Page 4 of Aïdes the Unseen
“I’m not promising a god,” I said, my voice like the hush before a kiss. “I’m promisingyou.”
Then, for just a breath, he leaned closer, his hand brushing mine.
Just that.
But it felt like the whole world inhaled.
A crackle in the thread between us, a spark not of fire but ofrecognition.The moment before the seed breaks open beneath the soil. Quiet. Sacred. Irrevocable.
Night came gently. The first stars rose like offerings.
Somewhere in the space between what we were and what we might become, I smiled.
So did he.
It had been days.Sunrises and sunsets blurring together as time marched on, unyielding.
The petals on the almond trees had opened and fallen, the crocus had faded to saffron threads, and the bees had started their slow waltz toward the lavender fields. Spring moved, always; it didn’t stop for anyone. Not even me.
Yet I found myself…waiting.
For a shadow at the edge of a sunbeam. For silence to feel likehim.
I told no one.
Not my mother, who would have noticed the way my laughter had turned quiet around the edges. Not the other sprites and nymphs who danced in groves and painted the sky with birdsong, because they wouldn’t have understood. This was mine.
Hewas mine.
Was he only a passing curiosity? A pull, not a promise.
I wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t explain the way the light leaned differently now. The way I found myself walking the paths he’d walked before. Listening for footsteps no one else could hear.
Then one dusk, when the air tasted like endings, I found him waiting beneath the yew trees.
He said nothing at first.
I didn’t need him to.
“Is it time?” I asked.
He studied me. Eyes the color of what the world hides—deep, endless, aching.
“It’s never time,” he said quietly. “But I’ll show you, if you want to see.”
Anticipation threaded through my veins and I nodded. “I do.”
He didn’t askwhy. That was one of the things I liked about him, he didn’t try to name what I didn’t offer. He only held space for it.
He held out his hand. I took it.
It was cooler than mine, yet it didn’t feel like death. It felt like stillness. Like the hush between heartbeats. Like something waiting to become.
The world shifted.
No thunder. No shattering sky. Just the softest blink, and then, the forest was gone.
We stood at the threshold of a vast cavern, its entrance hidden behind a waterfall of mist and falling stars. The air changed first. Heavier, not oppressive, but solemn. Holy, in a strange and unspoken way.
