Nezavek
Isit in what remains of my chambers, trying not to dissolve.
The effort requires more concentration than it should.
Without Yorika's touch, my form scatters at the edges.
I watch my left hand fade to translucence, pull it back to something solid, only to feel my shoulder wisp away.
Each recovery takes longer. By dawn, I might not have enough substance left to fight.
The bottle helps focus my attention. Glass from a world that burned itself to create art, containing wine from vines that sang in three-part harmony.
The Melodists of Virayn knew how to ferment music into liquid.
This vintage is their last. I pulled it through a closing portal the day their sun went supernova, nearly four centuries ago.
Shadow preservation keeps it perfect, time frozen around the bottle like black amber.
I've been saving it for something significant. Death, perhaps. Victory. A moment worth marking with the last wine of a dead civilization.
Tonight qualifies.
A knock at my door. Soft, uncertain. Three taps, then silence, then two more. Like she's arguing with herself about whether to enter. The bond pulses with her proximity. Her heart beats too fast for someone supposedly at rest.
"Come in."
Yorika enters, still wearing the clothes I manifested from shadow. Her hair hangs loose, silver catching what little light exists here. Dark circles shadow her eyes. Her shoulders curve forward with exhaustion, but her hand never strays far from her knife.
"Can't sleep?" I ask.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see the gallery." She pauses in the doorway, one foot in, one foot out. "I see Melara."
"The doorway is not the most comfortable place to have nightmares."
She takes three deliberate steps inside, then stops. Fourteen feet between us. Too far for her marks to anchor me, close enough that the bond pulls like a tide.
"I have wine," I offer, lifting the bottle. "The last bottle from Virayn. The vines grew in soil made from crushed stars and were tended by monks who spoke only in whispers."
"Why?"
"They believed loud voices scared the flavor away."
Her lips twitch. Not quite amusement, but the space where amusement might grow. "Did it work?"
"Taste it and tell me."
She moves closer. Ten feet. Eight. Takes the glass I pour.
Our fingers brush during the exchange. My form solidifies instantly, edges sharpening from smoke to substance.
She notices, doesn't pull away, settles into the chair across from mine.
Four feet between us now. Close enough to reach if needed.
Far enough to maintain the illusion of separation.
The wine shifts from sweet to sharp to something that burns cold. Complex notes that shouldn't exist in liquid form. Yorika's eyes widen at the first sip.
"It tastes like..."
"Music. Yes."
"That's impossible."
"Most things are, yet they exist anyway."
She takes another sip, rolls it on her tongue. "How old is this?"
"Four hundred years, give or take a decade. I was younger then. Barely two thousand. Still learning what it meant to be what I am."
"Two thousand." She shakes her head. "I can't imagine that much time."
"Most of it blurs together. Centuries of hunting, searching, failing." I pour myself a glass, though I barely need sustenance anymore. The wine helps me remember sensation. "But some moments stay sharp. Like the day I learned to laugh."
She looks up from her wine, eyebrows rising. "You had to learn?"
"Void Walkers aren't born knowing joy. We emerge from nothing into something, consciousness taking shape through will alone. Laughter is something we acquire. If we're lucky."
"What made you laugh?"
I haven't thought about this in decades. "A creature on Penthos, no bigger than my hand, covered in feathers that changed color with its mood: purple for happy, silver for scared, gold for angry. It decided I was its mother."
"You're joking."
"For three months, it followed me between worlds.
Through void spaces that should have killed any living thing.
It would curl up in my shadow and make these tiny chirping songs.
Completely tone-deaf, but enthusiastic." I find the memory warming something I didn't know could be warmed.
"One day, it tried to feed me a worm. Kept bringing them, getting increasingly offended when I didn't eat them.
Its feathers went from gold to red to a color I'd never seen before.
Pure indignation. The absurdity of this tiny thing trying to parent an ancient shadow broke something in me.
