Vaster Vrain

“Are you feeling alright this arc, Vaster? You look ill.”

Vaster ran a shaky hand over his face, smearing the cold sweat from his forehead up into his slicked-back brown hair with patches of gray around the temples. He eased his hand down to his side and wiped the sweat onto the pant leg of his charcoal-colored Rasalhague suit.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, Overdage. I just haven’t been sleeping, that’s all.”

Vaster turned and looked at Overdage. The gallery director stood next to a large painting depicting a ruined manor house in a snowfield, the crumbling marble edifice surrounded by black-leafed trees under the red Valbaran sky. The canvas was set in an ornate gilded frame with swirling and twisting serifs and botanical motifs.

“Hmmm… yes. Would that happen to be why you are half a shift late for the installation? Oversleeping?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it. I overslept. Exactly.”

As Cinehilde and Meissa whispered words in a language he didn’t understand, Vaster stared at the gleaming pillar, at the flickering candlelight bouncing from its white polished surface, at the red dancing flame atop the tallow candle and the liquified fat oozing down its sides and sizzling as it hit the cool metal pan of the candle holder.

He held his other hand open and imagined her hand in it, stubby little fingers pressing into his palm. The burning wax and fat and incense caught in his throat as he remembered the last time he saw her. He remembered how she held her copy of Ashera against her chest, the well-worn book he had read to her over and over again when they were little. He remembered how he had promised to read it to her again after he returned. But he returned to an empty loft with no sign of her or of Ashera. Both had vanished.

Another bead of fat liberated itself from the tip of the candle and worked its way down. Maybe she was somewhere better. Somewhere with greater freedom and less pain. Somewhere where his own failures and fuck-ups couldn’t hurt her anymore. The bead of fat fell from the candle and hit the pan with a soft sizzle.

Cinehilde released Vaster’s hand. “Do you feel better?”

“Not really.”

“Good.”