He studies me for a long moment. “What if it didn’t force you anywhere? What if it simply revealed where you were always meant to go?”
The words hit me low and deep, blooming in the space behind my ribs like something inevitable. Maybe it didn’t pull me off course. Maybe it pulled me into alignment. Not just with this world—but with myself. With the truth I’ve been running from, with the version of me I was too afraid to believe in.
My fingers brush the base of the machine, and a flicker of heat pulses beneath my skin. I lean closer, breath fogging against the cool stone, and blow away a layer of dust.
A carving emerges.
Two hearts, delicately entwined, their curves interlocking like the endless loops of an infinity symbol. It’s a language I don’t know but instinctively understand, andthe longer I stare, the more the details emerge.
One heart is slightly larger, more dominant, its edges bold and smooth and deeply etched. The other, a breath softer, its lines more fluid, its form almost unfinished, as if it hasn’t quite decided what shape to take.
The longer I look, the less it feels like a symbol and the more it feels like a mirror.
Like me.
Like him.
Like us.
The hearts aren’t static. They’re in motion, circling each other, pulling and pushing in an unending dance. Not symmetrical, but balanced in their own imperfect way.
A shiver rolls through me as I glance up at Alder, his profile lit by the faint glow from the mouth of the cavern. His hand rests on the machine, steady, as if he’s grounding himself. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
I reach out. It’s not much. My fingertips brush the back of his wrist, barely there, barely anything at all. Just a question I don’t know how to ask.
His eyes find mine. And everything else—the hum of the tower, the weight of this world, even the tension in my own limbs—fades.
We simply look at each other.
Not in that earth-shattering, I-can’t-breathe kind of way. But in the way people do when they finally see each other without all the noise.
He doesn’t move at first. Neither do I.
And then, I whisper, “The carving. It feels like us.”
Alder’s throat bobs, and he nods. “It does.”
Another breath. Another beat.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask, my voice quiet but steady.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t joke. Instead, he tilts his head, eyes full of something that could crack me open if I let it.
“I’m trying to memorize you.”
I blink, startled.
He shrugs, like it’s the simplest truth in the world. “In case I never get to see you like this again.”
The moment stretches. The intimacy of it settles over us like dusk, gentle and certain.
A low, resonant hum rolls through the cavern, and the massive piston above us shudders faintly, releasing a curling wisp of steam. The vibrations beneath my feet intensify, their rhythm syncing to the frantic pounding of my heart.
Alder steps closer. His arms slide around my waist with the ease of someone who’s done this a thousand times, and yet still holds me like the act is holy. His hands settle low on my hips, anchoring me to the present, to him, to this impossible moment where everything in me finally stops struggling.
The machine hisses, a sharp exhale that feels like the room itself is bracing for what comes next.
I reach up, thread my fingers through his hair, and pull him down.