I laughed until my form wouldn't hold, just scattered into delighted darkness for hours. "
"What happened to it?"
"She lived for forty years. I learned to make her toys from shadow.
Little puzzles that changed shape when she sang to them.
She taught me that small things could matter more than large ones.
" I pause, surprised by the tightness in my throat.
"When she died, I buried her in a garden that exists outside time.
Sometimes I visit. The flowers there grow backward, from bloom to seed, so she's always surrounded by beginnings. "
Yorika is studying me with an expression I can't read. Her chair has moved closer. Three feet now.
"What?" I ask.
"I didn't think you'd have stories like that. Sweet ones."
"I have all kinds of stories. Two thousand years of them."
"Tell me another."
The request surprises me. In all my attempts at finding anchors, none ever asked about my past beyond its relevance to our situation. They saw me as function, not person. Tool or monster, never just someone with memories.
"What kind would you like?"
"Something beautiful."
I think for a moment. "There's a world where the rain falls upward. Lytharia. Water rises from the ground in drops like reverse tears, gathering into lakes that float in the sky. The people there build their cities on clouds, connected by bridges of concentrated moisture."
"How do they not fall?"
"The same force that pulls the rain up holds them. It's not gravity but something else. Desire, maybe. The planet wants its people close to its heart, which beats in the sky rather than the core."
"You've been there?"
"Many times. There's a festival when seven of their floating lakes align.
They sing the water into shapes. Dragons, flowers, entire stories told in liquid sculpture.
I watched a woman shape the entire history of her family in rain.
Generation by generation rising toward the stars, each life a different shade of blue. "
Yorika sets down her empty glass. I refill it without asking. Her chair scrapes closer when she leans forward to take it. Two feet between us.
"Melara would have loved that," she says quietly. "She was always painting impossible things. Dragons with constellation scales. Cities that existed only in reflections. She always believed reality was just a rough draft."
"Tell me about her art."
Another surprised look. "You want to know?"
"I carried her hairpin for three years. I'd like to know more than just her death."
Yorika is quiet for a moment. Her fingers trace the rim of her glass.
"She painted with her fingers. Never brushes.
Said she needed to feel the art happening.
Our apartment walls were covered in fingerprint flowers, handprint birds.
She'd come home with paint under her nails, in her hair, on her cheeks.
Like she'd wrestled with color itself and called it a draw. "
"Did she sell them?"
"Some. But she gave most away. Said art should be free, like breathing.
" Yorika's voice catches. She clears her throat, takes another sip.
"The day before she went to the market, she painted me.
Not my portrait but me as she saw me. This warrior made of silver starlight, defending dreams from nightmares. "
"What happened to it?"
"I burned it. After. I couldn't look at who she thought I was while planning to become a killer."
We sit quietly. Not silence but the space where words rest between thoughts. Her chair is touching mine now. When she shifted it, I don't know.
"Your turn," she says. "Something funny."
"Funny." I consider. "I once tried to hide at a masquerade ball. Duke Revarian was hunting me, wrongly blamed me for his wife's disappearance. I thought I could blend in, shadow form hidden by costume."
"What went wrong?"
"Children see through shadow glamours. Also drunk people, though they usually doubt themselves.
A five-year-old announced very loudly that there was a 'smoke monster' dancing with the duchess.
The child was quite specific. 'The smoke monster has tentacles under his cape!
' she yelled. Then Earl Fastworth, deep in his cups, tried to challenge me to a duel.
But his eyes couldn't track me properly, so he kept swinging at the space I'd just left.
He dueled my afterimage for ten minutes while I stood behind him. "
She laughs. Actually laughs. The sound changes her entire face. The exhaustion lifts, replaced by something bright.
"How did you escape?"
"I didn't. The duchess I was dancing with turned out to be Duke Revarian's missing wife.
She'd faked her death to run away with her lover, who was, unfortunately, Earl Fastworth.
The duke was so confused by this revelation that he forgot about hunting me.
