Page 10

ASH

The grounds of the Ursuline Convent sat in shadow beneath us in the darkest hours before the false dawn.

The moon had long set, and the coffeehouse locked up once we walked away leaving Sebastian and Tifa lost amidst quiet conversation.

But Dolion said everything that needed to be said.

I had questions, but my answers could wait until he was ready to share what he knew of our future, and the stories of his past.

Instead, I took him to the place where I’d been hiding for the past two years when I wasn't curled in my chosen crypt.

At the convent, I chose an unoccupied cell long abandoned for its haunted qualities.

The old abbey had a long history of its own to claim, though no nun had inhabited its walls for many years.

Only dust collected on shelves wiped down by museum staff at regular intervals now, stealing the heart of what had once been a place of worship, and home to many.

Otherwise, I existed in my regular black tee and yoga pants, having no concept of sweat with my own inner heating issues.

“The halls are quiet. Like…” I didn’t finish my sentence, plucking at a dust bunny that clung to my velvet skirt. The ball of lint drifted across the rooftop and over the courtyard before it began its three story descent in slow motion on a night breath.

“Like the grave’s silence,” Dolion finished. He waved his fingers.

The small motion left the dust motes in a turbulent flight before the lint ball steadied and floated continuously downward and out of sight.

“Sometimes I think they whisper. The nuns who were here before. Like shadows of the past. Stupid, isn’t it? Especially when I lived through all of those years. Just… somewhere else,” I mused.

“It’s not stupid, Steorra. That we lived through those years—you, more than most of us, I believe, does not change that recall the echoes that return from the void of our past, fallen star.”

“Why do you call me that?” I whispered, drawing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. I rested my chin on top of everything, viewing the world in shadow, side on. The moon had long set, leaving us in that darkness that suited his words.

“Because you flare bright like the flash of a burning star in its arc across our world,” Dolion said simply. “Why do you call yourself after the dullest form of what you become?”

I wave his comment away, still reveling in the fact that he has given me the simplest explanation of what I am, and who I have been that anyone had put into words in nearly six thousand years.

A stone man and a Firestarter.

I snorted into my knees. We sounded like the perfect match for a barbeque advertisement.

“A long time ago, someone called me Shamash. A group of someone’s,” I murmured, still not looking at him.

Back when fear wasn’t the order of the day, and clans worshipped the elements when they didn’t understand something they considered greater than themselves.

“It was a bit of a mouthful, so I kept the shortened version. It has nothing to do with what I become.”

“You mean they worshiped you as a goddess," Dolion corrected me for my oversight.

I shrugged. “Perhaps. It is better than this running and hiding all the time. Why aren't you scared of me?” Everyone else is terrified of who I could be. What I might become if I am not caged.

Smooth fingers traced gently over my hair in a tender massage that began at my temples and worked backward to my nape.

“What is there to be scared of, Steorra? The end of this life or this world, the beginning of the next? All things end. I have learned this. I have accepted it. My own mortality has long been a…fixed point.” He shrugged, and his touch paused for a breath before his massage resumed again.

“But if we sleep and wither away, we forget to live. Then, what does it matter if this world ends on that watch? I would prefer to try again, Steorra. With you.”

Those same fingers curved under my jaw, gliding all the way to my chin.

Knuckles caught there, lifting gently in a grip I knew he wouldn’t let me break, nor did I want to pull away.

I allowed him to turn my head, my eyes already shuttering when his breath grazed my lips.

Then his mouth settled over mine in a warm, soft touch, so sweet and tender that the tears that broke from beneath my lashes seared my cheeks instantly.

“Dolion—” I whispered, placing a heated hand to his hard chest, a second before my vision whited out, and my world disintegrated in a puff of ash.

I blinked, still curled in the same firm embrace like I had never moved or shifted place at all. “This is unusual," I murmured, running my hands along cool stone arms that didn’t budge. Neither did his formidable chest that held no discernable heartbeat that I could fathom. “Uh, how do I get out?”

Ash coated my legs beneath my skirt that held a few burn marks of its own. Damnit. Not this outfit. This was why I usually existed in yoga pants and tees. Those, at least, were easy and cheap to replace.

“Do you need to get out?” Amber eyes, lit with some remarkable glow from within, stared down at me.

I nibbled at my lip. “No?”

“Good.” Dolion’s arms stayed exactly where they were, though this skin warmed as his stone dissipated back to wherever it originated.

The same place where I drew my flame from, I supposed.

A nudge on the top of my head brought my attention back to him. Dolion’s eyes locked onto my mouth, and his own quirked as if to say, Do you wanna try that again?

Only, of course, he wouldn't use the vernacular, but what the hell.

It was fun to imagine the words on him. Then his mouth settled on mine again, and words were the last thing I thought of as his lips pressed against mine, a little more intently this time, and his tongue swept across the seam to push inward.

A soft breath left me in a startled sound.

Heat that had little to do with my internal flame and everything to do with the man wrapped around me kindled low in my belly.

I mewled against his mouth, parting my lips as his tongue surged inward.

Firm fingers resumed their massage against my nape, and the dual sensation overrode every nuance that drove my instinct to self-combust back—well, only in a different way.

The tip of my tongue stroked along his as he showed me what he wanted, gathering me closer.

His heartbeat resumed slow and strong in his chest. I rested my palms over it, needing that rhythm to ground me as his kisses took me to a place I couldn’t describe, lost in the headiness that left me floating.

When he finally drew back, my eyes refused to open, the lids too heavy to lift. “Too much, Steorra?”

I shook my head, dizzy with the sensation and leaned into his chest. “No. I’ve just never—” My brain jammed on the confession, shutting down.

But Dolion didn't call me out on the omission, folding his arms tight around me, blocking out the world for as long as I needed.

And coward that I was, I took the option he offered, resting with my cheek against his chest, reveling in the simple beat of his heart, the warmth of him without fear of incinerating a lover for the first time.