When the first wilted piece of grey ash had fallen across her view like a stray snowflake, she had startled. There hadn’t been fear though, and certainly no suspicion, but doubt had planted itself like a seed in her heart. When the stink of the Chamber had reached her nose, a familiar smell that (though she felt no love for it) reminded her of her family, suspicion blossomed. And when the smoke had gathered and thickened, voices and shouts bleeding into the chaos, fear had been borne within her.

There wasn’t a single hint of hesitation in her body as she leapt toward the chaos, picking her way through a forest she still didn’t know too well to a clearing she recognized even less. But it wasn’t courage that led her here, or bravery, it was the fear, the suspicion. She had spent a year of her life in the Chamber, maybe longer, she had a few friends there, family. And as she crested the edge of the clearing that looked out over the tree and the garden, she felt her heart smothered where it lay in her chest. Through the violence and the chaos she looked for her mother, her sister, her aunt. But none of them appeared from within the mass and it was suddenly a little easier to catch her breath. But then a dark silhouette did take shape, a devastatingly familiar one, and their eyes met for a heartbeat just before he disappeared.

“Erebor.” She breathed in dismay, the hollows of her dark, delicate face deepening.
This was what betrayal felt like.

Time passed impossibly slowly after that. Horses vanished, others finished their spars and wandered off to leave the kingdom to mourn. But Ilka couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her heart ached so badly in her chest she considered ripping it free. Something had shifted within her, something important, and that innocence had fissured like a crushed porcelain ball. By the time she had lifted her chin again and those pale brown eyes fell back on the smoke and ash choked clearing, all of the Chamber had gone.

Suddenly, as though she’d been stretched too tight for too long, she exploded into a run. By the time she had reached the meadow, sweat gleamed in the hollow of her neck and in the curve of her flank. Her ribs heaved and the breaths came in short uneven bursts. On her skin was the stink of the Chamber, so faint, and the sweetness of the Gates. There was ash there too, acrid, and it burned her lungs. Exhaustion drew soft shadows into the hollows of her face, and as she stood there, frozen, a trembling began in the marrow of her bones.

“I can’t do this.” She breathed, just a flutter of sound as her chin tucked defeatedly to the curve of her narrow chest.

ILKA

makai x oksana

When father had left them, mother had taken them to the Chamber, to the only other family she still had left. Straia was queen, but she was also Oksana’s sister, not by blood but in all the ways that mattered. Ilka had stayed in the Chamber for a long while. Days turned into months until finally a year had gone and still there was an emptiness in her heart that not even her family could fill. The Chamber wasn’t home, it didn’t fit- Ilka didn’t fit.

So she had left for the Gates to see if that would be a better fit. Opposite worlds and her place was settled somewhere in between But now, with the  soot stained grass and the ash that felt like snow, the stale scent of the Chamber on her dark skin felt like treachery.

When Shahrizai approaches her she’s still lost in her thoughts, drifting, sinking. So when he does speak and those pale brown eyes jump uncertainly to his face, there is hesitation etched into the hollows of her black and white face. But before her mind has a chance to consider him, to consider the importance of the words falling from her dark lips, her heart spills over.

“The Gates burned today.” Her voice is just a shattered sound, a tremulous whisper tipping at the edge of a bottomless chasm. Alone, that confession is disorienting, like part of a dark riddle. But she has nothing more to give him, nothing more to tell. “We burned” She says again, even quieter, and she wonders if he’ll notice the ash on her skin and the soot on her face.

But this time when her chin lifts and her eyes resettle on the pewter of his quiet face, she notices something. A familiarity resonating deeper than his face, an ache in the depths of his eyes. Like knows like. She steps closer, still trembling, still uncertain, but there is a new softness in her tone when she stretches her mouth to his cheek before pulling away to let the cold air fill in between them. “You have ghosts too, I think.” But she doesn’t ask because he hasn’t told her and there was nothing in her willing to pry out his secrets to leave gaping chasms behind on his heart. They all had their private haunts.

ILKA

makai x oksana

A shuddering breath escapes her lips when his nose presses to her neck. Reflexively she leaned into the touch, those pale brown eyes closing for just heartbeat as the racing of her pulse slowed. If he had been anyone but a perfect stranger, she would have tucked herself against his chest, buried her sooty white face in the tangle of his mane. Instead she held her distance, uncertain, with dismay etched like shadow in the dark hollows of her delicate face.

“I’m not hurt.” She tells him and her voice is just a whisper, a murmur of sound tainted by a poisonous shame. “I didn’t fight, I didn’t get there in time. I should have.” The look of dismay deepens and she turns her face from him, those nearly gold eyes cast low to the dirt and grass at their feet. “I-” her breath catches and she turns her broken face back to him, “I should have tried harder.”

His next question coaxes some softness back to her face, her eyes. “Yes.” Is all she says, her expression as quiet as the whisper of her voice. But she isn’t sure how much to tell him. She had been born in the Amazons, but her mother had never served the kingdom. They had stayed because father had family ruling, because it was as safe a place as any. But Ilka had never been involved in the Kingdom, not there, and certainly not when they had migrated to the Chamber. She had every intention of learning in the Gates, but she had only arrived a few weeks ago and the laws and common practice were still entirely unfamiliar.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you,” her eyes lift and settle on his, shadowed by the furrowing of her brow, “I shouldn’t have told you.” But she doesn’t know this for sure, it’s a guess, a thought shaped in a frightened mind. But the realization wraps cold, skeletal fingers around her heart. What if telling him had hurt the kingdom in some way. Her stomach seizes. “I don’t know how do to this. I don’t know what I’m doing.” There’s an edge of desperation in the echo of her heartbroken confession.

