistress here.
As he watches her meditate, the flames’ apex curls into talons, and their heart transfixes him, a gaping, deformed maw. A thrown spark of the cremated corpses, not the living specters.
Jadeite’s lips part, but no sound emerges.
Rahi turns to him, expression serene, arms loose at her sides - and at his look, glances swiftly back at the Fire. Her eyebrows knit together briefly. Whitish horns scatter in smoke.
“Lord Jadeite?” she questions him, stepping closer. When he doesn’t immediately respond, Rahi reaches for his slack arm. “Jadeite? What is it?”
“It - it’s nothing,” he hesitates, unfamiliar with the sensation. Freed from the Fire’s sway, his instincts regain sharpness too late to intercept her.
“What did you see, Jadeite?” she asks gently, but the pressure of her fingertips on his wrist increases. In a flash, he recalls his profitable eavesdropping, her frustration at his puzzling unpredictability.
“Only myself,” Jadeite manages. He’s collected himself sufficiently to perceive how disappointment heavily weights Rahi’s brow. So that’s what she plays at, the general deduces rapidly. She’d hoped he’d caught a glimpse of his own future, where she couldn’t. Hoped a “stray mirage” of the Fire had shown more than just his face.
Indeed, what familiar demon had writhed there instead?
But Jadeite temporarily shelves those disturbing ruminations, always needing his wits about him to navigate any conversation with her. And Rahi’s words bear his suspicions like carrier falcons. “Then you perceived nothing that I didn’t.”
She tries to sound offhand, but Jadeite knows she will never bring him to this room again. His deception serves him well, and her displeasure serves her right, he reflects amusedly. Goodwill, indeed. If the Oracle’s only object in keeping him here is to turn his pages like a book, he’s glad he’s as much of an enigma to her as she is to him. It’s not for nothing that Jadeite’s called the master of illusion.
“A stray mirage, as you said,” he matches her nonchalance. “When I was a boy at war, such apparitions haunted me without rest.”
Rahi gazes up at him, face smooth. “From what I have heard, the only apparition haunting the Far East was you.”
Jadeite opens his mouth, but her next words intrigue as they interrupt. “I envy you. Even just riding across those vast swathes, at the head of your armies. Feeling that everything you see is yours.”
“I don’t feel it. I know everything I see is mine,” he smiles, more a baring of teeth, and Rahi’s hand drops from his forearm. “Maybe that hot Martian blood makes you envious.”
She doesn’t back away. “Can you blame me for wanting to leave this castle?” the Oracle challenges. “Even training on the Moon isn’t much for excitement. No doubt you’ve already told your Prince and your brothers what I am, based upon the strength of your suspicions.” Her lips curve at his look. “Now that you’ve revealed you are one of the Shitennou, I wouldn’t have you believe I’m defenseless against your might. Did you think I couldn’t be honest?”
“Perhaps things would be simpler between us, if there was more honesty,” Jadeite answers. The staccato under his ribs, the buzzing in his ears - their constant dueling makes him feel nothing so much as strong, sharp. Vital. “If we’re being truthful, Senshi, then tell me what your alliance wants, once and for all. Earth? For their own?”
Rahi looks indignant, but he swiftly overrides her objection. “I can understand that. I am a general, after all, and Earth would be a priceless jewel for any crown. Though your Moon Sorceress might coyly deny it.” Jadeite pauses. “But I am also a king, and my people are my conscience. If there’s some way for us to negotiate, without spies, without doublespeak, then…I would prevent bloodshed if I could. And so would you.”
“Of course,” she snaps tersely. “The Moon Queen has always watched over your star, and Mars is no different. You must have perceived, just after a few days spent together - I have no taste for spies or doublespeak.” Rahi sucks in an impatient breath and her fists clench hard. “And you are perceptive, Jadeite. So you must have guessed already - that I cannot negotiate with you alone. My Council - “
“To hell with your Council!” Jadeite barks. “You are the Oracle! Not by any fortunate accident of blood. You were chosen for this by Mars. A god. Who are they to bind your decisions? You and I know what we must do. What we’re born for, from dirt to great citadels. Our time is changing, like nothing they’ve known. Who can guide us?” His hand sweeps the blazing pillar behind them. “You and I are answerable to no one, and so we must make our own choices.”
The Fire’s muted thunder grows to a roar. Jadeite inhales and exhales harshly, corded vessels cast in high relief - but she scarcely moves, those frightening eyes pensive on his. She is making her own choice even now, he realizes, and all that is left to him is to wait. Even as he spoke, he’d seen how Rahi’s taut features stilled, focused inward like the wash of a dying star. In this moment, everything contracts to a singular, fatal point in her irises, and its pull is the most certain thing Jadeite has ever known.
He barely registers her hand rising to his stubbled jaw, until pressure against his cheek rests, cool and sure. It’s odd, how it escaped his notice that she wears only a simple shift, without a circlet or even slippers. Of course, an eager part of him baits, she’s probably only just risen from her warm bed. No wonder the Fire’s heat doesn’t trouble her, as she steps forward and presses herself against his. Sweat sinks quickly into her clothes, sheens her forearms as she rests their bareness against his chest.
