“Wait. Please wait...” I crouch down, reaching out and placing my hand over her gloved one, still gripping the top rung.
She stares up at me from the ladder, her bright blue eyes narrowed.
“Where are you going?” I ask her, gesturing toward the river. I feel dizzy, breathless.
She frowns at me, her jaw still set.
“I came through a portal,” she tells me gruffly, leaning against the ladder. “And I must…” She sighs. “I must find the thing that created the portal, so that I may return to Agrotera. At once.”
“And what created the portal?” I ask her, perplexed.
“It was a shard of glass,” she says, her voice low.
I glance over her shoulder at the water rolling sluggishly past. “Okay. So how big is this shard?”
“Smaller than that star I pulled from your ear.”
I blink.
Then, after a pause, I clear my throat. “Look,” I begin awkwardly. “I… I mean, you’re free to do whatever you want. Obviously. But I...don’t think this is the best approach. You just came through a portal. And I just rescued you from drowning. And you just nearly died of blood loss…and then cast a spell that not only healed you but brought people back from the dead. Don’t you think that’s enough excitement for one night?” I ask weakly, sitting back on my heels.
I’m surprised that this question wins a smile from her—though it’s a very small one. “Knights,” she says, glancing up at me with a raised brow, “do not get tired.”
So she’s a knight? The black armor…
Okay.
Yeah, I can see it.
I guess that makes as much sense as any of this.
I watch her thoughtfully. “You say that, but is it really true, or is it just something you tell yourself?” My mouth turns up at the corners softly. “Why don’t you…” I draw in a deep breath. “Why don’t you come with me? Back to my place? There’s probably still some pizza left. You can eat, rest, and then in the morning, we'll figure out what to do next.”
“We?” she asks, her head tilted to one side as she gazes up at me. Her jaw is tight again, and the ghost of a smile has disappeared from her lips. In fact, her expression is suddenly taut and guarded. Wary. It’s a surprising change, and it happens in a heartbeat.
Despite my exhaustion, I remain crouched on the pavement, trying to talk this woman down—or, rather, up—from the ladder. I press the pad of my thumb to the back of my gold pendant as I try my best to bring back her earlier warmth.
“It’s been a long night, Charaxus.” My tone is gentle, but the tiredness comes through. “You must need to rest.”
“Knights don’t—”
“I can tell you’re tired,” I say, and my throat tightens—I’m going for broke here. The truth is...I don’t want her to disappear. I don’t want the woman who materialized from another world, who made a star appear out of thin air, who I feel such an intense connection with...to vanish.
There’s something nagging at me. Something that’s growing stronger by the moment. She’s familiar, but I still can’t place her. It’s as if there’s a cloud in my mind’s eye, obscuring something vitally important from me.
All I know is that she can’t go. Not yet.
Not tonight.
Charaxus pauses, her hands gripping the rung of the ladder tightly as she stares up at me. And then, slowly, rung by rung, she ascends, climbing until her boots are back on land; she’s standing in front of me once more. Her jaw is still tense, her eyes are narrowed and distrustful—but she listened to me.
I rise to stand beside her.
“I don’t need your help,” she tells me quickly. Her voice is low, and the words are flippant, but there’s quite a lot of pain beneath them.
I stare up at her, confused.
“I know you don’t,” I tell her, rubbing at my arms. The night has gotten chilly. Or maybe I’m shivering for a different reason. When she stands this close, I’m not sure what happens to me... Something shifts, deep inside. It feels like… Well, it feels like an unfurling.
I’m attracted to her.
But I've never felt attraction like this before.
I hold her eyes, and I clear my throat again. “I know you don’t need my help. I’m only...concerned,” I say, offering her a small smile. “I pulled you out of that river, and you weren't breathing.” Goosebumps break out over my skin as I remember the many and varied terrors of the evening. “I don’t want you endangering yourself again. At least, not right away. And heading down to the river without a plan… That’s dangerous. I mean, you didn’t have a plan, did you?” I ask gently.
