She wrapped her legs all the way around me. My arms shuddered as I tried to keep enough distance to see her face, the elation and agony etched cleanly in her brow, in the way her breaths broke and reformed. Each time I slid into her, every joining, I thought: this is the one. This is the memory that will anchor me to her for all of eternity, no matter what worlds or lives or gods try to pull us apart. The altar stone pressed uncomfortably into my knees, but I welcomed the grounding, the grit and ache of it, the way it made what we did here more real than anything I'd known while awake. Her nails raked gently down my back, a touch both desperate and measured, and in that pain, I found a kind of homesickness.
I moved in her with a rhythm that belonged to the two of us alone, a steady spiral building and building toward a star-bright core in the center of the universe. She held my gaze through it, never looking away, as if she needed to see my soul inside the storm. When my orgasm overtook me, it roared through my spine like a predator, and I nearly cried out with the force. Even then, the dream would not sever its hold. She clung tighter, drawing me in, burying her face in my neck, and together we spilled over the edge until everything around us was shadow and bright, bright fire.
When it was over, we lay on the cold stone, her legs still tangled with mine, sharing each ragged breath in the sanctuary's bloom of silence. She traced the line of my jaw, studied my face as if she were afraid to forget the shape of it.
"That was beautiful," she said softly, and I smiled, because it was the old Daphne, the one who could still find light in me, even at the bottom of everything. We lay stretched out in the flicker ofthe gods' flame for a long time, her hair pooled across my chest, the world outside shrinking to nothing.
But dreams, like pleasure, could never last. Eventually, the flame flickered, guttered. A cold wind snaked down from the open dome, the warmth replaced by a sense of falling. Daphne sat up, shrouding herself in her robe. As I reached for her, she smiled, but it was the saddest smile in all of history.
"You have to wake up now," she said. "There's something you need to do." "What is it?" My voice broke. She shook her head, not unkindly. "You'll know. Just… don't hesitate this time."
I tried to hold onto her, to the dream, but she was already drifting backward, receding through moonlight and shadow. I reached, called her name, but my throat was dry again, and nothing came out. The vision dissolved like fog in the sun, leaving only the sense of her, as real and as close as the tattoo of my own heartbeat.
I jolted awake in the dark of my cabin, drenched in sweat, arms tangled in the sheets. For a moment, I lay there, not sure if I had returned to my body or not. The ache in my chest was so acute I wondered if I might have died and woken in the wrong place. The ship's faint hum, the sharp tang of recirculated air, all of it conspired to remind me,zyn, you are yourself, and ney, she is not here. But something was different. The emptiness I'd felt for so long was replaced by… not hope, precisely, but direction. Purpose. Like a compass needle suddenly aligned with true north.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes until I saw afterimages of her. I forced myself out of bed, wrapped myself in a robe, and went to the window. Looking out at the stars as they rushed by. To my right was a beautiful purple planet, but it waspassing by so quickly, I couldn’t hold on to the view of it, like I hadn't been able to hold on to Daphne.
I whispered a prayer, a fragment from the old rituals:Fraysa, Grandyr, lead me to her.As the ship angled into descent, I looked for any sign of Daphne, maybe a wisp of her spirit in the streaks of atmosphere, a curve of her smile in the rising sun. But the world was silent. Waiting. I would not keep it waiting long.
"We are about to land in Veyrhall, Vissigroth," Korran, my second-in-command, announced when I reached the bridge of my ship, theVeyrion, on the second day. Veyrhall was Hoerst's capital, and where my palace was located.
"Good," I massaged the back of my neck. My antsiness wouldn't leave me; if anything, it only grew stronger with every breath. Especially after that dream. Gods, that dream.
"Forgive me my forwardness, Vissigroth, but your hurry is… unusual. Should I be aware of something?"
I put my hand on his shoulder and clasped it reassuringly. Korran had been my second-in-command since I became Vissigroth so many rotations ago. He and I had grown close as brothers, and there was nothing I had ever kept from him.
"It's just a feeling," I confided, rubbing my chest. "A need to get home. See Daphne."
He nodded in understanding. My grief for my late mate was well known, but nobody besides him and Darryck truly understood how deep it ran. They were the only people who knew about the cave. I should tell Thalia, a voice inside me advised, as it had somany times before. And like so many times before, I put it off. Daphne's shrine was… mine. Mine alone. I didn't want to share it with anybody else. If that made me a selfish bastard, I was prepared to wear the title. But deep down, I knew how wrong it was. Thalia had yearned for a mother all her life. I had shared holovids of Daphne with her to give her an idea of who her mother had been. She had once asked me where Daphne's grave was, and I gave her some nonsensical, vague answer. It wasn't something I was proud of, either. Thalia deserved to know. But I wasn't… ready.
The only reason Korran and Darryck knew about the shrine was because I worried something might happen to me, and Daphne would be lost completely. Not even the guards whom I assigned to the entrance knew what was inside. They were warned, on pain of death, to not, under any circumstances, enter the cave. I didn't care if a torrent of rain or even rocks came down on them; they weren't allowed inside.
"It's been a while," Korran acknowledged.
"Too long," I replied, fighting the unease at my semi lie. Whatever this urge was, I knew it was more than what I was alluding to. Korran seemed to sense it too; his eyes bored into mine, but we had been friends long enough for him to know to let this rest.
"Vissigroth, I have a request from Vissy Thalia to take a ship to Leander." Captain Varek held out his palmtop to me.
A frown creased my forehead, "Vissy Thalia?" I wasn't aware that my daughter was on Hoerst. "She never goes anywhere without Darryck," I mumbled, and Darryck was, I knew, still on Leander, catching Renegades for Myccael. Thalia had been with him; there was no way she could have reached Hoerst before me.
Korran's face darkened in confusion as well. "That can't be."
A strange sensation spread through my gut. I wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but the premonitions I had been experiencing for days were growing, spreading.
"Tell her I will take her personally," I told the captain. "Take us down, and let's meet with Vissy Thalia."
While the captain followed my orders, I used my palmtop to comm Thalia, who answered right away.
"Miss me already?" Her lovely face appeared on the screen.
"Just wanted to make sure you're alright. Are you still on Leander?" I inquired in what I was hoping was a gentle, non-concerned tone.
"Still waiting for Darryck to get back from his hunt," she replied. "I think he only went to escape Zara's crying."
I smirked. I loved my granddaughter to pieces, I truly did, but that baby was the noisiest one to have ever been born. Every little thing that upset her was loudly complained about, and since she was just a baby and had no words, her complaints were done in shrill cries that put a dying dragon to shame.
"She is one fussy kid," I agreed. My anxiety to end the comm was growing. It was time to confront whoever was claiming to be Thalia.
