My Dark is Your Home
Chapter seventeen
Athanasius
She's acting distant. Rightfully so, my beyond annoying sister made her think she was going to die or something. Luciara would have never, but she's never done something like that. I do what I can to help Ione clean the kitchen, and after a while she gently pushes me out of the kitchen.
"I appreciate you trying to help me, but you are in my way." She chuckles. "Supervise or go to bed or something."
"I will not sleep without you." I grumble.
To which she answers. "Then read my book, you're farther along than I am anyway."
I stand for awhile and watch her, then find myself in bed reading as she said.
Forty minutes passes by, and she still hasn't come upstairs.
Sighing, I swing my legs over the side, and walk downstairs.
She's not in the kitchen, thunder rolls low over the house, the sky flashes and illuminates the back porch.
The rain is coming down steadily, and Ione is sitting on the back porch, her arms wrapped around her legs as she watches the night sky.
She is beautiful, my jaw clenches, and I hear Luciara in my mind.
Tell her how you feel. Don't let what happened with one turn you away from another. You cannot paint all humans with the same brush brother, trust me, this one is special.
She felt like a match.
Not a roaring fire—not yet—but the hiss and scrape of something ancient against flint.
I don’t know what it is about Ione. I felt her hands in the dirt as she was digging toward the box, felt the tremble in her bones as if the earth itself had whispered my name.
I felt her soul touching mine, brushing by the tendrils of my being as my ring slipped over her finger.
It was a spark. And for me, a spark is catastrophic.
I am not built to love. I am made of endings. Of rot and silence and the velvet stillness after the last breath leaves a body. I cradle stars as they die. I extinguish suns. I have watched time collapse in on itself and wept not once.
But Ione—she trembled, and my name bloomed across her like a shadow cast by firelight. She looked at the box and didn’t recoil. She didn’t run. She welcomed the cold that clung to my memory and claimed it. Claimed me.
She is not the first mortal to touch me. But she is the first who didn’t flinch.
Maybe, that's what love feels like, for something like me. A match in a mausoleum. A dare in the dark. A whisper that says: I see you, and I do not fear.
Ione sits in the dark, wrapped in the hush of midnight and her own thoughts.
I wish I knew what she was thinking, I wish I knew what was running against the seam of her lips that she wanted to utter.
The silver moon spills over her skin like a blessing, soft against the warm brown of her legs, drawn close to her chest. Her arms wrap around them like a shield, like she’s holding herself together in the silence.
She watches the sky like it’s speaking to her—like it’s saying something only she can hear.
And I watch her.
From behind the window, from this cursed, in-between place where I exist—not quite present, not quite gone—I press my hand against the glass that separates us.
It's cold beneath my palm, colder still when I notice the fine lines etched around her eyes from nights like this.
I wonder how many she spent before me? The ones spent thinking too hard and hoping too much.
Her skin is pulled tight over her high cheekbones, the wind kissing her face and tugging gently at the twists in her hair, little movements like breath.
I have not yearned in ages.
Not like this. Not with the weight of it. Not with the ache that dares to be hope.
The last time—I remember it too well. I mistook fascination for love.
I ignored the small tremors of instinct, the quiet warnings humming through the marrow of me.
I was just so...grateful to be chosen. But it wasn’t real.
It bled me. Used me. Left me colder than before.
That wound still lingers, but it’s dulled now, eclipsed by the warmth of her.
Because Ione chooses to be here. With me. In this space no one sane would enter.
And there are no warnings in my mind now. No unease. No suspicion. Only her.
That should terrify me.
And it does.
How ridiculous, right? Death incarnate, darkness itself, afraid of a woman wrapped in moonlight.
But fear is sharp because it knows what it stands to lose.
What if someone like Caspian is better for her?
Alive. Whole. Human. I am none of those things.
I am absence and silence and the long, inevitable after.
Maybe I should let her go. Let her live, let her love someone with a beating heart.
Maybe I should just enjoy the now. Sit in the dark with her, unseen, and let my yearning be enough.
But gods, it’s not.
And that’s what scares me most.
"You gonna keep fogging up my damn window?" She asks? Turning her face so that her cheek is pressed to her knee. "Or are you going to come out here and say whatever is on your mind?"
Caught.
Opening the sliding glass door, I take a deep breath and step through. "Knowing my luck, nosey Ms. Taylor will be walking her dog and decide to peep back here and see me."
Ione chuckles, and the sound makes my heart skip a beat. "She'd be trespassing."
"Like she fucking cares," I sit down next to Ione. "All the times she's seen me like this, I'm surprised she is sane."
Ione hums. "You said you have one more form, I guess that's the nightmarish one?"
"Depends on who you ask," The thunder rolls again. "Moireth says I look adorable."
Ione brushes a few twists behind her ear. "Your siblings are interesting."
"I apologize for Luciara."
Ione nods. "She talked to me. I learned and understood."
I have a feeling of what my twin might have said, but I'm also not sure and I don't want to be embarrassed so I won't ask. Ione doesn't speak again, she turns her face from me and the sky lights up black, white, and dark blue.
"She told me about some broad who made you feel like she wanted you and betrayed you." Ione whispers just above the storm. "I am sorry that happened."
"You weren't there, rabbit, you weren't even alive so why are you apologizing?" I don't mean to snap, and I realize that I did. "Apologies."
"Apologizing for a lot tonight." She huffs. "Is this going to be habit?"
So she wants to stay with me?
"No." I speak with finality. "Ione."
She stands up. "If you're going to say something fucking stupid, or snappy, keep it to yourself." She turns to look at me. "If you're asking me to make you food, the answer is no."
As she walks past me, I can't help but to grab her hand.
What am I doing? "You took my dark and made me a home.
" Ione's features soften in the nightlight.
"At the window, I was thinking of you, even when you are not with me, all I see is you.
" I turn my hand so that our fingers interlace.
My hand is much bigger than hers, I want to put them all over her.
"…I don't understand how we got here, but here is where I want to be. "
Standing up, my lower arms cradle around her waist, and Ione presses her face into my chest. She breathes deep and her fingers clench in my shirt. "You hardly know where here is."
"I'm with you, woman, it doesn't matter." My upper hands touch her face, angling her neck to look up at me. "Do not be difficult, I'm trying to be loving and gentle with you."
"You're about to ruin it." She scoffs. "Smart ass."
"Your kind used to believe the night was alive," My lower hands reach down and lift her body so that her legs wrap around me.
"A force that could overwhelm and consume," She wraps her arms around my neck, and I turn walking back into the house.
"That this darkness belonged to us," She lifts her mouth to mine, and I rub my nose against hers.
"The night does not belong to me, I love it on you, Ione. "