And when he speaks again, her heart crumbles further, the edges turning to dust in her chest. She wants to tell him she’s sorry. Sorry for her clumsy observation, for his loss. But pity wasn’t a thing that healed, it was a dangerous feeling that had a habit of deepening the hurt. She takes a hesitant step closer, and another, so that she can slip beneath his neck and press her mouth gently to the curve of his chest. His heart beats beneath her lips. “They’re just in here now. You can keep them there forever.” She pulls back and her eyes lift imploringly to his, uncertain and vulnerable, “That’s what I do.”

ILKA

makai x oksana

Even with the ghosts in his eyes and sorrow wedged like a stone in his chest, he remains steadfast. She finds herself steadied by the evenness of his gaze, his words, the slow rise and fall of his ribs. For a moment she tries to focus on her own breathing, on the rapid tremble of her heart and the flutter of her pulse shaking in her veins. Her eyes close, just for a moment, a heartbeat in time, and she exhales shakily. But when she opens her eyes again and lifts them to his concerned face there is a new quiet there. It’s pulled tight, so taut, like a membrane stretched thin over her face, but it’s there and it’s honest.

She is surprised by his question, by the kindness etched into his voice and the softness of his eyes. “I might’ve, if I tried.” She tells him quietly, battling fresh waves of shame ebbing and flowing beneath her skin. But even as she says it, she doesn’t believe it. “There was no way to stop them,” she says again, her voice distant as the memory replays across her thoughts, “they were so prepared. So strong.” She finds herself suddenly unable to meet his glance, instead tucking her chin back to her chest. For the first time in her short life she found herself wishing she could be more than just the plain black mare with no gifts or talents. How else would she be any good to those she loved.

When he touches her shoulder, his breath a welcomed heat against her satin black skin, her wide eyes lift uncertainly to his face. “What good is a promise between strangers?” Her voice is soft, a tremulous whisper, but there is a note of sincerity in her question. An absence of accusation. And then- “I trust you, but maybe it isn’t my secret to tell.”

When she steps against him to trace the place above his heart and he leans in to welcome her touch, she folds herself in closer to him. With a tight sigh and uncertainty etched into the soot and shadows of her dark, delicate face, she presses her cheek to the slant of his shoulder. Ilka’s mother had a tendency to love fiercely, to crush her children to the curve of her chest at the first sign of uncertainty. So tucked here, curled into the warmth and strength of a perfect stranger, a kind stranger, Ilka felt stronger again. She felt more like herself. “I don’t need your secrets,” she says quietly, an indecisive smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, “secrets are secrets for a reason. If you wanted to tell me, then I don’t think it would count as a secret anymore.”

And then, with that small smile still ghosting her lips – though it darkens just a little with the weight of her words, “You make me miss home,” a pause, stretched so taut it trembled wildly in the air between them, “you make me miss feeling safe.”

Loved. She doesn’t say.

ILKA

makai x oksana

When his nose finds the curve of her sooty cheek, she closes her eyes and leans lightly into the soft of his touch. In that moment she cannot help but feel like she was meant to come to the meadow, meant to run from the fire, if only to find him here. A stranger who felt so impossibly like family it made her heart ache with a false loneliness. She loved the hint of a smile on his mouth, the light in his eyes (though it was dampened some with concern), the way he seemed to notice that touch had a manner of pulling her from her self-pitying thoughts.

“Thank you.” She tells him in a murmurous voice. When she drops her cheek from his touch, her eyes fall open again, a brown so pale they almost seem gold. Her chest expands with a sigh, and when she exhales it leaves the hint of a frown on her dark, uncertain mouth. “I just wish I could be more for them. They’re family now, and family is everything.” Her heart tightens in her chest as images of the Queen being taken away play on repeat behind her eyes.

Her head hangs a little lower then, subtly, and she hopes the ash and shadow is enough to hide the defeat that stretches across her delicate face. “I know it isn’t my fault, I couldn’t have changed anything, but it gives my pain some direction if I can blame myself.” She pauses and looks at him, really looks at him, and there is something dark that flickers just beneath the surface of her eyes, a thought that pulls her back under. She does not want to tell him that her family lives in the offending kingdom, that she had seen a friend and he had led the charge. It hurts too much, even if she knows how silly it is.

“They might.” She says in answer to his next question, her eyes tracing whorls in the dirt at their feet. But that doesn’t mean I have to. She thinks with a furrowed brow. But when her eyes lift to his face, to the earnest concern knit in the furrow of his brow and the kindness shining in those eyes, she knows she’ll tell him. “They took Fiasko.” She breathed, her voice wavering painfully. “They took the Queen.” And it’s like the confession took a piece of her heart with it as she crumples before him, her shoulders hunched and every muscle clenched painfully tight beneath her smooth black skin.

His next words pull her face back to him, her pale brown eyes to his. And even though her face is buried in shadow, she still finds a smile for him, just the hint of one, touching the corners of her velvet mouth. “I know.” She tells him in an impossibly soft voice. "I feel it too." That kinship beyond words, beyond explanation. And then, “I’m glad I came. I’m glad I met you.”

ILKA

makai x oksana