A flicker of sheepishness passes over her face, telling me all that I need to know. But the sheepishness doesn’t last long. Charaxus huffs, gazing over the escarpment to the river flowing slowly below. “That river is no danger,” she tells me imperiously.
“It may not look like it is. But it nearly took your life.” My words are soft, my head tilted to the side as I gaze at her solemnly. “No reason to give it two chances in one night, okay?”
Charaxus’ whole body stiffens, and for a moment, I think she’s going to argue with me. Her eyes flash dangerously, her mouth drawn in a thin, hard line, but then...she doesn’t argue at all. She sighs, nods stiffly, and her shoulders curl forward as if she’s defeated.
“Some food, a soft place to sleep—I would not begrudge these things,” she says gruffly, her tone still very formal, but there’s a detectable softness in her body language that wasn’t there a moment ago.
“Good,” I tell her with a nod, and then I’m taking a few steps toward the Ceres, glancing over my shoulder to make certain she’s following me. Charaxus stands in place, look toward the river uncertainly.
“Are you coming?” I ask her.
Charaxus’ jaw tightens. “The shard,” she begins, and she clears her throat. “It’s how I got here. It’s how the portal was formed… The portal is my only way to get back home,” she tells me. “What if…” Her hands curl into fists. “What if it’s lost forever?” she whispers.
I raise my eyebrows, staring at this woman wearing thick black armor who is, all of the sudden, exposing her vulnerability to me, as if her sharp, commanding mask slipped, just for a moment, out of place. She seems young now, even though she must be thirty-something, around my age.
She almost looks fragile. My heart hurts, seeing her like this.
“Look, you said the shard of glass is small, right?” I step toward her, offering her an uncertain smile, my chin tilted upward. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to find it tonight. Tomorrow morning, with fresh eyes and sunlight, you’ll be able to search more productively. Maybe you'll find it right away. And then what?”
“Then I'll go back home,” says Charaxus, almost wistfully.
My stomach turns over inside of me. I shake my head, nodding quickly. “Sure. You’ll do that. I don’t doubt it. But right now, it’s dinnertime. Past dinnertime. Come on… Do you guys have pizza on Agrotera?”
“Pizza?” she asks with a raised brow as she begins to follow me. We walk, taking slow steps, toward the Ceres. “No, I don’t think so,” she says thoughtfully, her hands folded behind her back. She casts me a sidelong glance. “What is it?”
“The best food our planet has to offer.” I smile. “Come on in and meet everyone.” I ascend the concrete steps in front of the Ceres, and I rummage through my purse as I search for my keys, peering down into my dark purse.
Charaxus waits quietly behind me. When I turn to glance at her over my shoulder, my throat constricts.
She looks so beautiful. That’s a simple way to put it, but that’s how simple it feels. My eyes have adjusted—as much as possible—to the darkness, but her skin is so pale that she almost shines. She is gazing up at the heavy cloud cover, and her brow is furrowed, as if she's considering something of great importance.
As if she's thinking of home.
Her expression is pensive and guarded. When she
catches me looking, her gaze shifts from the heavens to me.
We stand there on the steps—Charaxus two steps down from me, making her equal to my height.
Somewhere far away, a cat hisses and yowls, followed by a small metallic bang, as if something tumbled from an overly full dumpster. There’s the distant, mournful siren-song of a train’s whistle.
A soft wind blows through the parking lot in front of the Ceres, stirring Charaxus’ hair softly over her shoulders.
She stares at me, and her bright blue eyes burn. She narrows her gaze a little, her head poised to one side.
“Why do you think I appeared here?” she asks me then, her gruff voice surprisingly soft in the stillness. “With…you?” The last word is so low that, for a moment, I wonder if I heard her correctly.
I watch her, my lips parted, my breathing shallow, because she looked as if she was about to place her hands on me. I know she was. Maybe she would have fit her hands around my waist, her fingers curling over my curves there. But she drew back, stopped herself stiffly, as if there were an invisible wall between us, keeping us apart.
