Page 7 of Solivagant

He looked around us. “One I haven’t seen here.”

I wanted so badly to see that. “If you asked me to, I’d come with you there.”

His long tail curled tighter around my thigh. “If I was sure you would be safe, I would steal you away. The things of your world are not strong, and the things that follow us through the bridge are not either, but in my world, there are things much stronger than I am. They would want you for themselves. I could never put you in that danger, my Jem.”

“They would want me?”

Khorli nodded. “Not all of you. They would want your…” He thought for a moment, trying to find the right words to explain to me something I couldn’t comprehend enough to assist him with. “Light. They would harm you to get it.”

I frowned, uncertain what he meant by that. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t safe for us there, and it wasn’t safe for us here anywhere but in the shadows and the darkness.

It wasn’t fair. All I wanted was to remain in his arms even when the sun rose.

Our time together for tonight was coming to an end, the threat of dawn on the horizon.

“Will you come to me tomorrow as well?” I asked in a whisper.

“You must rest.”

“I’ll rest when I’m with you.”

He placed a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “I will come to you tomorrow.”

I knew every time we saw each other, we increased the risk of one of us being followed and discovered, but I missed him so much every moment we were apart, I was willing to accept that risk if it got me more of him.

“I will take you home?”

I sighed, not wanting to accept that offer, but returning to the village after daylight, when its people were awake and often busying themselves in matters that didn’t concern them, was asking for trouble. I nodded.

Khorli stood, his large deer-like hoofs shuffling in the stones and the dirt as he lifted me with him. He was so strong, carrying me like I weighed nothing.

I clung to him all the way back to the altar, and my chest already ached in temporary grief at losing him as my feet touched the ground again.

“Be safe, my Jem. I will return for you always.”

“And I will always be waiting.”

His lips lingered on mine. A bittersweet kiss. Then we could no longer delay the inevitable, and Khorli watched me as I took the well-known path through the woods until I was out of sight.

I found it difficult to sleep again. After changing my clothes, I stayed in bed until the beams of sunlight through the curtains and the distant squeal of hogs told me it was time to start another day.

At least the pigs were happy to see me. There were four of them. Chamomile and her young, Ginseng, Cherry, and Mint. She’d had more to her litter initially. But Tobias, generous and dedicated as he was, had offered the others across various rituals.

Cammy was getting older now, and we’d lost her breeding partner, Elm, before this litter was born. Literally lost him. Shortly before Tobias had found himself in that creek, we’d woken up, and he just hadn’t been here anymore. It had caused some unrest in the village. Concerns of something coming over the wall and claiming livestock for itself despite the agreement.

Of course, Tobias had blamed me for it, knowing what he did. Sometimes I wondered myself if it were my fault. Khorli told me that the things beyond the wall obeyed the Others. That they wouldn’t have disobeyed and crossed the border without permission. I trusted him, always.

But where else could he have gone?

5

KHORLI

I didn’t deserve Jem. I never would. I knew that. But I’d firmly decided I was keeping him anyway. The problem was that there was no amount of time I could keep him that would ever satisfy me, unless it was forever.

We didn’t have forever. We had only his lifetime, and it was barely a fraction of my own.

I’d only just found him, and the thought of losing him consumed my every moment. He was so… soft. So vulnerable. Humans were ridiculously easy to kill on their own. Even a soul wisp could take one out if it wanted to. And it would.