Book 3: Chapter 8: Inevitable

  The forest, which was normally full of the many sounds of animal whispers, bird chirps, and woodly creaks, had gone reverently quiet, as if it too sensed something delicate and sensitive was about to happen and had decided to hold its breath.

  Alex stood at the water’s edge, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, staring down at his reflection like it had been dodging him for days, and it had, as he hadn’t gotten a look at himself since they left Terraxum’s capital some time ago. The pond shimmered in the moonlight, its surface like that of a mirror-still-glass. Well, save of course, for the occasional ripple when a cheeky breeze dared to disturb the peace.

  Unbeknownst to Alex, he had started growing a bit of a beard. “Beard” was an operative term here, as its true form landed somewhere between 5 o’clock shadow and a short fuzz. Perhaps enough to feel if scratched across one’s skin, but not quite enough to run your fingertips through. His hair was also getting just as long, now swept back and tucked behind his ears.

  Hazel-tinted green eyes looked back at him from the pond. The same eyes that his brother, Adam, had. Set on the same face that his brother had, as well. That’s how identical twins worked anyway. But, Alex’s eyes had a different light to them, not sad, just anxious, uncertain.

  Beside him, Holly slowly stepped forward. She was a silhouette of dark grace, arms crossed, eyes fixed ahead, but thoughtful.

  “You and Myrae… you two– you talked... for a while, earlier,” she said, her voice an attempt at casual, but with the unmistakable edge of curiosity sharpened beneath it.

  Alex smirked. “Ah yeah… she told me about her family.”

  Holly nodded, biting at the corner of her lip, “Her family, learning about her parents then? Planning to… meet them… or something?”

  He couldn’t help but grin at her, “Are you asking if I’m secretly in love with her? Because that’s a very offhand way to say it.”

  She tilted her head, her hair catching just a glint of silver starlight before sighing dramatically. “I don’t know… Should I— Should I be jealous?”

  He turned slightly, arching an eyebrow. “Of Myrae? No. I like her the same way I like Allie—”

  Holly raised a brow in return. “Allie’s pretty.”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “So’s Myrae. Half-elf, wind in her hair, mysterious past. The whole package. But that’s not… Hell, even Kate occasionally looks at me like she’s mentally weighing a marriage proposal against a war crime.”

  Holly snorted at that. “Don’t flatter yourself. She probably just wants to weaponize you.”

  “Exactly my point,” he said.

  She looked at him sidelong, amusement written on her face. “So, you’re just... oblivious to all of it?”

  “I guess, my attention’s been elsewhere, on something else, lately.”

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  “Something?” she asked. Her voice softened slightly as she stepped closer, shoulder brushing his subtly, and the tips of her fingers running along the back of his hand, sending jolts of warmth up his arm in slow, circling waves.

  Alex looked sideways at her, a glimmer of humor still lingering in his expression. “Someone… definitely someone.”

  She now turned fully to him, her expression unreadable in the moonlight, though her posture, the way she leaned ever so slightly into his space, spoke volumes all the same. Alex could smell the hint of lavender and citrus on her person, that oh so pleasant aroma he had come to recognize as her.

  “Someone like... who?” she asked.

  “Do you think… we could… see if Cole is into me?” He said slowly.

  “Cole!?” Holly scoffed, “You’re into him then, that’s what you’re saying?”

  Alex gasped, hand on his chest in mock horror. “I’m being vulnerable here. My forbidden love for handsome, warhammer wielding, short kings knows no bounds.”

  “I think Rynel will have something to say about that.” Holly burst out laughing, a full-bodied, rich sound that echoed gently in the trees and cracked the last layer of tension between them. Alex grinned and took her hand while she was still recovering. Somehow they had come together during their talk, his fingers now lacing with hers like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “But yeah,” he said quietly. “Definitely someone.”

  Her laughter faded, replaced by giggle that was warmer, softer. She let him pull her close, their hands still linked, her other arm curling around his waist as she rested her head lightly against his shoulder.

  Alex drew her body against his own, softly, purposefully. His left hand found her waist, the other released her hand to trail carefully up her spine, and slipping into the many folds of her dark hair. He could feel her breath hitch under his touch, and his palm pressed at the small of her back between those breaths, guiding her closer still until their bodies aligned like armor pieces, smithed to be a perfect set.

  He ran his hand through her hair, the silky black locks falling through his fingers like crisp rivulets of water. Then his fingers brushed across her nape, tracing all the way around her neck, and down, along her collar bone, just barely under the fold of her martial-arts robes. As his fingers moved, he felt the electric tingle of his skin against hers, perhaps a figment of imagination—or all the more possibly—a reaction of her aether attuned element responding to her emotions, to his touch.

  After what seemed an eternity, he lifted his hand, fingers pressing against the underside of her chin until her gaze rose to meet his. Holly’s eyes twinkled softly as they flickered back and forth between his lips and his eyes. He smiled.

  Then he dipped his head.

  Their lips met, softly at first, but with growing certainty. Holly rose on her toes to meet him halfway, as if she was far too tired of waiting.

  The kiss unfolded with all the urgency of a truth long withheld, unspoken between the two of them, and now shared by their lips without needing such things as words. She didn’t taste like lavender or citrus, despite the scent. No, her kiss tasted like sunlight wrapped in a cool wind, and Alex decided then and there it was his new favorite flavor in all the many possible worlds.

  The two of them separated more quickly than he would have liked, but the easy-set smile on Holly’s face made it worth it. He looked at her under the stars for a few seconds until she rested her head on his shoulder once more, her fingers running circles on the back of his hand as he held her.

  They stood like that for a while, wrapped in silence and moonlight, two out-of-place souls in a borrowed world that, for once, wasn’t asking anything of them. The forest didn’t move leaf, the pond didn’t speak a ripple. Even the stars above seemed to shift just slightly to make more room for the moment.

  Just the two of them. Not soldiers, or war survivors. Nor Worldstriders, or chosen, or destined.

  Just Alex. Just Holly.