Separating us by more than two steps.
She fists her hands, and there’s a war fleeting over her face.
Tension crackles between us, electric, and a heat slides over my skin. I rub at my bare forearms a little, trying to settle myself.
“I don’t know why you ended up here,” I whisper then, and my brow furrows as I look at her, really look at her.
Why does she seem so familiar?
And why does my heart ache at the sight of her? I feel as if it's obvious, as if the truth is crying out to me, and I just can’t hear it…
Charaxus turns to glance up at the sky again, and my breath catches in my throat as I watch her face turn in profile, as I watch a hole in the cloud cover open overhead, allowing a million stars to shine through…
I swear, at this moment, the starlight is reflected in her glorious black mane…
And it looks like…
It looks…like…
I breathe out.
I know her. I know her as if I’ve known her my entire life.
Because I have.
“You…” I whisper, and Charaxus stares at me in confusion. “You…” I whisper again, and then I’m reaching out to her, my hands moving unbidden, and I can’t stop them; I can’t stop myself from moving toward her like a gravity, as if she’s the sun and I’m a simple planet, pulled inexorably toward her light.
My fingers brush across her right cheek, her high cheekbone, her warm, soft skin. She remains perfectly still, her blue eyes wide for a moment, but then she surprises me. As I trace my fingers over her cheek, lightly, lightly, as if I’m tracing the contours of a painting, she closes her eyes, and she breathes out, her breath hot against my palm.
“You look like you have stars in your hair,” I whisper to her, watching the light of the faraway stars somehow, impossibly, reflect in the glossy blackness of her hair.
Her eyes snap open, and she stares at me wonderingly.
“What did you say?” she asks, her voice low, a growl.
I stand there, very still, and I lean closer. “You look like you have stars in your hair,” I tell her urgently. It’s important. She needs to know this, because I’ve dreamed of this, of her… I’ve dreamed of her so many times that she became an integral part of my life long before I met her, knew her.
My dream girl. That’s who Charaxus is. The woman who has haunted my dreams since I was small, since before I knew what a dream was or what a dream could do. All of my life, she has haunted my sleeping hours, and, awake, I know her now.
I stare at her in the darkness.
I don’t know how this is possible.
But it’s real.
She’s real.
The woman of my dreams is standing in front of me. And I’m touching her.
She’s warm and soft and real.
Something prevented me from recognizing her until now. Maybe I didn’t believe it. Couldn't. Maybe I didn’t want to see the truth. But the foggy woman in all of my dreams, the woman I knew I loved with all of my heart… This is her. I know it like I know who I am: I’m Mara, and I’ve had a hard life. I’m an artist. And I really love pizza. These things make up part of my identity.
And so does Charaxus.
She takes a step up, standing closer, a little higher than me now, her gloved fingers—finally—curling around my waist. “Say it again,” she whispers.
“Say what?” I ask, as Charaxus searches my face.
“About…” Her voice cracks, but she shakes her head, clears her voice, lifts her chin, blue eyes flashing. “About the stars.”
I swallow. “You look like you have stars in your hair,” I tell her one last time, and as I watch, a single tear leaks from the corner of her right eye, tracing all the way down her cheek, the curve of her chin; the tear glitters, suspended in the air for half a heartbeat, before falling down to her black breastplate.
“I know you,” she whispers then, gripping me, and her voice is breaking. “I’ve dreamed of you.”
I stare at her, my mouth open. “You’ve dreamed of me?”
“Yes,” she says, nodding, and she wraps her arms tightly around me, as if she’ll never let go, as if she’s drowning and I’m the only sure, real thing to hold onto in a storm at sea. “Yes,” she murmurs again, and I’m reaching up, touching her face as she stares down at me, eyes shining.
I draw her face to mine. And I kiss her.
