Finding Contentus

Chapter 59: Summer Ice

The last thing Minaleese saw was a blinding white light, but when she woke up, all she saw was a blinding blackness.

She had no idea where she was, whether she was still dreaming or not. All she knew was that the room was dark, empty and foggy. The soft bed beneath her felt like cushions that were sucking her in to sink, and sink and sink and sink.

"Leesey! Leesey! Leesey!"

At least until her ears could hear and her eyes could see again. Renero cupped his hand on her face, calling for her with a worried look in his eyes.

It took some time for Minaleese's eyes to focus and see his face clearly. By the time she was able to see all of him, she went completely still as though frozen in time. She didn't reach to feel her face, but she could feel the tear stains on her cheeks that had poured out of her eyes like hail.

In fact, she saw small hail drops from her tears when she tilted her head a little to the side. It had been a long time since she last cried with solid ice. A long long time... and she knew that she was going to continue doing so for a long long time.

She looked back at Renero with a lost look in her eyes, seeking to be found with the searching torches in his worried expression.

"R—"

She was about to whisper his name, just his name, but caught herself when she heard how blocked her voice sounded. She... she sounded like her mother, Seleese, devoid of emotion, and only filled with a closed seal of ice.

Renero watched her frightened expression and saw how she couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what was not real as she struggled to speak. So, he slowly leaned down to land a kiss on her soft but absurdly cold and sealed lips. His lips lingered for minutes, before he moved to kiss her forehead, her cheeks, and her neck.

He did this so that she could feel his warmth spreading throughout her body, defeating the coldness of lost winter and winning with the hotness of victorious summer.

Bantï.

That did the trick in snapping Minaleese out of her state of loss in remembering Banti, how she carried her like a bride, melting the snow and the frozen wasteland land of failure into the successful lands of spring. Her vivid nightmare that turned into a vivid dream allowed her to slowly cup Renero's face in her hands. She was ice-cold to the touch, but no more cold than how she felt for—

A timeless amount of time.

She couldn't quantify how long her nightmare and dream was. She felt like she had spent an entire lifetime getting to know Banti, just as she caught up on lost time with Brianna. Her two sisters that saved her as a fallen mother and prevented her from falling just like Xantris.

Renero allowed her to go through the motions of sensuous touch. She lightly went over his parted lips, his nose, then finally, his long dreadlocks.

Something felt wrong. Horribly wrong. How long had she been out for? Where even where they? This wasn't Brianna's home. The room was like a sauna with lots of potent potions, medicines and steam. What had happened? What about all the children? What about Ishthrylla? What about the war? What about—

"Listen here Leesie, if you don't have Reno on his knees every single day where he rightfully belongs from now on, I will consider your marriage with him to be a failure and a disgrace."

Thousands of other questions swirled inside her barren mind to freeze her again. But as they did, Banti's Amandla sprinted through her nerves to charge her with a desperate need before she could run towards her needed duties.

"Lees—"

Minaleese didn't let Renero finish as she pulled him down. She wasn't ready to think. She wasn't ready to be fully awake just yet. She wasn't ready to tackle the cruel world just yet. She wasn't ready to hear the ugly truths and nightmarish state of affairs just yet.