... Savrigne ...

Darkness, like a curtain, envelops the street, the shimmer of gold coin stars and a single nightcandle the only light. The flame trembles in the new spring breeze, a shivering testament to the chill once the sun slept. Naked streets, lined in yellow stones, look oddly bluish without the sun’s rays to warm them.

I quiver with more than cold, my shaky breaths billowing loudly into the silence.

Guarding the nightcandle with a shivering hand, I wait, watching the empty streets fill with shadows as the first of the three moons appear. Apparitions of shade slip across the sandy street with the wind, shaking reality with an icy hand.

Despite doubts, I wait, pushing my mind to think of less perilous things. The cold biting, the dim awareness of sand prickling my skin, and the acute jumble of exhilaration at being out After Dark. Such things are forbidden for…

Do not think on it. The thinking will only make it worse. If I am caught, the punishment for being out After Dark will be the least of my worries.

Do not think on it.

She would come soon. ‘She,’ with all the intended wonders of the word.

The Savrigne. She. Her. The Sunlight; the Moonlight.

The world.

She bade me wait for her, thus I wait, unable and unwilling to defy her command. The streets are lifeless, coated in a thick, churning blanket of navy blue; the silence grates on my ears, and I shuffle my feet just for noise.

Then suddenly, the flicker of a windchime, ringing through the night. A hand, soft as silk and tipped with wicked nails, brushes against the black skin of my back. My breath hisses, every cell of my body yearning to fall to my knees, to press weather-dried lips against the noble, jewel-laced skin of her feet. It is She.

The Savrigne.

The black cascade of her hair slithers over her sunlight shoulders, braided and speckled with the tiny beads I’d heard as she approached. She.

Savrigne.

The sight of her fills my dark eyes, coating my entire existence in brilliance. She is the very essence of light, the curves of her soft skin glowing through the billowing langlai dress. “Savrigne…” breathes through my lips, the word pulled from the depths of me with an earth-shattering awe.

The sound of her voice could make the guilty confess, the touch of her hands have made the blind see. The very sight of her melts away any desire in me but to serve, to love, and pray that one day my goddess would love me back, even a little.

“Kamenwatii.” Her voice, calling on the very power of my Name. A Name which belongs to her, just as I belong to her, body and soul.

I remember the first time I saw her; I’d always known she was different.

We had grown up together, our tiny bodies pressed close together inside the earth-cooled, underground rashiidi. There, all the children learned what they needed to be citizens of the great city of Azibothii: reading, writing, history, basic arithmetic, and religion.

I remember looking on her for the first time, my first day in the earth cooled rashiidi. There was something about her that spoke of True breeding, of one of the Wingéd noblemen whose gold houses sat upon the hills of the Gods. The way she walked, her quiet, demure way of speaking.

She was this way, even before earning her Name.

Although the priests were supposed to treat all of the children the same, one couldn’t help but put the young Savrigne on a pedestal. She was beauty defined, engendered.

I worshipped her.

We share the same birthing day, and we aged together, going to our lessons at the rashiidi together like siblings. We grew together. The young Savrigne enjoyed scolding my mischievousness; I enjoyed being mischievous just to be scolded by her soft tongue. Even when her words were cruel, her mouth, the soft curve of her lips, belied her affection.

In the day before our Naming, we slept next to one another under the sand trees, although forbidden, our fingers entwined, unable to speak under the pressure of the coming day. We knew what would happen, but were unable to break the beauty of that day with sadness. Thus we separated, tears blurring the black usii-kohl rimming our eyes. Our fingers entwined for the last time as equals, our breaths mingling under the shadow of sleep.

The following day, she returned to the house of her father, bearing her unspeakable Name, and the title she had saved for her from birth.

The Savrigne.

I was never to know her Name, for knowing a person’s Name was to own their soul. Her Name was only to be known by herself and the priest who gave it to her, and eventually her husband in the ritual marriage of exchanged Names.

My Name was bought by the Savrigne the day after the Gods gave it to me.

I was given to her as a Naming present by her father; he wanted her to have a slave she could trust. He believed what she felt was like the love for a pet, just as I had, during those long, hot days in the rashiidi.

My world brightened again when I was presented like an animal in front of the Savrigne’s throne. She had become someone new during the Naming process, her eyes like sandcat’s, watching from under the shroud of white langlai fabrics.

She was even nobler, more majestic, more beautiful. I was stunned by her change.

But when she whispered “Kamenwatii” for the first time and our eyes met, I knew nothing had truly changed.

