Page 70 of Unfinished

“Is that a labyrinth? What’s in the middle?” she asked. A tall column rose into the sky, and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed it during their arrival in the flyer.

“It’s another place to pray. I like to come here when I need to reconnect with the gods. I can watch the smoke as my offerings burn and imagine my prayers lifting to the heavens. The path is just another aid to focus the mind, to allow us to approach our gods with reverence.”

“You said you watch the smoke, but where’s the fire?” Sienna asked, gazing at the tapered column again. It was a milky, softly glowing pale jade, and she could make out the spidery characters of Xithilene writing curving tightly around the sides.

“Would you like me to show you?” R’kash offered his arm.

“Yes,” she replied as she once more took his hand and felt the steady strength of his forearm beneath hers.

They took the white brick path together, and they only just fit walking side by side. Sienna finally looked up at the sky, letting R’kah guide their steps. She should’ve asked to come earlier. She’d never seen stars like those before, so brilliant and clear and countless, painting a sky so dark it felt like she might fall right into the void.

“Do you ever get used to this view?”

“No,” said R’kash quietly. “For me, it’s always the mirror of the gods.”

Sienna only looked down when she grew dizzy. The walk towards the center of the path was slow and unhurried, and she felt the heat from themaestadissipate as they neared the end. By the time they stopped before the column, her mind was clear, and a quiet peace had descended over them.

R’kash leaned forward and pressed his palm over one of the glyphs, and a tight ring of flames grew around the base of the column. He stepped back and turned to face her. “Would you like to give an offering tonight?” he asked. “I’ll show you how.”

“Why don’t you go first,” she said. “I just want to be here for a moment.”

Sienna had never been very religious, but she’d gone to church for the holidays and with her friends’ families from time to time. She’d gone enough that sliding to her knees to pray didn’t feel strange. In fact, it felt like the only thing to do beneath that vast sky.

Maybe it was looking up and knowing that when Theo or Tasha tipped their heads back tonight, they’d be seeing an entirely different set of stars, but she truly felt the immensity of everything that had changed for her then that night, on her knees, with that bright, sparkling Xithilene stone beneath her. She had R’kash and a love she’d never thought possible. She had Veesha’s tight hugs and the affection of all of Evathi’s priests. She’d reached out for a new life, a second chance, and she’d received it.

Could R’kash feel the profound gratitude seeping out from her skin? Could he scent her joy on the crisp night air? All of those old carols focused on Mary, but tonight she thought of Joseph. Of a man given the most unexpected, most blessed gift, and all he needed to do was accept it. He’d never resonated with her before when she’d heard the familiar story read on Christmas day, but tonight, she knew his wonder as her own, the almost painful happiness that was sharp and bright, a feeling too expansive for the human heart to comprehend.

The scent of sweet smoke made her look down. R’kash held the end of a small bark scroll as it burned to ash in the fire. He glanced at her, his lips just tipping up into the slightest smile. When the orange edge of the burning scroll almost touched his fingers, he dropped the remains into the flames.

“Would you like to give your own offering now?” he asked.

“Yes,” she decided.

R’kash held out his hand. He waited silently as she set her hand over his, palm up. He held the little knife with the shell covered handle like he’d done it a thousand times, and when the blade nicked the meat of her fingertip, she barely felt it until a sharp sting set in. He pulled out one of the bark scrolls from his pocket and unrolled it for her.

“We write our prayers with our nails, but just do your best. It’s the intent, not the result, that matters. I won’t look,” he told her.

She didn’t even try to write out any legible words. She just used her fingertip to spell out the wordthank you. In the end, it was just a line of smeared blood, but when she dropped the scroll into the flames, she felt something in her chest release, loosening like a sigh of relief.

“Thank you for sharing this with me. I’m glad we did it,” she told R’kash when she was finished.

He brushed her hair back away from her face. “I’m glad too.”

She looked into his eyes, the same hypnotic crimson as the fire. “Let’s do it tonight. Give me the claiming bite and complete the bond. It’ll be our Christmas gift to one another. I don’t need more time—I’m sure.”

R’kash looked at her for a long time. Then his eyes dropped down to her hands. “I’m certain, too, Sienna, but not tonight.” He held his hand up as if to forestall her objections before she could speak. “This is your Christmas celebration. You’ve worked so hard to make it special for us and Veesha. The bite has consequences and side effects. That’s why I was so worried about my control earlier. I didn’t want our first times together to be colored by the influence of the bite. I wanted to look back and know that everything I felt in your arms wasmine, that every thought I had was true and not just the intoxication from giving you my venom. Let us wait, Sienna. Just until after Christmas.”

She’d thought she’d be more disappointed, but as she took R’kash’s hands in hers, she wasn’t. She didn’t mind waiting just a little bit more. “Okay, but take me to bed now, R’kash. I want to spend the first hours of Christmas in your arms.”

R’kash bowed his head with a faint smile. “That request I will gladly fulfill,k’lallsa,” he told her, and then he stood, urging them both to their feet, and they slowly took the path back to the beginning of the labyrinth. Sienna took one last look at the stars before they left the roof behind, and it didn’t matter that they were strange constellations and unfamiliar beacons. It still felt like a glimpse of something holy, a brush with the divine.

* * *

Christmas morning.Sienna smiled lazily as she stretched, her body gliding against R’kash’s long limbs as she shifted in their warm bed. They were all tangled together, legs entwined, bare scales and bare skin.

A muffled cry from R’kash’s robes where they hung on the clothing rack by the window made her startle. She shook his arm, and he blinked twice before his head turned to follow the sound. He quickly withdrew his arms and rushed out of the bed, fumbling a little as his fingers searched for the small communication device.

“R’kash, R’kash!” cried the voice coming through.

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