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TWENTY-NINE
NYX
Ieased my hold on her, and she tilted her face up to look at me.
I gazed down at her and shook my head, a laugh bubbling up inside me unchecked.
She frowned. “What?”
“You’re crazy, you know that, right? Who jumps off a dragon hundreds of feet in the air?”
She shrugged. “Until today, I thought I would have to be crazy to even get on a dragon, never mind jump off one.”
“You’re a natural, you know.”
“It felt natural. Like I just knew what to do.”
I grinned. “You like ryding me.”
She coughed, but instead of blushing and refuting it like I thought she would, she took it in good humor and smiled. “If you say so.”
I laughed. “Oh, I do. We just need to get you fitted with a tether of some kind before I’ll take you up again. My heart will never recover from that death dive.”
Her face fell in guilt, and I tightened my arms around her, holding her together in case she spiraled again.
“It’s fine—we’re okay. I’m just not going to be letting you forget it for a while.”
“Great.” She huffed, pulling away from me. I reluctantly let her go, and she eyed me.She bent to pick up the bag still half full, and handed it to me again. “Put the rest of your clothes on.”
I took it and glanced down at myself. My pants were still half open, revealing more of the planes of muscles and scattering of dark hair than I had thought were on display.
“Sol,” I chuckled, shaking my head. Nudity meant nothing to me, and she would become desensitized in time. But to a maiden who’d been raised with strict rules of propriety, I could see why I was dressed indecently. In the name of compromise, I fastened the last buttons and pulled on my shirt.
I needed her to hear me out and hopefully agree to a risky plan so I could give her this.
“Why do you call me Sol?” she asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I smiled fondly at the memory her question brought.
“It means sun, and when I first met you, that’s what you reminded me of,” I told her honestly.
“I wish I could remember.”
“Our first meeting?”
“Yes.” She leaned back in my arms, looking up at me earnestly. “I don’t doubt you anymore, I swear. But if I could remember, it might feel… I don’t know, more real to me, I suppose.”
“You were so young, Sol. Even if you hadn’t been taken away, even if we had known each other for all the years since, you may not have remembered the meeting. I could show you…”
I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of doing it before.
Zaria nodded eagerly, and I showed her the image I had held for so long in my memory.
Her face lit up, and she had tears in her eyes as she beheld the scene. Then she sucked in a breath, and I held mine while her eyes fell closed as the scene came to life in our minds, and my memory seemed to awaken hers.
It was fuzzy, partly from the passing of time, but mostly I guessed due to her age. We didn’t hold on to many memories from so young. I assumed it was only mine pulling hers from her mind that uncovered it at all. I reached out to touch her, clasping the back of her neck to bring our foreheads together. I wanted to do anything I could to strengthen the connection between us. My eyes closed so the shared memory could be my sole focus.
“Ground yourself in the memory,” I encouraged her, anything to hold on to it. “Feel the soil beneath your feet, and the sun on your skin. The breeze ruffling through the loose waves of your hair.”
I could feel it. The sun was warm, casting a golden glow on her hair, which was the most vivid part of my memory. It was as if she was light itself. I could never forget it. I was night. I was raised to be darkness embodied. To thrive in the dark. I was her opposite, designed by the Goddess to be the other half of one another. Where her light met my dark, it did not dilute; it only sharpened. We were made to enhance each other.
