“What else are you hiding from me, Master Veythar?”
His mouth curved, slow and dangerous. “Would you like to find out?”
“Maybe I would rather learn for myself,” I countered, refusing to look away. “Or are your secrets only impressive when you are the one unveiling them?”
He laughed, moving closer until the river bent subtly around his thighs as though it recognized him.
I tried not to notice that it did not move that way around me.
He raised a hand, palm up, and the river obeyed. The fish halted mid-current. With a subtle turn of his wrist, they began to move, gathering into a tightening circle of living illumination.
At first the circle was wide, almost lazy, but with every passing second it tightened, their pale light intensifying until the riverbank around me shimmered with soft, living illumination.
One brushed past my arm, its scales cool as moonlit glass against my skin. Another glided past my shoulder, its luminous body leaving a faint trail of silver in the air. Soon they were everywhere—drifting past my throat, skimming along the curve of my jaw, weaving through my hair in gentle, weightless passes that sent shivers racing down my spine.
Talon lifted his hand higher, and the fish spiraled upward, a galaxy of silver bodies circling me until the darkness itself seemed to retreat. Then, with a flicker of his fingers, he released them. They scattered like spilled starlight, dissolving back into the water.
I looked to him, eyes wide.
“Darkness is not the absence of light,” he said quietly. “It is the mastery of it. The void is nothing until you shape it, Kaelia.”
Hours ago, I had trusted this man with my body, yet I knew nothing of the void he called home.
“I have a hundred questions,” I blurted, the words tumbling out.
He reached for my hand. His thumb traced a slow, steady circle across my knuckles. “Ask. There is nothing I will withhold from you.”
“What was your life like before?” I asked. “Before… this?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Long,” he said. “I have lived lifetimes that would turn your hair white, Kaelia. Most were solitary.”
I studied him more carefully now.
“Solitary how?” I pressed. “As in… alone?”
His gaze shifted, just briefly, past me. “Yes.”
“You do not have any family?”
Talon shook his head. “I was the only child and my parents surrendered to the elements many years ago.”
I frowned, something pulling tight in my chest. “I am sorry, Talon.”
“You do not need to be,” he replied, stepping closer. He stood so close now that the steam from his skin rose between us. “I have had a lifetime to become accustomed to the fact.”
“You speak as if you have seen the stars die,” I whispered, leaning into the hand that was tucking a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “How old are you, Talon?”
His mouth curved faintly at the question. “I stopped counting after my second century.”
My eyes flew open before I could school my expression. “You are over two hundred years old?”
He nodded, his dark lashes casting long shadows against his cheekbones. “I am closer to three.”
Three centuries.
I had not yet lived two decades.