Page 17 of Aïdes the Unseen
“Life. The sun. The way things bloom.”
He was quiet a long time. Then: “I miss not knowing. Not having to remember everything that comes after.”
We walked a little farther. He didn’t hurry. Neither did I. I took the time to turn over his words, to examine them and try to understand.
I brought him to the knoll where the wildflowers always broke first. It was the most innocent of places, an accidental altar, scattered in crocus and columbine. Sprites often played here, but today it was empty. Maybe they sensed him. Maybe they made space.
“This is where I come when I don’t want to be a goddess,” I admitted. “Where I can pretend I’m just a girl who loves flowers.”
He glanced around. “I don’t think you’re pretending.”
I blinked at that. “You don’t?”
“No. I think the world just hasn’t learned to make room for both.”
I looked at him then, really looked. For a moment, he wasn’t the shadow who waited in silence or the keeper of sorrows. He was a man in the rain, learning the shape of spring for the first time. Then, because he was, I took him to the last place.
A grove tucked behind the hills, where the moss was thick and warm and the water from the high creek tumbled into a small, laughing pool. The goats came here sometimes. So did the sprites, when they wanted to be alone but notlonely.
“This is my favorite,” I said, sitting down on a rock veined with old quartz. “No temples. No offerings. Justexisting.”
He sat beside me, careful not to touch.
Still, I felt him. The gravity of him. Like a low drumbeat, steady beneath the skin.
“I thought your world would be louder,” he said quietly. “More singing. More laughter.”
“Itis, usually,” I said with a small smile. The night of the harvest festival it had been booming. “But sometimes I need it quiet. Joy doesn’t always shout.”
He looked at the pool, where raindrops stitched silver rings across the surface.
“I don’t know if I can belong here,” he murmured. His voice carried a melody that was both soft and somber, the calm of twilight descending over a forgotten shore. The depth of it, an ancient cadence, wrapped each word he spoke. Even the air leaned in to listen.
“You don’t have to,” I replied. “You’re not a seed.”
His gaze flicked to mine. “What am I, then?”
I tilted my head, thoughtful. “The pause between seasons. The shadow that lets light mean something.”
He looked away then, but I saw it, the way his mouth curled, just barely.
“You say things like they’ve always been true.” The dark velvet timber of his voice held a melancholic warmth that beckoned to me.
“Maybe they have,” I whispered. None of it felt like a lie. “They just needed someone to say them.”
For a breath, a moment that felt too full to be brief, we simply sat. The rain, the moss, the serenity of blooming things.
Then, slowly,deliberately, he turned his hand palm-up on the rock between us.
Not touching.
Just there.
Invitation, not command.
With care, I laid my hand over his. His skin was smooth, cool, and yet there was heat. The contact itself was quiet, infinitely gentle and almost kind.
He curved his fingers around my hand, the grip barely there but unmistakable. I blew out a long breath, relief spilling through me for what, I had no idea. Yet the connection, it echoed.