Bare feet steal between his when she rises on tiptoe, carefully pulls his forehead down to touch hers.
They linger like this, connate, lucid. Slowly drinking each other’s breath, eyelashes tickling and weaving. The inches remaining between them are a path of coals, one he knows they will eventually take - but not just yet. Up close, her incense ceases to madden, filling his lungs as though it had done so always; her cheek is flawlessly carved, like the graven image she’s turned him into. It is he who is the pallid icon, and she who shapes him, worships him with her consuming, innocent touch.
“The Council is waiting, Lady. Are you - we heard shouts - oh!”
Phobos’s punctured gasp shatters the chimera. And yet, not a muscle that he can feel even twitches; she brutally twines his curls and holds him fast. Rahi’s quiet command leaves no space for argument, only an unfulfilled promise warm near the corner of his mouth.
“Leave us.”
He doesn’t hear or see Phobos obey, but she has no option but to disbelievingly back away. The attendant’s fragmented sobs echo gradually softer, down the hallway.
It’s passed; they both feel it slipping away, and Jadeite can’t think why it didn’t pass faster. He deliberately straightens, and every atom of him immediately balks. Though Rahi doesn’t resist being parted from him, her palm slides down, and comes to rest almost absently over his heart.
“You should go,” he tells her, amazed that his voice can still be ordinary.
Rahi nods. Her fingertips feel abnormally cold on his chest, prickling overheated skin. She sounds both terrible and calm. “I know.”
Long after she’s left, her presence remains, and sustains Jadeite in this place where the Fire would suffocate him. His eyes parch and burn, but the flames leap blithely, without portent. If even the Oracle cannot fathom his intentions, what hope does he have?
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“I hear you’ve found us a Martian Senshi,” Nephrite announces a few days later. “So I’ll wager he’s some candy-ass with a bow, like that Far Eastern pussy brigade you call an army, am I right?”
The last time Jadeite so successfully voided his face of all expression, the West-king suffered a catastrophic defeat at cards and wore his hair in pigtails - with ribbons - for a month. “She has some skill, though I haven’t yet seen it.”
His friend’s ready stream of foul invective lodges in his throat. Jadeite steeples his fingers, waiting for the multiplicity of odd noises emerging from Nephrite to resemble speech.
“Uhh…she?”
“She.”
“Well…shit.” His wide, mobile mouth curves slowly, then wickedly. “What are we so worried about, then?”
The dark-haired general’s bearing, even hunched over a communicator, is casually patrician. Jadeite remembers how his father forced him to recite courtly speeches by failing campfires, and ponders where Nephrite, born to rank, acquired his remarkably filthy tongue.
“I swear, Jade, when Kunzite told me you’d sniffed out a Senshi, you’d have thought Endy’s balls just dropped and he was there to see it happen, he was so damn excited. Well. As excited as Kunzite ever gets, anyway,” the other man concedes with a yawn.
“I’d put good money on him lurking in the Prince’s bedroom a few years ago, just waiting to capture that tender moment.”
“Those two are sweet, aren’t they?” he snickers. “Anyway. Jade, what if - what if they’re all…you know…shes?”
“The Senshi? I don’t know. Could be interesting.”
“Could be!” Nephrite nearly rubs his hands together with delight. “Don’t pretend you’re not at least a little entertained by the idea. I know you, you bastard. I’m sure there’s already some black-haired wench who fills your eyes and your bed.”
“I’m starting to think there aren’t enough in yours. You sound like someone’s horny grandmother.”
“Changing the subject? We’re not talking about the Oracle. Kunzite already told me you charmed the old gray pubes off her.” Jadeite nearly gives himself whiplash pretending to grab something behind him. “Come on. What are their women like?” The dark-haired general peers closer, clearly suspecting Jadeite of hiding his concubine army in the screen’s immediate vicinity.
“Unlike you, Neph, I’m not suffering under the cheerful delusion - “
“Any exotic Martian…talents I should be jealous of?”
“ - that women are good for just one thing.”
“I can think of two things they’re good for, actually. Three, if you’re persuasive,” The West-king’s heavy-lidded eyes glint with unholy merriment. “I haven’t a clue what’s going on in their clever little heads, and hell if I don’t love that about them.” His friend sits back with a resounding thump, and an infuriating grin. “But you…you know a woman’s secrets too easily, Jade, and sometimes I believe you hate them all for it.”
“Enough of your philosophy on women, Neph.” Jadeite’s tenor is light, but so is steel. “When I want my nuts under her heel, I’ll seek your wisdom.”
“You’re more than halfway there, you cocky motherfuck,” he leans in, broad shoulders filling the screen. “Whoever this Martian harpy is, she must be some kind of mystery. I hope you’re as balls-deep in her as she is in you, because otherwise, I think you’re past praying for.”
When Jadeite’s jaw hardens, Nephrite continues more seriously.
“The stars aren’t talking. So I’ll just say…don’t lose yourself in that maze. I know you, Jade. Don’t give what you can’t part with.”
The absurd irony of Nephrite - Nephrite - counseling caution is the last straw. Jadeite abruptly flips a switch, and the communicator blinks black.
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