Tears in my eyes, I kept my composure as I said, “In three weeks, I’ll meet you here. If it rains that day, as is common in your village, I will be at that cave just atop the cliff. And until then, I will appear to you three times.”
Her eyes sparkled at the challenge. “And how will I know you?”
“I will be a white turtle on your shores at sunrise. I will be a white bird on the thatched roof of your hut. I will be the white shark whose fin you see just beyond the safety of your reef. And then, I’ll return.”
As the storm gods of the Great Sea would have it, the winds howled that night. Rain doused Rauana’s torch before she made it five steps beyond the village. Her friends, her advisors, her relatives begged her to take shelter, to stay home, but she’d seen the turtle, the bird, the shark fin, and had come at last to meet the man.
I didn’t wait in the cave.
I followed closely, terrified she’d slip and fall, that she’d break an ankle. Thorny branches sliced at her forearms. She tripped and stumbled over exposed roots. She felt her way forward on memory alone, determined to make it to the cave.
The rain was too harsh. The wind was too loud. She lost sight of the trail. She could no longer distinguish the mud of a well-trodden path from the treacherous squish of unfamiliar forest. Rather than turn back, I watched in slack-jawed horror as she abandoned the trail altogether and marched for the wall of sheer limestone.
My shouts of protest were stolen on the wind.
The ocean waves broke against jagged rock with incessant, thunderous booms.
Rauana’s fingers bit into rock, teeth gritted, hair plastered over her eyes, as she scrambled up the rockface. Knife-like shards jutted from the cliff, carving a deep slice down from her knee to her inner thigh.
I flashed from the place below her through the cut in mortal space.
I thrust one blue flame over my shoulder, illuminating the cave, and one outside, too dim to startle her, but just enough to let her see one handhold over the next. She grunted as she pulledher weight nearly to the top before we both heard the flint-like scrape of stone on stone.
Her footing gave loose.
Her fingers couldn’t hold her weight.
She barely had the time to scream before I had her forearm in the vice-like grip of my fingertips. I held her away from the cliff as I hoisted her up, trying to ease her onto sure footing before I released her, but there would be no releasing her.
She crashed into me, first arms and hands and fingers, an embrace, gratitude, incredulity.
We didn’t have time to be mortal and immortal.
We didn’t even have time to be different.
We were just creations, cursed to loneliness, who had only each other.
We stumbled backward into the cave, me touching her wounds, healing them with each step as our hands moved. Our lips didn’t touch. Our clothes remained intact. But the scrambling, wild way with which we explored each other’s faces, tugged at one another’s hair, stared into each other’s eyes, belied a recognition that transcended time.
We made it to the blue flame before she pulled away, gasping for air, eyes wide.
“Whoareyou?” She asked.
I shook my head uselessly. “I’ve never had a name on mortal tongues. None, save for yours. You called me?—”
Her breath caught. Her fingers flew to her chest. She finished my sentence with a word. “Star. You were my Star.”
I could count on my fingers the number of times my eyes had watered, and each belonged to her. “Star.”
She knew me.
She. Knew.Me.
The rest be damned.
Even in the moment, I knew these touches would replay in my memory for centuries to come. Her mouth found my neck first, her soft lips on my throat. My fingers clutched the plumb, perfect cinch of her waist, pulling her into me. She tore at wherever she believed my shirt to be, though the clothing of my kingdom and time left the undoing of tunics and sarongs a little unfamiliar.
She’s never known the touch of a man.
