Page 68 of Still the Sun

The Heartwood I met the second time was a shadow of that man. Looking back, I can see glimmers of his true self shining through. Searching for Casnia, because he knew how important she was to me. Spotting me on the protrusion, worried I’d fall. Letting me into the garden we’d once shared. Gods, he even helped me dig that hole, knowing it wouldn’t lead anywhere.

My legs ache as I near the tower. I imagine our roles reversed. Heartwood devoured by the machines instead of me. It would gut me.I would hate him, and myself, and this damnable tower. I would never recover.

He’s already lost his divinity. Already lost his sister.

I crash through the tower doors. “Heartwood?” The first floor greets me with its usual hush, so I rush up to the second and throw open his door. “Heartwood?”

The room is empty. I climb the ladder to the third floor. Seeing no one, I hurry to the lift and take it up. Moseus studies the machine there, trying to learn what I have not.

Breathless, I ask, “Is Heartwood here?”

Moseus looks at me, confused. “I don’t believe so. Why? What has happened?”

But I don’t take the time to convey it to him. Moseus was never a fan of our relationship, though I doubt he knew how deep it went. I shake my head, swallow against a dry throat, and make my way back downstairs and out of the tower.

Please don’t be hunting,I plead, forcing my body to continue running toward the slot canyons.Please be there.

The mist dissipates as I sprint. I slow to a jog in the punishing heat of the sun. When I finally reach the hewn stairs of the slot canyon, I trip down them, then press my back against one of the tall red-rock walls, desperate for air. My chest heaves in protest. My legs buzz like they’re full of flies.Water,my throat pleads, but there’s water in the garden. I can make it to the garden.

Pushing off the wall, I can’t convince my body to sprint, so I lumber through the narrow canyon, steadying myself against rock walls. I understand now how I found the garden the first time. I’d been here before. Heartwood showed me. I spent so much time here. Time with him.Gods, let him forgive me. I didn’t know.

I stumble through the stone archway and find him, ten paces away, planting something in overturned soil. My heart lodges in my ribs. He glances at me, then stiffens and rises to his feet, his face knit with concern. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t take my eyes off him. How did I not see it before? How did I not recognize him the moment we reunited?

Despite my thirst, my eyes run again. I hate crying, but I haven’t the strength to stop the tears. That alone has him marching forward to intercept me. “I remember,” I blurt, my voice rough.

He freezes two paces away, rooted to the ground like the wickwoods.

“Heartwood, I remember you.” I sob. “I rememberus. I’m so sorry. I’m so ... so sorry.” Weariness consuming me, I tilt to one side. He rushes forward to catch my elbow, the skin around his eyes tight, his brow furrowed. I grab the fabric of his sleeve in fists. “I don’t ... I didn’t mean to. I don’t understand how, but Heartwood, please forgive me.Please.”

His lips part. One hand cradles my jaw and turns it toward him. His eyes dart back and forth, searching for truths, for lies. His fingertips are cool against my hot skin, his breaths nearly as rapid as mine. Does he not believe me? Or is there hope behind that shimmer in his eyes?

“Nophe,” he whispers, quiet as the fog. “Do you really ...”

The question is too delicate to finish. Too broken to voice.

I grab the sides of his face. Stare until I see the trees in his eyes. “I love you, Heartwood,” I whisper. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “And I was right about Machine Two.”

The sudden openness of his expression shreds my insides to ribbons. He falters, as though his own strength has wavered. His hands clasp my wrists, but he does not pull me away. He whispers, “Nophe—”

But I’m done apologizing.

Pushing onto my toes, I kiss him, tasting sage and salt andHeartwood, reclaiming him for my own. It takes only a beat to convince him of my truth, a beat for him to respond, and I’m swept into his arms and off my feet, challenging him with lips and tongue and teeth, desperate to relearn every part of him. I drink his hurt, his loneliness, and his sorrow, choking when it mixes with my own. It is not so easily healed. Perhaps it never will be. But these are my scars, and I claim every lastone of them, making a weld of remorse and renewed devotion, a poorly wired atonement and bereavement for all that we’ve lost.

Stone presses against my back. Our hands roam and pull and demand, but it’s not enough. Our sorrow becomes need becomes heat, and it rages between us, devouring our flesh and searing our souls.

We are both entirely selfish, craving and taking, ravenous. No touch can allay the ache of our time apart, but there’s a solace in it, a temperamental peace shattered and reforged as we remember together, until the garden and the tower and Tampere fall away, and there exists no world but ours.

After, I lie against him in a loose bed of fairy wisps, toying with a long lock of hair from his obliterated braid. Ear to his chest, I listen to his heartbeat and take comfort in the rhythm of his breaths. We stay long enough for the desert wrens to return, and only when they sing does Heartwood, drawing circles on my back, whisper, “Truly, Nophe?”

So I start from the beginning, detailing his somewhat violent manner of asking for my assistance at the tower. I detail the state the machines had been in, far worse than my second time around. My voice grows coarse, and I excuse myself for a drink before returning and stretching myself over him once more. Tracing his eyebrows and nose, I tell him of every stupid thing he ever said to me, and each rude retort I gave back, all the way to the dismantling of Machine Two, before he stills my hand with his own and pleads, “Enough.”

I grin at him. “Then you finally believe me?”

He lifts his head and kisses me, wiping dried tears from my cheeks with his thumbs, marveling at me anew. “I do. But how?”

“You ask me thisafterpartaking—”

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