The heavy volume slid from her lap and tumbled toward the floor.
Sheba reached for it, her hand grasping at empty air as she prepared for the thud of the book hitting the boards.
However, the journal never landed on the ground; it halted, suspended by an invisible tether.
She stared in wide-eyed wonder as the volume rotated and drifted upward, settling back onto her knees with the gentleness of a falling leaf.
In the kitchenette, Idan’s focus remained on the skillet.
He didn’t turn his head; yet he’d manipulated the physics of the cabin with a casual flick of his will.
‘Page sixty-four was where you left off,’ he murmured, his timbre cutting through the sizzle of the meat.
Sheba blinked at the book, then at his spine. ‘You’re a show-off, you know that?’
‘Can’t help it, I was born this way,’ he corrected, glancing over his shoulder with a wink.
‘Still a freakin’ poser.’
He chuckled as he produced a simple, grounding meal: charred vegetables, salted venison, fresh bread buns, and a delicious dry red wine.
Later, after they ate, they sat on a mound of pelts, by the armchair, the fire crackling in the grate.
Idan poured her a whiskey from a rustic oak case. ‘It’s one I’ve been experimenting with, its base is infused with wild berries and herbs.’
Sheba’s eyes widened as she sipped it. ‘It’s delectable.’
‘Sante.’
He stretched out his legs before him, his gaze on her, then drifting to the book she left on the table beside the bed.
‘You like my books now, do you?’
She smiled. ‘Only that one, the rest I can’t read as I’m not au fait with Sacran.’
His lips curved as his eyes gleamed. ‘Then let me introduce you to our poetry.’
He rose, selected a volume from the shelf, then settled down next to her as she eyed him with wonder.
He opened a heavy, vellum-paged Sacran tome and read from it out loud.
First, in a resonant, sonorous Sacran lilt, the ancient words, so evocative and beautiful, stirred Sheba’s heart.
His growl was a timbred vibration in the small space as he next translated the archaic Sacran text:
‘The Spear-Bearer cast his crown into the void,
descending the celestial ladder until his feet touched the dust of the mortal plains.
He traded the immortality of the heavens for the lonely trail of the wanderer,
choosing the cold steel of the vigilante over the gold of the throne.
For he found more honor in the dirt of the wronged than the clouds of the indifferent.’
Sheba tilted her head, a faint trace of a smile touching her lips. ‘Your hero?’
‘Perhaps,’ he replied, his eyes remaining on the script.
