Page 32 of Dark Symmetry

Julian met her gaze. The anger was gone, as was the wild-eyed mania. When he nodded, his expression was steady, sure, and calm. “I’m certain.”

I squeezed Lilin’s hand, and felt her cold fingers squeeze back. She bit her lip and looked at me. “What…what do we have to do?” she said.

I imagined the way her hands had felt on my horns, on my body. I tensed, the heat flooding back to my face as I imagined Julian’s watchful eyes on us. “I’m not doing that here,” I muttered.

Julian made a choking sound, which he covered up by coughing, which then made him choke even more. “I’m not asking you to,” he said, wiping at his streaming eyes. “Just…a fraction. Something. I won’t look,” he added, turning his back.

Lilin faced me. She glanced down at the bodies on the ground, looking distinctly uncomfortable. She stepped closer to me. “A kiss,” she suggested, turning her face up to mine.

I grimaced, glancing at Julian’s back, then down at the villagers. “All right.” I bent low, bringing my lips close to hers.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

My gaze slid sideways and locked with hers. “You close yours.”

She took a little breath, nodded, and closed her eyes. I shut mine, too, trying to bring back the feeling from the woods as I pressed my lips to hers. They were soft and warm, exactly as I remembered.

After a moment, I pulled away and opened my eyes. We both looked at Julian, who was standing with his palms upturned.

“Any time you wish to proceed,” he called over his shoulder.

Dismayed, I met Lilin’s gaze. “What if it only works once?” I murmured under my breath. “What if—”

But Lilin didn’t look upset, or disappointed, or hopeless. Her eyes were calm, her expression tender. I saw her give a little shake, the movement I now recognized as her celestial shroud being discarded, and a moment later, her wings appeared.

“What are you—” I started to say, as she stretched them to their full span. Countless sparkling blue-green eyes regarded me from beneath soft, opalescent feathers, and I felt something in my chest start to loosen.

“Shh,” she said, and curved her wings toward me.

Understanding at last, I, too, spread my wings, and stretched them forward. They nestled together, light and dark, and as we made contact, I felt it—that pull of energy connecting my core to hers. I stepped closer to her, feeling the heat of her body, the press of her skin against mine as she reached up and twined her arms around my neck.

Her gaze met mine, magnified a thousandfold by the eyes surrounding us, blue and blue and blue, shining with love.

“Abigor,” she murmured, as I tumbled headlong into her gaze, as the world fell away. My name had never sounded so sweet. “Abigor.”

My hand found her lovely, slender neck, sliding up to cup her face, her beauty making my heart feel as though it might crack in two. “Lilin,” I whispered.

Never leave me, I thought.

Her mouth curved in a gentle smile. “I never will,” she murmured, then lifted herself onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine.

If she was the Earth, I was the moon, pulled eternally and helplessly toward her gravity. What I’d felt in the woods, that fiery desire that had nearly consumed me, was nothing compared to this. Sparks flew in my peripheral vision as I lost myself in the kiss, enveloped by her light, by her love. It was eternity in an instant, over far too soon.

When she pulled back, when I opened my eyes at last, I saw that she was gazing heavenward.

“Look,” she whispered, her expression rapt.

I tipped my head back. Between our wings, swirls of color and light danced against the night sky. Brighter than the aurora, they arced toward the stars, tumbling against each other. “What is it?” I managed to say.

Her laugh was like music as she tucked her wings against herself and kissed me once more on the lips, lightly, her eyes shining.

“Abigor,” she said, “it’s us.”

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