Chapter 26: Aedan
Callista startled. She shifted under her blankets and sniffed.
No overwhelming sadness flowed through the bond, but I could not ignore her silent cries. But…
Would she call if she wanted me? Not likely. The things she asked for were few and hard to predict. Even the shield around her bed—it had been painfully clear what she wanted, but she had refused to ask.
And I had promised to stay on my side of the room.
She sniffed again.
Burning ashes and flaming rivers. I could not just lie on the settee and listen to her cry.
I left the couch and walked to the invisible line where a wall had once separated my sitting room from my sleeping quarters. “Callista? Callista, may I come and sit by you?”
“Mm hmm.” Her answer was closer to a squeak than a word,but it was an affirmative squeak.
I crossed the threshold into her room and approached the side of the bed where she’d curled into one pillow and hugged another. After the day she’d had, she should have been exhausted enough to sleep all night, so something must have woken her. Or else she woke on her own and something kept her awake.
I perched on the edge of a large armchair and leaned toward the bed. “Will you tell me why you’re awake?”
She scooted closer to the edge of the bed and reached a hand toward me. The armchair was too far from the bed for me to reach her, so I dragged the whole thing closer and took her hand with one of mine.
She gripped mine tighter than I expected. “I had a dream,” she whispered, “and it reminded me how much I missed my mother.”
A lump grew in my throat. My own mother had been the kindest person I’d known. Perhaps that was something that had drawn me to Callista. She shared my mother’s kindness. And I had missed that kindness more than I’d admitted to anyone, including myself.
But this was not about me. Callista was the one who needed comforting in the loss of her mother. I did not deserve to be that person, but… she had allowed me to come closer.
And she had reached for me.
I ran my thumb along the back of her palm. “Would you tell me about your dream?”
She nodded and inched even closer to the edge of the bed. “I saw my mother.” And in between sniffs and swallows, she told me about a conversation with her mother.
The dream was short, but powerful. It made me think of my mother again. Perhaps she, too, was with me in every gentle word and kind decision that I made. She would have certainly wanted me to build new memories—to fill my life with happiness and… love.
Callista lay buried in blankets, though they’d fallen away from her face enough to reveal that she still wore my jacket. But inside all those blankets and pillows, she looked alone. So very alone.
And in that observation, my heart pitched itself toward hers. I wanted to make her feel safe and wanted, whole and complete—whatever the opposite of alone might be, I wanted to give it to her. In sharing her vulnerable dream, she gave me the strength to risk my own rejection.
“Callista, may I… hold you?”
Her face jerked up toward mine, and even in the dark I felt the strange mixture of her intense eyes with her exposed emotions. “Would you?”
I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed a knuckle. “I would consider it a privilege.” I stood up and tossed the pillow in front of her to the far side of the bed before scooping her—along with a pile of blankets—into my arms and settling back onto the large armchair.
She settled into the chair with me and rested her head against the side of my chest. I wrapped an arm around her, and her blankets, and pulled her close. She took a deep breath and relaxed her entire body as she breathed out.
This, my heart shouted at me.This is what your life is missing.And then the cursed organ practically hummed in satisfaction. On an impulse, I bent over and kissed the top of Callista’s head.
She wrapped an arm around my waist in aspontaneous hug. I tightened my arms in an embrace as well. Her unpredictable nature had captured my heart.
“Do you think it was real?” she whispered, muffling her words against my tunic.
It took me a moment to figure out what she meant. “Your dream?”
Her head shifted in a silent nod. “Do you think people who’ve passed can visit us in dreams?”
