23
DINA
We travel for days. The sprawling, windswept plains of Oshta slowly give way to rolling foothills, the land rising to meet the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the mountains that loom on the horizon. The world has opened up, a vast, untamed wilderness, and with it, our own small world has fundamentally changed.
Xylon leads, and I follow. The dynamic between us has shifted, a silent, seismic reordering of our universe. He is no longer the wounded, disoriented creature I had to care for. He is a warrior in his element. He is the leader now, and I, for the very first time in my life, am his partner.
One afternoon, he stops and picks up a long, straight branch from a fallen ironwood tree. For the next hour, as we walk, he works on it with his knife, his powerful hands surprisingly deft. He carves a gentle curve into the wood, notches the ends, and uses a strip of sinew from adaehe hunted to string it. A bow. It is crude, but powerful.
He hands it to me. "You must learn," is all he says, voice a low rumble.
He stands behind me, his body a wall of heat at my back, his proximity making my breath catch. "Raise it," he commands softly. I do, my arms trembling from the tension of the string. His arms come around me to correct my form, his broad chest pressing against my shoulders, his hands covering mine. One guides my grip on the bow, the other helps me pull the string back to my cheek. My mind goes blank. All I can feel is him surrounding me, his clean, masculine scent, the sheer, solid power of his body caging me in. The air crackles.
"Breathe," he murmurs, his lips close to my ear. The vibration of his voice travels straight through me, coiling low in my gut. "See the target. See nothing else."
I see nothing. I feel everything. I am achingly, overwhelmingly aware of the play of muscle in the arms that encircle me, of the strength in the fingers that gently adjust my own. A wild, terrifying part of me wants to lean back, to melt into the solid wall of him. I loose the arrow. It flies wide, thudding uselessly into the dirt.
He lets out a low breath, but he doesn't move away. For a long moment, we stay like that, wrapped in a warrior’s stance that feels like the most intimate embrace I have ever known. Then he steps back, and the sudden loss of his heat is a physical blow.
I look at him, my heart hammering, my face flushed with a heat that has little to do with the sun. His expression is unreadable, his dark eyes focused on the misplaced arrow, his face a cold mask of stoic instruction. Does he feel it? This raw, electric current that arcs between us whenever we get too close? Or is it just me? Am I just a former slave, so starved for kindness that I am mistaking a warrior’s practical training for something more? The doubt is a cold, lonely thing.
That night, as the moons begin their ascent into a sky littered with a thousand diamond-sharp stars, he builds our fire in theshelter of a small, rocky overhang. The day was long, the climb strenuous, and an exhausted silence settles over us as we eat.
The firelight dances across his face, casting his strong features in flickering shades of gold and shadow. He is staring into the flames, but I can tell his thoughts are far away.
He turns to me. “Dina,” he says, his deep voice a soft rumble. He reaches across the small space between us, his large, calloused hand open. A silent invitation.
My heart seizes. My hand trembles as I lift it and place it in his. His fingers close around mine, his grip firm and warm and impossibly gentle. A jolt, a pure, electric shock, arcs up my arm.
He turns my hand over, his thumb stroking the center of my palm as he looks at our joined hands. “The symbol on my shoulder,” he begins, his voice low, “it is the mark of my clan. The Fire Sun.” He looks up, his dark eyes meeting mine. “Our legends say the first Orc was born when the sun kissed the mountain. We do not worship the sun as a god, but we honor it as our ancestor. Its light is in our blood. It means we carry a fire inside us that no darkness can extinguish.”
Tears prick at my eyes. He is giving me a piece of his soul.
“When I was… the other thing,” he says, “the darkness was absolute. I was so close to losing myself. It tried to extinguish my fire. It almost succeeded.” My fingers tighten around his.
“But there was a light,” he whispers, his thumb stroking my skin. “A small, stubborn light that would not let the darkness win. You.” My breath hitches, a sob catching in my throat.
“I remember everything, Dina,” he confesses, his voice rich with an emotion that makes my own heart ache in response. “I remember the scent of the bread you left. I remember the sound of your humming… I was trapped, but I was not gone. And you… you were the one who kept my soul alive.”
The tears I have been holding back finally fall, tracing hot paths down my cheeks. He remembers. He was there, inside thebeast, all along. Our connection, the one I thought was a figment of my own desperate hope, was real.
He makes a low sound in his chest, a sound of profound, aching tenderness. He gently tugs my hand, and I lean in, drawn by an invisible string. He lifts his other hand, his thumb coming up to brush a tear from my cheek, his touch impossibly soft. His eyes search mine, a thousand unspoken questions passing between us. There is a hesitation, a moment where the entire world seems to hold its breath. I give a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
He leans in and presses his lips to mine.
It is not a kiss of passion, not of hunger. It is a kiss of reverence. It is soft, hesitant, a gentle press of warmth against the backdrop of the cold mountain night. It is a kiss that speaks of gratitude, of awe. It is the kiss of a man who was lost in a great darkness and has finally found the sun. It is a brand of a different kind, a mark of devotion seared into my very soul, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever known.
The next day, we climb higher. We do not speak of the kiss, but it lingers in the air, a silent, shimmering promise. We reach a narrow, windswept pass, a notch carved between two towering, snow-dusted peaks. Xylon stops at the edge and turns to me, a look of grim, proud homecoming on his face.
He gestures to the hidden valley that lies beyond.
“We are here,” he says in a deep, resonant vow that rolls through the wind. “This is the stronghold of the Fire Sun Clan.”
24
XYLON
Itake my first step through the mountain pass, and the air that fills my lungs is the air of home. It is a thing I thought I would never taste again. It is sharp and cold, scented with the deep, resinous perfume of the ancient pines that cling to the valley walls, the smoke from the stronghold’s great fires, and the rich, loamy smell of our home soil. The memories these scents unlock are so powerful, so overwhelming, that for a moment, my legs will not move. I have been running toward this place for what feels like an eternity, and now that it is here, I do not know how to enter it.
