Starside novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Refusal

"Until dawn," Maelis said. "The water will wait, and so will I."

She walked back into the dark, and the stars came back one at a time as she went.

I stood on the rock with my hands hanging.

Wick on the step, my mother with the pie, all of them standing on the green and breathing.

I wanted it so much that my teeth hurt.

"Sorrel," Dain said.

"Don't tell me what to do."

"I wasn't going to."

I turned and looked at him.

He was gray with pain and his silver chest was branching again beneath his open collar, and he didn't say another word.

He wouldn't tell me to refuse.

He wouldn't ask me to live.

He stood there with his hands open and let it be mine to choose, and it was the bravest thing I had ever seen him do.

"Come here," I said.

He came.

I took him back into the hollow, and I pushed him down on the sand with his wrapped feet out in front of him.

"I haven't forgiven you," I said.

"I know."

"I'll decide that later. Tonight I'm going to be alive, and I want to feel it."

"Sorrel."

"Be quiet."

I knelt over him and kissed him until his breath came in short, hard pulls.

His hands slid under my shirt, slow and shaking, and found my back.

This time neither of us was angry, and it frightened me more.

I undressed him a piece at a time and put my mouth on every scar I found.

He had a long one under his ribs I'd never seen, and I kissed it, and he turned his face into his arm.

"You earned that one for me," I said. "Didn't you."

"Yes."

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