I walk outside the home, staring at the empty fields, the spice plants shriveled to dust and ash. I lift my hands over their tenuous strands of silver-lit life, but wince to see they're already cut. The stars are frosted tonight, hanging like gemstones set into the fabric of the night sky. Somebody's already sitting outside, his back against the wall, head slumped on broad shoulders. His dark brown eyes scan the horizon for any glimpse of a dark horse. His newly grown hair, black and somewhat fluffy, falls over his worried face.
"I like looking at the stars." Arno remarks. I'm hurt to see he doesn't even try and look at me. Have I become so hideous in his eyes? "Staring at them makes me feel small. Reminds me of how tiny my problems are. Reminds me I'm human."
I see.
So, I'm no longer human to you, am I?
Since he still won't look at me, I slump to sit next to him, my back against the merchant's expensive, marble-supported wall. I look to the stars, remembering how they felt so close in the starscape, like kisses upon my skin.
"I like looking at the stars too. They make me feel immortal. They're so tiny from here. I can pluck them from the sky with my bare hands."
His eyes droop a bit further, long lashes falling over his clay-sculpted features. A five-o-clock shadow is spreading on his throat and chin. His breathing comes out nearly peaceful in the night air, little puffs of mist as we sit on the cooling sands. I run my fingers against the stubbly shadow, and his entire, muscled body tenses in fear.
"What are you doing to me, ziba?" The words come slurred, groggy, as though resurfacing from a tub of alcohol. "I'm not your pet."
I refuse to move. "I can take away the curse my mother, Ahava, put upon you." Almost instinctively, I see the surface of Arno's skin shift to a tougher, thicker golem hide. I shiver, remembering the first time I saw him in that arena, a chunk of his golem flesh held in Elio's gory, sunbeam hands. "I can make you a full human again."
He finally turns to me, and I blush to see the intensity of his beady, beastly gaze. "What? And when you got tired of me, would you just take away a decade of my life, just as you did to my father?"
I pull away from the roughness of his skin, the venom in his words. My one eye glows against my face, illuminating half my features while the other half remains in mortal shadow.
"I nearly died in the Pit, Arno. Then Kane brought me to the starscape. Kane made me strong when I was at my weakest."
I point to the stars above us, the stars hanging like beads of liquor above the lioness gate. "There, everything made sense. I wanted to stay forever. And then... I remembered you. I remembered all of you, how I had to protect you. I had to come back."
I feel tough, leathery skin run against my scars, the puckered skin from where Kane plucked my eye. Arno mouths a word, ziba, even as he looks at my horrific wounds. "متاسفم I'm sorry." He sounds as though he doesn't quite understand why he says it, but he repeats it anyways. "متاسفم".
It translates to: I'm sorry.
I lean carefully into his touch, not wanting to touch him, but feeling like it'd be crueler not to. "I'm sorry too."
"No," he laces his fingers through my curls, my hair wrapped around his golem flesh like rings. "No, you've sacrificed everything to be here. What has the House of General Ibrahim done? We may call ourselves soldiers, but we're always one thread shy of sacrifice. My father killed your mother, and then let your father get hurt to save himself. He sent me out to those Contests, but I wasn't worthy. In that ghostly cave, I had to see my friend die repeatedly, snapping his neck at the bottom of that well. My father was a coward. He deserved that loss of life. Me..."
He points to his golem skin, his voice turned to a low growl in his throat as he shifts between man and monster. "I deserve worse for what I've done to you."
I gesture to my immortal eye. "Why punish yourself? You turned me into a goddess."
Arno looks at me sadly, presses his lips softly against the swollen skin around the Divine eye. "Exactly, ziba," his laugh is bitter, like the wind as it rushes past the dead, barren fields of my father's house. "I turned out just like my father. I killed the real you."
Taken aback, I stay silent. Feel a monster's kiss against my brow.
Feel a man's words as they break my heart.
A shadow stands at the door. When I turn to look at his black-robed figure, silver hair brushing against the night. A non-judgmental gaze, so unlike the gaze of mortal men. Not jealous. Not angry. Not hurt.
Just patient, waiting.
He holds his hand out to me, and I take it, the goddess rising.
"Come, love." Kane tells me, and when I rise, I unsheathe my scimitar. The blade's surface reflects the gleam of stars at night.
"One moment," I turn back to Arno, his face wavering between golem and man. I hold him to me, an embrace of two drowning people trying to find air. "You're not a coward, Arno." I hug him tighter. "You're my friend."
Arno waits a moment, hesitating. And then, finally, he returns the embrace. Bittersweet, like chai mixed with too much cardamom. "Thank you, ziba." When he lets go, he's turned back to his human form. A soldier, strong and satisfied. "I'll make you proud."
***
Champions,
I just wrote this chapter. Tell me if there's any grammar issues! (I'm sorry if the paragraphs are spaced horribly. Formatting has been a nightmare lately.) Also, we made it to #28 in Fantasy. You're all beautifully supportive people.
Best,
Sophia
❤️ SHOUTOUT to ANTIQUITIES for helping me fix the bad formatting in this chapter. You're a 🌟.