Under the Veil

Part 9

Sierra stared at herself in the mirror. She probably looked worse than when Jessica woke her up five hours earlier. She had mercifully let go of her corset and replaced it with a more comfortable nightgown, and her body thanked her for with it every movement she made. She put her robe on before she stepped out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where she found Leto sitting on her bed. He hadn't moved from where she had left him about half-an-hour before, still in his uniform, his elbows resting on his thighs, his head down, eyes staring at nothing. He looked exhausted, both mentally and physically, and she could see the wheels turning inside his mind, questions after questions, finding no good answer.

"Hey," she cooed, as she softly took his face between her hands, and made him look up at her. "You need to sleep."

He shook his head as he covered her hands with his. "I can't think straight."

"That's why you need to sleep," she repeated, wishing she weren't so tired so she could soothe him with her gifts. But only one other person could help him relax enough to allow him a decent sleep. "Do you want me to get Jessica?"

A sad smile appeared on his face, the same smile he had every time she mentioned Jessica in moments like these. He wished she would stop, he wished she understood that she was enough for him, and that he was perfectly happy when he was with her, his wife. He loved Jessica, but he had vowed to love her too, and she was enough. She was more than enough.

"Will you sing to me, that song I like?" he asked, his voice bearing the traces of his fatigue.

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a small smile.

"That song is a prayer for the dead. I don't like singing it to you like it's a lullaby."

"You never told me why you were singing that song that night."

No, she hadn't. Because he never asked. And it had been a relief when, instead of asking her what the words unknown to him meant, he had complimented her voice and the melody of the requiem, and had asked her to sing it to him. She found it quite sad to help him fall asleep on such sorrowful words. He had caught her one night he was supposed to be with Jessica, when he just wanted to see her and bid her good night, but had found himself unable to leave her after hearing the mournful song.

"Who was it for?"

She sighed. He saw the light in her eyes fade away and the grief return to her features at the memory of the loved-one she lost too son.

"Jason had a twin brother."

"Did he?"

"His name was Eric," she continued, her voice but a whisper, as if speaking louder would summon his ghost.

"What happened to him?"

"He died of overexposure," she answered as a matter-of-factly, as if detaching herself from the incident.

"Did he... get lost?" Leto asked, puzzled as to how a Valen could die in the wild as the gifts they were born with were all they needed to survive in the hardest conditions.

"No," she shook her head as she frowned, as if the misunderstanding bothered her, as if the truth needed to be said, to be known. "My mother got sick. Really sick. No healer could help her. She would just get sick again. Eric was a healer, like me. He thought if... if he...," she paused, swallowed the lump in her throat before she took a deep breath and tried to chase the tears away from her eyes as Leto squeezed her wrists to let her know he understood, to give her the strength to go on. "He thought if he could give her his all, she would heal for good."