He dragged a blanket from his pack and spread it around her shoulders from behind. Being a scholar and all, he was well aware that cold itself didn’t normally result in sickness, but the breeze blowing off the ocean was so wet and chilly that he couldn’t shake the urge to make sure she was warm.
His hands upon her seemed to act as a switch.
“I have decided several things,” Alexis said.
Her tone was so serious that he had the urge to chuckle nervously, but he managed to suppress it. “Well,” he said. “Feel free to elaborate at any time.”
“You say you aren’t ready to go home yet,” she said.
Beside her, Stone nodded.
“I’m not either. I’ve told you of my sister. When I do go home…when Lyra asks me if she is safe, I want to be able to say yes without lying to her. I want to tell her that the monsters that made her afraid are dead. I want to know the same thing.”
Given what she’d told him of the quartermaster and her reaction to the merchant, Stone was not surprised. He had already been set on seeing her as far as her family’s farm, and he had no ambitions to head home as of yet. There was too much of this world—his own world, just a couple thousand years early—that he wanted to see. To see it with Alexis by his side would only be a bonus.
“I would help you,” he said. “If you would have me, though with my skill as a swordsman, I suppose I’ll be more use as company than anything else.”
Her elbow dug into his side. Since her illness, she was more sharp corners than anything else, and it hurt.
“Stop that,” she said, the words were stern and warm at once. It was a curious combination that was uniquely Alexis. “You are not so helpless as you think,” she said. “Ambrus agreed that you show great promise.” When she stopped speaking for a second, the weight of his words seemed to sink in, and a small smile appeared on her lips. “I would have you,” she added.
The fire crackled at their backs, casting an orange glow over her face. He worried briefly about the wind blowing off the sea and how much of a fire hazard it was, but he trusted Alexis wouldn’t let him start a forest fire. Besides, the cliffs were so rocky that there wasn’t much to burn.
“What else have you decided?”
She turned toward him. The moon was coming out. He would soon see the light of it reflected in her eyes.
“I have decided that I wish to be with you, for however long you choose to stay here. Perhaps the gods did not wish you to remain forever; we cannot know. But I do believe that we were meant to meet and that the thread of my life is joined with yours, whatever world you inhabit.” She placed one hand on either side of his face and pressed her lips against his. It was quick and relatively chaste but no less sure. “This space between us,” she concluded. “I want it gone.”
He wanted that as well, more than he could say, but before they did so, more words needed to be aired. Just a few.
“I can’t promise that I’ll stay forever,” Stone said. “But right now, I want to.”
“Well then,” she said. There was still worry deep in her eyes, but for now, joy outshone it. “I will endeavor to keep you here with my charm and wit, so long as you promise me one thing.”
He could think of few things that he wouldn’t swear to, just then, to keep that exultant look on her face.
“If one day, you should decide to leave, do not do so without offering me the chance to come with you.”
“I swear,” he said, and it cost him nothing.
At his words, Alexis pressed her face into his shoulder and released a breath he hadn’t known she’d been holding. He raised her face slowly, with one thumb beneath her chin, and kissed her with his hands cradling her face. A few seconds passed before she leaned into it wholeheartedly, and kissed him back, hands slotting over the back of his head, tangling in his hair—too short, she always complained. He whispered, I love you, into her mouth, into her skin, and let himself be pulled down, onto the soft ground with the fire crackling behind them.
After, when they lay on the blanket together, sweat drying in the cold night air, Alexis moved a hand through his hair, against the grain, and nudged her legs closer to his own, seeking out the sort of warmth that the fire could not provide.
“Will you stay for a long while?” she asked.
“Longer,” he answered. As he spoke, he meant it wholeheartedly, with everything in him.
Epilogue
He would stay for a long while. Part of her was overjoyed with that; the rest of her, the impatient, demanding parts, wanted to keep needling him for something more. How long was a long while? She thought about asking, but it seemed like a silly question, a child’s question. This was more than either of them had ever had, and she would make herself content with it.
She could not fault him for his reasoning, and she had decided on the cliff top, with the sea spread out before them and his hands upon her skin, that she would embrace this for as long as she had it. If she threw herself into it fully, loved him with every part of her heart and soul, perhaps he would stay; perhaps he would never feel the pull of his old world.
If he did, she comforted herself with the notion that it might be long years away—ten years, twenty years, a lifetime. If he chose to go, perhaps she would have the strength to make the choice he could not and abandon one home for another.
It was not fair of her to pray that he would choose her world over his own and thus spare her the agony of such a decision, but she did pray, and would pray, every night that she remembered.
Stone was in the stables when she found him, having returned from purchasing breakfast in the form of bread drizzled with honey. He was fighting with the horse she’d allocated him, a gentle mare that would have been amiable enough for even Lyra to ride.
He turned toward her as she approached. “She refuses to move,” he said, rather dramatically. “Two apples and she still refuses to move.”
These days, just the sight of him evoked unrivaled delight within her. The unregulated emotion was slightly terrifying. She had considered crafting a blindfold to dampen the effects, but it seemed a tad too obvious.
“She’s probably angling for more,” Alexis said, and sure enough, as she watched, the mare nosed at the pocket sewn rather crudely onto the front of his tunic. She left him to struggle while she fetched her own mount from the stables and then rejoined him in the small yard before the structure.
“Left leg first,” she said in encouragement. “It’s not nearly so tricky as a camel. Horses have more sense.”
“I can manage,” Stone said.
She very much doubted that but left him to it as she mounted up. It felt wonderful to be in saddle again, even with her last experience being less than ideal. She stroked her horse behind the ears and began to think of possible names. Her father would have said it was bad luck to ride without one for too long, but she didn’t yet know the gelding’s temperament, and she hadn’t even begun to narrow it down.
Stone, when she looked at him next, hadn’t moved.
“Solomon Stone,” she said. “You do know to how to ride a horse, don’t you?”
Her voice sounded just as it was supposed to. Last night had repaired a good many things, and though there were still questions regarding the future, the present was as fine as she could hope for.
“Technically speaking,” he said, “All of my riding experience is with camels, but I’m sure it’s more or less the same.”
He didn’t sound remotely sure and was currently staring up at the horse as though mounting it were the equivalent of climbing the mountain that the gods lived atop. The sigh that she heaved was all for show, and she was positive that Stone knew this, if the sly grin he wore were any indication. “I can show you if you like,” she said. “I would hate for you ride across Greece facing the wrong way in saddle.”
“I would be in your debt if you would provide me with a crash course,” he said. “I may even pay you back this very evening.”
Alexis had a f
ew ideas regarding what payment she might accept but didn’t have the gall to give voice to them in the middle of the marketplace. She slid gracefully to the ground and took Stone’s mare by the reins. “There will be no crashing,” she said seriously, which made him laugh. “Put your left foot in the stirrup and swing your right one over.”
He wiped the smile from his face and dropped a lingering kiss on the crown of her head before hoisting himself up.
“What next, horse-master?”
She would never grow tired of teaching him. In regard to the question of forever, Alexis would do her best to cease asking. The gods or the fates or whatever strange power controlled those whose souls were joined had seen fit to bring them together. This small miracle was enough for now.
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About the Author
Diana K Potter is an emerging author of romantic adventure novels. This is Diana’s second book.
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