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He looks like dreams.
Sweet, quiet nightmares.
Sunsets and morning lights and gentle blooms in the earth.
Like every beautiful, frightening thing.
He looks like dreams, and yet he is so very real.
Cardan takes a step towards the water’s edge, and I watch as the breeze kisses the curls of his hair. The high cheekbones. The soft lips. The lake’s gleam is mirrored on his skin, and even the stars reflected in the clear water do not compare to the universe in his eyes.
It is no small thing to admit to myself that I still lose sight of the world around me at times because of him. There are these moments where I simply watch him, and I get caught in the way he moves, the way his muscles move, the way his dark lashes frame his eyes. Details so small and wonderful, that I have to keep reminding myself to breathe, to look away, less I keep getting hopelessly distracted by the quicksand that is him.
The world comes back into view when I blink, and then there are the trees around us, the quietness of the night, the gentle lullaby of creatures beginning to wake. There is me, shivering in the moonlight, watching my husband as he slowly sinks into the warm depths of the steaming lake.
“Are you cold?” He asks, and swims to me slowly.
My breath comes back to me, but is shortly taken away the moment he touches my knees. I could sit at the edge of the water and watch him forever, I feel.
“I am,” I say. “But I was enjoying the view.”
He raises his brows just slightly, reacting to the words. These moments are what I love the most – to see him dishevelled and surprised whenever I show him little sparks of affection. And then the grin that comes right after-
I die a little everytime, sincerely.
“Well, wife,” he says, pulling me closer to the edge little by little, those hands moving towards my waist, “why do you not join me?”
I look at him, sweet and cunning Cardan, Cardan who I hated, Cardan who I love, Cardan who I almost lost.
“You have that look on your face again,” he says softly.
“What look?”
He pauses, as if tasting the words first, and before he can answer, he delicately pulls me into his arms, and my body slides into the warm water. I shiver, letting my arms wrap around his shoulders.
“Sometimes you look at me and I know what you see.”
The water ripples around us as he adjusts me in his arms, so I am wrapped around him.
“Death,” he completes. “Loss.”
For a few moments, I do not know what to say, or better – how to explain. It has only been two weeks since we have returned from the mortal world, and to say Cardan and I are still adjusting to this new life and new way of being is a bold understatement. It appears this type of happiness is still new to both of us, and sometimes it catches me, particularly, off guard. To look at him and see a lover, and not an enemy. To look at him and see him as a partner, as a keeper of my secrets and schemes, and not a target to aim at.
It is odd and frightening, and all happiness comes with a little fear.
I watch him, and force my heart to spell out the words. “I woke up yesterday believing you were not there. Somehow.” My hand trembles slightly at the back of his neck. “I opened my eyes and I dared not to turn; I was afraid I would not see you lying there.”
“But I was there,” he murmurs. “I am there every turn.”
“I know,” I say, but I don’t. Because in terrible dreams, he is not there. He is a curse that I cannot break, a King I cannot bring back. And when I wake and the moonlight touches my face, there is a quiet moment when my mind cannot comprehend that that is not my reality now.
He’s here.
He’s safe.
He knows my heart now.
And I know his.
What a terrible, frightening, beautiful reality.
“You are still afraid to lose me,” he says to me. And then, a little sheepishly, he says, “I am afraid to lose you.”
I do not deny it. Not when he can see it easily written on my face, not when he can feel it in every note of my previous words. “What else are you afraid of?” I whisper.
I want his fears to match mine, as I want his heart to call out to mine. A selfish need to know that we are still on the same side in this chessboard.
Cardan rests his back against the stone, taking me with him. His eyes dart over my exposed neck, the line of my thin, short dress, the straps at my shoulders, stuck to my skin. Drinking me in. Breathing me in. He says, “Of you, leaving. If the armour that you wore, that we both wore, coming back into place. Of you, Jude. I am so terrified of you.”
“Are you terrified of my love for you?”
“That,” he says, “it is the one thing that I could never be afraid of.”
When I say nothing, his eyes ask me the same question.
“I am afraid of your love,” I admit, my soul still fragile from the moment I woke and saw him still sleeping next to me. “I am afraid it will not be reserved for me always.”
Cardan shakes his head. “You and I have to learn how to be loved by each other.” He takes my hand, kisses my pulse, just like he did that night on the stone floor. The memory sends a pleasant tingle down my spine. “Do you think we can?”
“I think we can try,” I say, breathless.
“Jude,” he smiles, “I have a surprise for you.”
“No,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he tells me, now giddy and tender with the words we exchanged.
He kisses my smile, just once, and then he points to the darkened skies. “Look up.”
I do, still in his arms, and watch the stars glitter in the dark canvas. “Those are just the stars,” I say warily.
He looks at me, a little offended. “Humans have no patience. Wait. It is bound to arrive soon.”
“Arrive?” I ask him.
Cardan does not respond, and we stare at the skies, me looking for answers, him turning his eyes to me. Before I can return his gaze, a striking light explodes in the skies, a tiny, noticeable explosion-like phenomenon far, far away. I jump in his arms, blinking, never once having seen anything like it before.
And then, it shoots across the sky, jet-fast. It lights up the world for the tiniest second in a white light, before it dims and slowly begins to fall so, so far, over the mountains in the distance.
Meteor.
It struck earth. Somewhere in faerie.
Cardan is looking at me expectantly.
I move away in the water, out of his arms. “How did you know?”
“Stars,” he laughs, “are easier to read than you might think.”
My mind is attempting to find answers he is not giving me, but I soon stop, and look up again. “What-”
“Every forty-five years,” Cardan begins, “a fallen star breaks through the skies and dives deep into those mountains,” he points. “It is not known why it happens the way that it does and in the same place every forty-five years, nor why the humans do not see it. But we do. On this night, for a second, we see it. We make wishes and promises on that star.”
A star.
He looks at me, gaze dark and intentional.
“I did not want you to miss it, Jude,” he murmurs, pulling me back to him, “whether that fallen star makes wishes and promises true and last, or whether it is simply a phenomenon we might never be able to explain, know that from this day forth, I am enchanted by you and will forever be enchanted by you. I never wish to part with you again. And all my fears will remain, because I can never be truly assured that you are mine. Just like I can never be assured that that star will fall down once more in forty-five years’ time.”
I watch him with amazement and an ache in my chest. Without much of a pause, I bend down and take his lips, slowly at first, and then with an intensity that makes me breathless. Cardan pulls me closer, into his arms, and sighs into my mouth.
Pulling away, I tell him, “You brought me here to say that?”
“Disappointed?”
“Not surprised,” I say, without being able to keep the smile off my face. “Were our vows not enough then?”
“No vows will ever suffice, Jude.”
I touch his cheeks, making him look at me.
He truly looks like dreams.
Sweet, quiet nightmares.
Sunsets and morning lights, gentle blooms in the earth, meteors and fallen stars.
Like every beautiful, loving, tender thing.
Like love.