Magic of Blood and Sea

For the first time, I understood the difference between leaving and not staying. It was the difference between a snarl and a smile.

But I looked at his eyes, where the brightness was. And everything changed.

He kissed every part of me. Every time he kissed me he told me that he loved me, and after a while I knew I had to believe him.

His eyes brightened. For a minute a tightness pinched in my chest. I thought about the man from the Mists smiling for me like he was Naji. But he wasn’t Naji. Because this was Naji’s smile.

I told myself he didn’t have to be bound to me at all in order to love me.

He was thinking of me as he lay dying in a world between worlds.

I found him.

I found his thoughts, warmed by blood, thin blood, weak blood. He was thinking about food and water. He was thinking about me.

“Love is a wound,” the assassin said. “Neither life nor death.”

That was what kissing Naji was like: the best day at sea, warm sunlight and cool breeze. Happiness.

Kissing Naji was happiness.

He had covered his face to walk me out to the gardens. I wanted to tell him he didn’t need to do that, that he was handsome even with the scars, that the scars made him more beautiful than any untrustworthy pretty boy lurking in some Empire palace.