She did not fear the forest, for her Star was with her.
"You are not made for this," he answered, almost angrily.
Her hand was limp in his as he pulled her on. They wove through trees and past rocks until they cleared a thick passage, nestled between two pieces of stone, jutting up to form an arch. Beyond, the mountains rose. Snow began to fall in earnest, clinging to her lashes.
Her fur-lined boot caught against a gnarled root, and she started to fall. Atlas caught her before she blinked. His hands were so warm on her skin, burning through her cloak.
He held her. "You are like ice, Star of mine." He’d taken to calling her that, sometimes; mostly when she was unaware. For him to use it now meant he thought she was too freezing to focus.
He lifted her effortlessly, cradling her to his chest. She sighed into his neck as he carried her into a deep cave. It smelled like him, almost.
Her lids fluttered as she was laid on something soft. He released her, and she stared at his back as he kneeled over a pile of twigs, ash on the stone surrounding it.
Atlas never told her where he went when not beneath the willow tree.
"This is your home?" she questioned.
Fire illuminated his golden skin, its crackle promising warmth she could not ignore.
She began to shift forward, numb fingers tugging at her snow-coated cloak. He stilled her, pulling it away. She was left in her simple gown, the inside hemmed with fur.
"I have no home—you would do well to remember that I am unlike you in this way." Atlas cupped her hands between his and held them toward the fire. "It is never clearer to me the differences between us when you are like this. Vulnerable." He said the word like a curse. "Mortal."
"Not everyone can be immune to the elements," she managed, body slowly thawing.
"That is not what I speak of, Vesperin. We both know this is not eternal." His thumb stroked over the back of her hand. His words were soft, but their meaning was hard as ice, cutting through her.
"It does not have to be eternal to mean something. The things that mean the most are fleeting, because you hold onto it tighter, knowing it does not last."
In the months since their first kiss, there had only been a few instances in which it had grown heated—in which she had blushed the whole walk home, hand hovering over her swollen lips. She always wondered what her mother and father would think, knowing she let herself be touched by a man without a chaperone. But Atlas was not a man. So her guilt never stayed long.
Atlas gave a long-suffering sigh, as if he truly did hold up the Stars. "There is much I cannot tell you, Vesperin, but know this." He took her hand and pressed it against her chest. Her Stella rose, blue crackling around their joined fingers. She had never seen his magic, not since that day, but she felt it sometimes, just beneath his flesh. "If there is one thing you are, it is eternal. And if there is one word to describe what you mean to me, it is far from fleeting."
He kissed her, then, and she melted from the heat of him and the fire.
Atlas pulled away until their lips barely brushed. "You mean everything to me. You are the only thing keeping me from slipping away and dying like a spent Star."
"Don’t slip away," she said against his mouth. "I won’t let you." She knew there was much she could never, would never, know about him.
She wasn’t made to know.
He had fallen, and she had found him. He liked to say she had saved him, but she liked to think they had both saved each other. That was all she needed to know. That was enough.
They fell back against fire-warmed furs.
His hand pressed near her head, fingers tangling in her brown hair. The line of his body pressed against hers. Ensconcing her within his depths.
She wanted to take him into her, do the things she had only heard in glimpses of gossip from the other girls in the village.
When his warm hands ventured just below the neckline of her gown, she arched up into him. Her body knew what to do. He stilled. She looked up at him, his dark eyes even darker with desire.
"It is okay," she whispered. "I want to. I want this with you."
"Are you sure? Once we do, make no mistake, Vesperin, I will not go back. There will be no escaping from me. Already, I fear the depth of my feelings for you is too great to be contained."
"I am sure." Her thighs fell open. "You are the one thing that has remained solely mine. I want it to stay that way. I want to give you this in return, so you can have something too."
Their clothes were shed. The cold did not touch her nude body, for the fire at their side and the heat of him above her was too grand to penetrate.