Last I heard, all three of them lived together in a castle by the sea. They send me holiday cards."
"That's ridiculous."
"Most true stories are."
She shifts her chair again. Our knees touch. "What about beautiful things? Besides the rain world."
"So many. Would you like to hear about the living stars of Caelum? Or the crystal caves that sing histories? Or perhaps the world where thoughts become butterflies?"
"All of them."
So I tell her. About places that shouldn't exist but do.
Worlds where physics gave up and poetry took over.
Cities built from crystallized music where walking through districts means hearing symphonies.
Oceans of liquid starlight where swimming lets you visit your past, stroke by stroke through time.
She listens with complete attention. No one has ever listened to me like this, as if my memories matter beyond their strategic value. As if I'm someone worth knowing rather than something worth using.
"There was a world," I say, wine loosening my usual guards, "where people courted by creating small realities. Pocket dimensions shaped from desire and intention. A man once made his beloved a universe where every star spelled her name in different languages."
"Did she accept?"
"She made him one in return. A reality where every moment they'd shared existed simultaneously. They could walk through their entire history together, relive any second, see how each small choice led to love."
"That's beautiful."
"I thought so. I couldn't create anything like that. I'm made of void, not creation. But I remembered it."
"Why?"
The question hangs between us. Why did I, a being of shadow and hunger, remember something so purely about connection?
"I suppose I hoped that someday I'd understand it."
She sets down her glass. Stands. For a moment I think she's leaving. Instead, she moves to my chair, stands directly in front of me. Close enough that I feel her warmth.
"May I?" She gestures to my lap.
I nod, not trusting the sounds I might make.
She settles across my thighs. Her weight is slight but grounding. My form solidifies completely at the contact, more real than I've been in days. Her hands rest on my shoulders. I feel each finger individually, ten points of heat through shadow fabric.
"Do you understand it now?" she asks. "Love?"
"I'm beginning to."
She touches my face, tracing the sharp angles that never quite settled into fully human. Her thumb brushes my cheekbone. "I didn't expect you to have gentle stories. Sweet ones. Funny ones."
"What did you expect?"
"Blood. Horror. The kinds of stories monsters tell."
"I have those too."
"But that's not all you are."
"No?"
She leans closer. "No," she says. "You're someone who buried a tiny creature in an eternal garden. Who saved wine from dying worlds. Who remembers beauty even though you're made of void."
"Yorika."
"Tomorrow we might die."
"Yes."
"Tonight we're here."
"Yes."
"I want to know what it feels like," she says, her fingers threading through my hair, pulling slightly, "to choose you. Not the bond choosing. Not necessity. Me."
I search her expression, finding determination mixed with something softer. Want. Real want. "You're certain?"
"I've never been more certain of anything."
She kisses me. Not the desperate clash of our previous encounters, but something deliberate. Exploratory. Her lips are soft against mine, tasting of musical wine and choice.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her closer. She makes a small sound against my mouth. Satisfaction. Relief. Desire. The kiss deepens. Her tongue traces my lower lip. I open for her, let her explore, let her lead.
My shadows respond without conscious thought. Tendrils manifest to cradle her, worship her, hold her carefully. Because she is precious. This woman who came to kill me, who saved me instead, who asks for my stories and laughs at the absurd ones.
She shifts in my lap, pressing closer. I groan against her mouth. The bond sings between us, incomplete but eager, ready to seal permanently.
"Bed," she whispers against my lips.
I stand, lifting her easily. She wraps her legs around my waist, continues kissing me as I carry her to the bed. Her mouth moves to my throat, teeth grazing shadow-flesh that solidifies under her touch.
I lay her down carefully, ready to pull back if she changes her mind.
Instead, she pulls me down with her. "I choose you," she says. "Now choose me back."
"I already have. Every moment since you pointed at me in that warehouse."
She smiles. Real and bright and devastating. "Then show me."
Tomorrow, we face death. Tonight, we choose life.