She looked upon me as she had on those long days under the sinuhé sandtrees, and the little girl with the noble eyes looked down upon me again, the shroud of langlai and her station unable to smother the long summers and cool evenings spent in the desert, her soft, noble fingers enclosed in mine.

In public, we are the perfect servant and master. She is the light of my life, and I serve her with every ounce of my strength and person.

In private, however, it is different…

The wind moves her hair, jingling those treasured, jeweled braids and bringing me back to reality. I blink, blink again, and am silent and stunned under the gaze of her brilliant black eyes.

She speaks, the canter of her voice calming; she sings my name softly to call me back to the present. “Kamenwatii,” like a lullaby to my soul.

A brush of hands and we’re off, sprinting through the night like kneph spirits on the prowl. We meet no one, see nothing else alive. The world might as well be us and us alone.

“Savrigne…” I whisper urgently, the words coarse on my lowbred tongue. “Savrigne, perhaps we should not…”

She interrupts me with a single backward glance and a shake of her head, and she strengthens her grip on my hand and pulls me along. Although physically I could easily overpower her, I have no choice but to follow, the pull of her unbelievably strong.

The temple looms up ahead like a giant gravestone, the limestone of its outer walls glistening ominously in the soft nightcandle light. I shiver in the cold, an icy weight settling in the depths of my stomach.

She steps into the fire-lit interior of the temple, holding the cloth door open like an offering. In this I had a choice; I could turn around, run back into the blackness of the night. The Savrigne would forgive me. This was against everything we had ever been taught, by our parents and the rashiidi. This could find us both death. She had already made her decision; I had yet to make mine. The melody of my Name will not spill from her lips here; no, this was a decision I will make on my own. The idea leaves me a little colder. A mere servant, a slave to the Savrigne, making such decisions for himself is ridiculous.

I step forward, of my own free will, for the first time in my life, my soul brimming with hope as her eyes fill with elation.

Even if the gods damn my soul here and now, everything has been worth it, just to see her eyes shimmer with euphoria as they do now.

The temple is warm, heated by ever-burning fires in tall, bronze atonakana. The chill melts off of my skin, filling my pores suddenly with the very Fires of the Gods. I wait for the wrath of Aziboth to strike me down where I stand, my breath shuddering in and out of my mouth.

The gold-cased statue of Anurakkhom looms over us like a gold-cased temple, his lifeless eyes shimmering and blinking in the firelight. His wings half-mantled and bird-eyes ever watching the door, Anurakkhom is guardian, servant to his master-gods as I am to my human mistress.

The Savrigne pulls a little harder on my hand, dragging me forward across the smooth, stone floors. Behind Anurakkhom’s enormous gold talon, lays a little door, small and difficult to see in the wavering light. Savrigne smiles back encouragingly, pulling me to the tiny door, and then through it.

The sudden, dark windlessness drives the breath from my lungs; I wait for the power of my sins to crush me against the stone floor. The only sound in the tiny room is the harsh vibration of my chest as I force air back between my lips. A light flares, revealing a stone room, all in white, empty save for the altar in the middle of the floor. The Savrigne holds my relit nightcandle, her eyes glowing gold. I glance around, then turn toward my master, my raised eyebrow asking my questions for me.

“Come,” she whispers, gently, careful not to use my Name. “Let me show you…”

There is a long sliver of wood resting on the altar; my eyes widen. I know the value of wood in a waterless land. Turning her shadow eyes away from my face, she rests them on the timber, running her fingers over the rough texture.

She turns it over slowly, as if to give me time to look away, but I cannot tear my eyes from the sight. A feeling of slow terror touches the tips of my toes with cold, but I cannot look away from it.

On the other side of the wood sits seven symbols, kohl-lined and perfectly carved. The curling runes brush against one another, in a sensuous dance. I read them, over and over, my mind savoring the flavor of the word.

The wood settles back into place with a click, and suddenly we are in the streets again, our fingers entwined. A surge of love for the beautiful woman pulling me into the shadows blinds me to everything but her, time flowing around us without touching.

I take another step forward, faster than she is running and lift her into the desert air. Her startled “Kamenwatii!” is cut short by a brush of my lips, and she laughs, pleased, into my mouth.

“Olabisiifértarii…” The word vibrates with power as it spills off of my tongue; the Name, her Name, resonates through my very soul, branding itself into my mind with seven curvy symbols. Olabisiifértarii. The Majestic Windchime. Savrigne, and now…

“Your wife.” She whispers, gently, like the wind into my ears, as if she were privy to my thoughts.

The sun spills over the horizon, shattering the cold night with sudden warmth, and another day is born, under the smiling face of the sun god.

::mina::