Chapter 12 #2
Villagers gather, talking and laughing. Children run between tables, playing some game that involves much shrieking.
Normal. Human. Warm.
Mara’s face lights up. “Wow. This is… This is actually really nice.”
Nicolae guides us to seats near the head table, where Dragana presides. She nods acknowledgment but doesn’t speak.
The meal begins.
Platters pass hand to hand. Someone fills our cups with steaming, spiced wine that smells of cinnamon and cloves and something herbal.
Mara takes a cautious sip, then her eyes widen. “Oh, my God. This is amazing.”
Nicolae grins. “Grandmother’s secret recipe. She will not share, even with family.”
The wine is good. Rich and warming, sliding down my throat with heat that has nothing to do with temperature.
I watch Mara carefully. She’s still healing, still recovering from trauma that should have killed her. Alcohol might not be wise.
But she’s smiling. Really smiling, for the first time since the crash.
Talking with Nicolae in a mix of English and enthusiastic hand gestures. Laughing at something Andrei says. Accepting seconds of the stew that tastes better than anything I remember eating.
The tension from yesterday has eased. The walls she built after I pulled away from our first kiss are gone. I wonder if the memory of that moment at the stream still lingers for her, too.
She looks happy.
When was the last time someone made her feel this way?
Temporary homes. Relationships that don’t stick. Friends who drift away. I’m always the one people leave behind.
Her words from the stream echo in my mind. The raw honesty. The pain beneath.
She deserves this. Deserves to feel wanted, valued, kept.
And watching her now—flushed from wine and firelight, laughing with people who accept her without question—I want to give that to her.
Want to be the person who doesn’t leave.
Even if I don’t know who I am. Even if my past is void and my future uncertain.
The wanting is absolute.
“You do not have hunger?” Dragana’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
I realize I’ve been staring at Mara instead of eating.
“I’m watching her,” I say simply. “She was badly hurt. The wine—”
“Will do her no harm.” Dragana’s eyes are sharp. “Your fire saw to that.”
My fire. The words should sound insane.
They don’t.
“You know what happened to her,” I say. Not a question.
“I suspect.” She takes a measured sip of her own wine.
“Then tell me. Help me understand.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then: “What do you see when you look at those paintings? In the cave?”
I think back. The winged creatures. The flight. The fire.
“Power,” I say finally. “Purpose.”
“And?”
“Recognition.” The admission comes harder. “Like I should know what they are. Like my body remembers even if my mind doesn’t.”
“Good,” Dragana says simply. “Then the answers will come.”
“When?”
“Soon.” She sets down her cup. “But know that the gods were never really gods. Just beings older and stronger than humans. With fire in their veins and wings to carry them.” Her gaze pierces me. “You understand?”
Fire. Wings. Flight.
Impossible.
“No,” I say flatly.
“You will.” She pauses. “How did you find her? Your Mara?”
My Mara?
The shift in topic throws me. “There was an accident. A…” I seek out the word. “A helicopter crash.”
“Yes. But what drew you to her?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
How did I know where to go? What made me walk into fire that should have killed me?
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just knew she was in danger. Knew I had to reach her.”
“Ah.” Dragana inclines her head. “This is as it should be.”
“What does that mean?”
“You will see.” She rises, dismissing me. “Patience, fire-blood.”
She moves away, leaving me with wine I don’t want and thoughts I can’t process.
Across the table, Mara laughs at something Nicolae is demonstrating with exaggerated hand gestures. Her eyes catch mine. She smiles—warm, genuine, unguarded.
Beautiful.
The word surfaces before I can stop it.
Not just her face, though that’s striking enough. But the way she moves. The quick intelligence in her eyes. The humor she uses as armor. The vulnerability she showed me this morning.
All of it.
I want her. Want to take her back to that shelter, strip her out of those borrowed clothes, and learn every inch of skin I felt pressed against me this morning. Want to know what sounds she makes when I’m inside her. Want to wake with her wrapped around me and know—absolutely know—that she’s mine.
The intensity of it should concern me.
It doesn’t.
Nicolae says something that makes her laugh harder, head tipping back. Her throat exposed. I imagine pressing my mouth there. Feeling her pulse jump under my lips.
She catches me staring. Her smile falters slightly, something darker replacing the humor in her eyes. Awareness. Memory of this morning.
Of how close we came.
The air between us shifts. Charges.
Then Nicolae says something else, and she tears her attention away, but color floods her cheeks.
She felt it too.
Whatever this is between us—this impossible pull that makes no sense given we’ve known each other for days—it’s not one-sided.
The thought should satisfy me.
Instead, it makes the wanting worse.
Because I still don’t know who I am. Don’t know what I might be. And if Dragana’s cryptic hints mean anything, the truth might change everything.
What if Mara can’t accept what I am once I remember?
What if I’m something she should fear?
The questions have no answers. Not yet.
So I watch her laugh and drink wine and let herself be happy for one night.
And I tell myself that tomorrow—whenever the truth comes—will be soon enough to lose this.
The fire pit crackles suddenly, flames leaping higher without wind to stir them. Several villagers glance at it. Then at me.
Dragana meets my eyes across the square. Her expression unreadable.
Then she looks past me. Toward the mountains. Toward the darkness gathering beyond the firelight.
And I know—bone-deep and certain—that whatever’s coming won’t wait for tomorrow.
It’s already here.