There is something nostalgic about this mare, something dangerous that sends her thoughts drifting back to ruinous homesickness and her thus far inability to find a place in this strange world. Maybe it’s the way silence seems to bleed from the silver on her skin, but it sets Ilka adrift, this quiet that swells to a crescendo between them. She thinks of Malis and her indigo secrets, of the way she and her sister were forced apart by the ghosts in those haunted green eyes. She thinks of the fire, of the Queen being taken, of Ledger’s claws buried in the flesh above her heart.
And when Cordis speaks and Ilka’s sad eyes flash back up to settle with some uncertainty in that aching silver, she can only offer one thing in response. “Maybe alone is good, though.” But even as the words form in her mouth and tip from her lips, she knows it to be a lie. Loneliness ate pitted holes out of Ilka’s heart. Alone was as bad as the ghosts in Malis’ eyes, the ghosts she thought she recognized in Cordis. “But I don’t like to be alone.” She says quieter now, her face as soft as the whisper of her tremulous voice.
Her ears flick forward at the sound of Cordis’ name – though it takes a heartbeat too long for her realize it for what it was. “Ilka,” she says quickly, quietly, “I’m Ilka.” She pauses again as her attention drifts back to that impossible silver. Malis had been brown before the indigo blossomed on her skin like a bloodstain, she wondered if Cordis had always been this way, the color of a cold star and just as distant. And then, with those pale brown eyes returning to hold her gaze, “What was?” She is silent for a beat before adding in a quiet whisper, “What was your fault?”
ILKA
makai x oksana