That did make me uncomfortable. “Even in my barbarian land, women do not take children as lovers.”
The annoyance grew in his expression. “I told you before, I don’t want that from you. I’m talking about this.” He sat up on his knees abruptly and leaned toward me. I flinched away, and he stopped, waiting. It occurred to me that I loved him, trusted him with my very soul. Shouldn’t I trust him with a kiss? So after a deep breath, I relaxed. Sieh waited until I gave him a minute nod, and a moment longer than that—making sure. Then he leaned in and kissed me again.
And this time it was different, because I could taste him—not Sieh the sweaty, slightly dirty child, but the Sieh beneath the human mask. It is… difficult to describe. A sudden burst of something refreshing, like ripe melon, or maybe a waterfall. A torrent, a current; it rushed into me and through me and back into him so swiftly that I barely had time to draw breath. Salt. Lightning. That hurt enough that I almost pulled away, but distantly I felt Sieh’s hands tighten painfully on my arms. Before I could yelp, cold wind shot through me, soothing both the jolt and my bruises.
Then Sieh pulled back. I stared at him, but his eyes were still shut. Uttering a deep, satisfied sigh, he shifted to sit beside me again, lifting my arm and pulling it ’round himself proprietarily.
“What… was that?” I asked, when I had recovered somewhat.
“Me,” he said. Of course.
“What do I taste like?”
Sieh sighed, snuggling against my shoulder, his arms looping around my waist. “Soft, misty places full of sharp edges and hidden colors.”
I could not help it; I giggled. I felt light-headed, like I’d drunk too much of Relad’s liqueur. “That’s not a taste!”
“Of course it is. You tasted Naha, didn’t you? He tastes like falling to the bottom of the universe.”
That stopped my giggling, because it was true. We sat awhile longer, not speaking, not thinking—or at least I was not. It was, after the constant worry and scheming of the past two weeks, a moment of pure bliss. Perhaps that was why, when I did think again, it was of a different kind of peace.
“What will happen to me?” I asked. “After.”
He was a clever child; he knew what I meant at once.
“You’ll drift for a time,” he said very softly. “Souls do that when they’re first freed from flesh. Eventually they gravitate toward places that resonate with certain aspects of their nature. Places that are safe for souls lacking flesh, unlike this realm.”
“The heavens and the hells.”
He shrugged, just a little, so that it would not jostle either of us. “That’s what mortals call them.”
“Is that not what they are?”
“I don’t know. What does it matter?” I frowned, and he sighed. “I’m not mortal, Yeine, I don’t obsess over this the way your kind does. They’re just… places for life to rest, when it’s not being alive. There are many of them because Enefa knew your kind needed variety.” He sighed. “That was why Enefa’s soul kept drifting, we think. All the places she made, the ones that resonated best with her, vanished when she died.”
I shivered, and thought I felt something else shiver deep within me.
“Will… will both our souls find a place, she and I? Or will hers drift again?”
“I don’t know.” The pain in his voice was quiet, inflectionless. Another person would have missed it.
I rubbed his back gently. “If I can,” I said, “if I have any control over it… I’ll take her with me.”
“She may not want to go. The only places left now are the ones her brothers created. Those don’t fit her much.”
“Then she can stay inside me, if that’s better. I’m no heaven, but we’ve put up with each other this long. We’re going to have to talk, though. All these visions and dreams must go. They’re really quite distracting.”
Sieh lifted his head and stared at me. I kept a straight face for as long as I could, which was not long. Of course he managed it longer than me. He had centuries more of practice.
We dissolved into laughter there on the floor, wrapped around each other, and thus ended the last day of my life.
I went back to my apartment alone, about an hour before dusk. When I got inside, Naha was still sitting in the big chair as if he hadn’t moved all day, although there was an empty food tray on the nightstand. He started as I walked in; I suspected he had been napping, or at least daydreaming.
“Go where you like for the remainder of the day,” I told him. “I’d like to be alone awhile.”