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“When I become a god, what will become of us?”
Keita continues looking pointedly away, now leaning his head back so his eyes can search the night sky. “I expect we’ll continue as we are.”
“Sweethearts?” I scoff. “A boy and a god?”
Keita’s eyes flick to mine. “A worshipper and his goddess. Or perhaps even a godsworn and his goddess.”
I stiffen. “That’s not funny, Keita. I would never wish that for you. Never.”
“But I do worship you, Deka. Now, then, always. And if bonding myself to you will keep me by your side forever, I would gladly do it.”
“But I wouldn’t want you to.”
“It’s not up to you.” Keita’s reply is swift, and it is firm. He looks down at me, his eyes burning now as they peer into mine. “You heard Myter: I have a choice. And I choose you. Wherever you are, that is where I wish to be.”
The devotion in his eyes is so raw, I look away. “And what about family? Children? All that is possible for you.”
“If I survive this.”
“When you survive this,” I rebut stubbornly, despite the lump building in my throat.
Keita shrugs. “You’re the only one I’ve ever envisioned having them with,” he says quietly.
“Why?” The question rips out of my throat. “Why me? Why has it always been me?”
“Because you’re the only one who saw me after my family—” Keita clears his throat as if it’s suddenly clogged. Then he tries again. “After my family died, you were the only person who saw me—the real me, the person I was inside. Not Keita the warrior. Not Keita the jatu, or Keita the recruit. Or even Keita the noble. You saw Keita the boy. The one with feelings. The one who was real.”
He laughs, a sad little sound. “Oh, it was out of fear, at first, all that attention you paid to me. Perhaps even hatred. You thought I was out to destroy you. So you tried to maneuver around me. But you had to understand me to do so. And then, once you saw who I truly was, you tried to befriend me. The Keita inside, not the automaton they’d made me.”
He shrugs again. “My friends, everyone in the Warthu Bera, they only wanted my darkness, my thirst for violence. But you wanted my softness, my smiles. My heart. And you wanted all the other parts of me too—even the more sinister ones. You were the first person to want that in years. The first person since my family…”
He sighs. “That’s why it’s always been you. That’s why it’ll only ever be you.”
By now, a sob is rising from deep inside my chest. This declaration is all I’ve ever wanted to hear. Except now I know how much it’ll cost him. A life. A family. Children. I myself have never truly wanted any, but I can see how, with him, perhaps I would have. And now there’s no longer that option. But I don’t want to bring that up anymore, so I do the only thing I can do.
I kiss him.
Keita blinks, as if surprised, but then he swiftly accepts the kiss, his lips searing against mine. Sweet little flames, burning into my soul. His mouth tastes like fruits, like the cakes he’s been eating.
It tastes like home.
But then Keita is home. That’s what he’s been for me ever since that first moment we started regarding each other as allies instead of enemies.
“If this is one of our last few moments, I want to savor it,” I say between kisses. “I want to remember it forever.”
“Me too,” he says, lips pressing down on mine so firmly, I almost forget I haven’t told him the other thing I needed to tell him—the truth of the condition I need to fulfill in order to take back my kelai and ascend to divinity.
But that can come later. For now, there’s only this.
“Kiss me, Keita,” I urge against his lips. “Kiss me until I forget everything.”
“Just as long as you do the same,” he replies.
So I do just that.
17
By the time the sun rises in the sky the next day, my friends and I are already saddling the new gryphs the Maiwurians have given us. Nenneh Kadeh tried to persuade us to rest, build up our strength, but given the urgency of our task, our group has agreed that we need to move on as quickly as possible. Time is short, not just for us but for the whole world. We need to prepare for the arduous journey ahead. After all, we’re going to the one place I hoped never to return to—the place where everything began for me.
