Devour the Moon

"Tonight, we are without much, I know that," he said. "And I know, too, that it is because of no one else other than myself. I have been vain and greedy and arrogant, and it is each of you who has paid the price for me. We have lost family. We have lost friends. We have lost... we have lost much. And I don't know what awaits us in the New World, but I am glad that you are all with me, and if you will allow me the opportunity, I will do whatever I can to make up for all the ill I've done--for all that we've lost."

He turned to Sayyida Zahra. "Zahra, my friend. I have put you through much. I have not been good to you, now, but perhaps also ever. You are a good friend, though, and I want to thank you for all you've done. For helping steer me in the right direction, as much as for all the love you've shown my sister. Without you, without this ship, who knows what might have happened to my sister and mother."

She nodded to him with a polite smile.

"Adele." He looked at her. "I am sorry that I did not tell you the truth of my arrival in France, and what it is I have been doing these last years. In my selfishness, I risked your life, and I will never forgive myself for it. And, furthermore, I am sorry for taking from you your father and your home. I am most sorry to have treated so, when you have never been anything but sweet and kind to me." He shook a pain out of his jaw. "Yet, you are the very best of women, and I know you will thrive wherever we land."

Adele said nothing, but only gave a sad look in Alexandre's direction. Alexandre sighed, his cup sagging, but then, with a nod, he raised it even higher.

"Mother, I know you have also been put at odds here with what I've done, and I am sorry for that, too. One day, I hope you can forgive me for what happened to the marquis."

The marquise nodded solemnly.

"Rochelle," he turned to her with gentle eyes. "You have been put through much, and like Adele, none of it you are responsible for. I am sorry that I ever involved you in this, and for all that has come to pass."

She nodded, not knowing what to say.

He turned back to the others, raising his cup higher again. "And to those not present," he said. "To the marquis--a man of many flaws, but Adele, mother--he did love you both very much, and I will mourn his passing for that."

"To Remy and Gosse and Dario and Killian," he said. "Good men, all of them, and it is through their sacrifice that we are here today."

"To Lochlann." His jaw tightened. "He was a g--" The words caught in his throat and he looked at each of them, their glasses still raised. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

He smiled sadly at them, then, and raised his goblet higher.

"To Lochlann," he said simply. "He was my friend. And I did love him."

All made a weary cheer and sipped at their cups. Lethargically, they ate. Adele had not seemed to enjoy being on the ship at all in the few hours they had been aboard, and she seemed to have lost all appetite.

Rochelle waited as the others took some food, but then Alexandre rose from the chair beside her and left the cabin. She watched him go, seeing the slump to his shoulders as he walked. After a moment, when he did not return, she followed him up to the main deck. He stood now where she had before, and she approached him cautiously.

"Are you all right?" She put a hand on his shoulder.

"I am only now realizing that they will not forgive me," he said.

"They might," she offered.

"Can you?" he asked. "For all that I've done?"

"I..." She bit her lip, then slowly shook her head. "No, I don't think I could."

He nodded again. "When I decided not to pursue de Tremblay, to give up on the gold, I think part of me thought that doing so was enough to be forgiven for all I'd done--that one thing could unwrite all now written. But it is not so, is it? Good doesn't absolve evil. It just buries it."

She put a hand on his back and rubbed gently through his coat.

"I am a villain," he said, "but I do desire to be no longer. I know I cannot fix what I have done, but... but I would like if I might do better tomorrow--that I might be better. For all of them. For you." He turned and took her hand in his, bringing her to the railing. Gently, he pressed her against it, the tip of his nose touching her forehead as she looked down at his chest.

"I can be better, Rochelle," he said. "I will be better, and if you will give me the chance, I will spend the rest of my life choosing to love--choosing you."

She flattened her lips together and looked away from him, to the dark wood of the deck where water reflected on the wet spots in the moonlight. Painfully, she swallowed.

"You are a villain," she said. "I see that now. I can't pretend to forgive what you've done. It is not even my place to forgive the worst of it. And I can't love that man, either, that man you've been."

He nodded delicately.

"You stand here in front of me, though, telling me you are repentant, and I admit, I do love this man--this tender, kind, decent man." She took his hand in hers. "Does that not make me a fool? That I should take only the pieces of you that please me? The pieces of you that look like the man I wish you were?" She sighed again. "I don't even know what it is I am saying. I thought--before I found you--I thought I was a good person. I thought that I could never love a man who had done so much bad. I thought I had a good heart."

"Your heart is good," he assured.

"No, it isn't." She made a small shake of her head. "I don't have a good heart. Tomas... my father... there's nothing good about me."

"There is." He put his hand on her cheek. "You are a good woman."

She touched the back of his hand. "Why? How is it you think that you know?"

"Because, before I found you," he whispered, "I thought my own heart pitch-black and blood-soaked. I thought it hard and hollow and small and dark--that there was not enough of it even to make a hive for bees." He took careful hold of her hand, nuzzling it to his own cheek. "And when we are apart, so is it cold and damp, but when you come near, it does warm and beat, and each day faster still."

Like a breeze to a petal, he kissed the back of her hand. "That is how I know your good heart--how I know your goodness and your gentleness, your loveliness and your lightness. Because to be near to you changes the very shape of me."

With one hand, he pressed her fingers upon his chest. On his other hand, his thumb and finger touched her chin, and he tilted her eyes to meet his.

"In love, we become the pieces of one another. And even absent you, I still feel the parts of me that are you, for they are my best parts. I feel it in the memory of your touch. I feel it in your words. I feel it in all the ways you've changed me--in all the ways you make me wish to change."

He leaned in, brushing his nose against hers.

"And I know you, little stone," he whispered, "for the shape of my heart is you."

She sighed, looking up at him.

"I do love you," he said. "And what is more, I want to love you, for the rest of my days."

She stood on her toes, kissing him more softly than the moonlight that tussled his dark hair. His arms wrapped around her and he swallowed her up into his heavy body until she felt more safe than she ever had before.

"Where will we go?" she whispered.

"I don't know." He smiled. "But I would go anywhere with you tonight."

"And tomorrow, too?"

"And tomorrow." He kissed her cheek. "And tomorrow." He pulled back, touching her chin again. Her eyes met his. "On and on, forever and ever, till there's nothing left but you."

"But us," she said, smiling and stroking his fingers at her chin.

"But us," he agreed.

On the endless horizon, a full honeyed moon had risen and now it dangled there like a gold pendant in the pit of heaven's neck. Happy, astounded, the little stars did dance around it, and softly the sea foam did spray across it.

And he took her into his arms, and bite-by-bite, they devoured the moon.

THE END

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