Alone Together

Chapter Ten

        When it gets too cold to sit around outside, we move inside. "Why were you even there?" I ask suddenly, after a few minutes of silence. "What?" he asks, startled. "When I got stabbed, why were you there?" I repeated, looking at him quizzically. He nervously ruffled his hair. "I saw you go out alone and unarmed. We were in the middle of preparing for a war, and I knew you might run into trouble. By the time I'd made my mind up, you were pretty far ahead of me. I only managed to catch up to you after you'd been, well, you know," he answers, rubbing at the back of his neck in embarrassment. I take in the new information. So it hadn't exactly been just sheer luck that had him out there with me. He'd noticed I'd left, and he wasn't as stupid as I had been. "Does anyone else know about what you can do?" I ask, biting my lip. We'd agreed to dodge the question on how we'd both gotten the same wound, but Helios had been in much better shape when we'd dragged ourselves back to the camp. 

        "No," he answers softly, shaking his head. "Why haven't you told anyone?" I ask. I'm probably annoying him with all the questions I'm asking, but I'm curious. "Because it takes a lot out of me whenever I do it. I was convinced that for a second, when I was helping you, that both of us would die. Then we managed to make it back to camp alive. Look, I know that these are good people. But they'd want me to use my power to help the others, and, honestly, I'm a little selfish. Besides, it's hard to take on someone's...ailment. If you hadn't been so weak already, I doubt I'd have been able to help you," he says, quietly. I scoot closer to him and reach my hand out, touching his arm gently. "Well, then. It seems I have a lot to thank you for. I owe you. A lot," I murmur. He gives me a slight smile. "Just...keep what I did a secret, okay? When people ask what exactly happened, because I know they will, trust me, just say you don't want to talk about it or something. I don't want people to know about this," Helios says, his brown eyes locking with mine. I gather his hands in mine. His skin is cold, compared to mine, and I wrap my fingers around his in an attempt to warm then. 

        "Your secret is safe with me, then," I tell him. He smiles again, and I find myself thinking about how attractive he is. As a mage, he does most of his fighting from a distance, and he's not got many scars. Despite having lived with the tribe for awhile, his tanned skin was nowhere near as dark as theirs, and his brown eyes were framed with long, thick eyelashes. His dark, shaggy hair lay swept back from his face, and the firelight cast flickering shadows against his cheeks. I found myself leaning closer to him without realizing it. I stopped myself before I got too close, but he knew what I was thinking and he gave me a wicked grin. I narrowed my eyes slightly at him, my lips twitching up into a smile. "It'd have been a shame to let someone as pretty as you die," he murmurs softly. Part of me wants to play the part of the lovestruck maiden, but my actual personality won out and I didn't swoon. I lean forward and press my lips to his cheek. I had planned to kiss him on the lips, but I got a little scared at the last minute. "You know, if I hadn't started to like you after being cooped up with you for so long, I would keep much more of a distance between us," he whispers into my ear. Shivers race up my spine as his breath tickles my neck. 

        "What do you plan on doing about that?" I ask, almost inaudiblely. "A distraction from the battle we can't fight in would be nice," he answers cockily, and part of me is tempted to pull away. "Is that all this is?" I tease. He chuckles, reaching up and pushing my hair out of my face. "If you want it to be," he answers. "I've had lots of offers like this. I've turned them down because I don't want just a distraction," I answer honestly. In the few seconds it takes him to answer, I'm scared. I feel more vulnerable than I ever have, even when I was literally dying. "Then it can be so much more than that. All of this depends on you," Helios says, his other hand tracing patterns on my spine. "That's a lot of power," I answer, resting my forehead on his. "Use it wisely," he replies, and I lean forward and close what's left of the gap between us, kissing him. I pull back quickly, searching his face for signs. I get one when his hand moves up to cup the back of my head and pulls me in for another kiss. 

        We both know that maybe now it's the best time to do this; that maybe we should wait for news of the battle, but we don't wait. There's nothing we can do in tonight's battle. There will always be more for us to fight in, especially now that we've fallen over the edge into a war that will soon require every member of the tribe. For tonight, it's eerily silent in the camp, leaving us to feel like we're the only two left until dawn comes, when the rest of the tribe returns from the battle. A few died, yes, but most of us survived. Most of the Tesera warriors stayed and fought, Ice-Veins tells us, but the warriors he had taken were strong. The Akiire matched them hit for hit, until near sunrise they managed to drive them into surrender. Ice-Veins had, at that point, demanded to speak to the Tesera chief. The woman in charge of the other tribe was scarred and battle-hardened, but she was smart enough to surrender. Ice-Veins told her that the assult on their camp had happened because Helios and I had been stabbed, despite the fact that we stayed on our side of the border. She promised to punish the warrior responsible, and thus the Akiire had marched out of their territory, bearing their wounds with pride. We mourned those we lost, and celebrated the victory we'd had, and still we continued to prepare for a revenge attack.