At first, she’s surprised, and she makes no movement. Her mouth is soft, warm, gentle, as I kiss her. But then her surprise evaporates, and she devours me, her mouth suddenly ferocious as she kisses me deeply, passionately, with so much strength and fervor that I lose my breath. She tastes of cinnamon, of fire, of hot, spicy things. I wrap my arms so tightly around her neck that, when she lifts me up at my waist, I rise from the ground.
She sets me back down gently, and we both break from the kiss, taking a step away—my back colliding with the door of the Ceres, her feet finding pavement once more. She stares up at me as I stare down at her; my heart is knocking so hard at my ribs that she must be able to hear its rhythm.
“What the hell is going on here?” I gasp, heat surging through me, want following on its heels as I watch the woman of my dreams, see the lust in her too-blue eyes.
“I don’t know,” she says, her voice gruff, tense, as she fists her hands, her lips drawn into a line as she tries to gain control of her breath. “I don’t know,” she repeats, and in frustration, she rakes a gloved hand back through her hair. She glances up at me as if unsure of who I am for a moment, and then she ascends the steps slowly, until she's staring down at me, her brow furrowed.
Then Charaxus threads her fingers through my hair.
“I didn’t know you until this moment,” she says, and her eyes find mine, burn into mine. “But I’ve dreamed of you since I was a small child. I’ve dreamed of a woman with red-gold hair, like a lioness,” she murmurs, her eyes soft, sparking now as she gazes past me, to her hand in my hair, her fingertips at the back of my neck as she takes a step closer, the leather grazing my skin and causing a tremor to move through me. “A woman who said my hair looked like stars. Who wore a star about her throat…” And then she reaches out, and she’s touching the gold pendant at the hollow of my neck.
I stare at her in wonder as I touch the pendant, too.
She dreamed about my mother’s pendant?
Charaxus locks eyes with me, her gaze simmering. “Who kissed me as if I were the only woman in the world for her,” she whispers.
“How is this possible?” I whisper back, but when she’s this close, the heat of her burning through me, her hand against my skin, I can’t really think straight.
“I don’t know,” she says again, and there’s a particular growl to her voice now; when she looks down, when she gazes into my eyes, I’m panting against her.
“How…” I begin again, but I don’t get
very far. She’s capturing my mouth with a kiss, and it’s profoundly soft, the way her lips graze mine, the way her tongue finds its way into my mouth. The leather of her right hand is curled around my neck, and her fingers are delicate against my skin, but wherever she touches me, I burn with want.
I can’t take much more of this.
She’s pressing me against the door now, and I hiss out into the darkness as her mouth leaves mine, trailing heat over the skin of my cheek, my jaw, trailing a pattern of kisses to my neck. I arch my back a little, and though there’s confusion in the corners of my mind, assaulting me with a constant, consistent “what-the-hell-am-I-doing, what-the-hell-am-I-doing” loop, I ignore it. I ignore everything except for her.
Until the door that I’m leaning against, the door that’s bearing all of my weight, opens.
I fall through, and Charaxus falls on top of me.
Chapter 6: The Knight of My Dreams
“You’re not the pizza dude,” says Toby reproachfully as he stares at the pile of limbs comprised of Charaxus and me.
“Good observation, Mr. Obvious,” I groan from the floor, and then I’m struggling to a sitting position beside Charaxus. I peer up at Toby with narrowed eyes. “Wait a second—why the hell did I go pick up pizza earlier if you were just going to have more delivered later?”
Toby, still a mime but now also wearing an Uncle Sam hat, stares down at me with his hands on his hips.
“We ate all of your pizzas, and we were still hungry, so Cecile offered to get us more. She said that you’d be sad that there wasn't any left for you, so…” He pauses then, blinks, gazing down at Charaxus as if noticing her for the first time. “Hold on. Mara. Is this the lady you dragged out of the river? The one with the stab wound? Wait.” He holds up a hand. “Were you just making out with her against the front door, or am I hallucinating?”
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