Starsinger

Aftershocks

Aaron was dreaming, a thick, deep dream. The midday sun was beating down on his back. His mother sat on the edge of the fountain. Her hands were weathered with work, her cheeks weathered with sun. She laughed with her whole body.

He knew it was coming, knew it had happened long ago, but that didn't stop his chest from clenching tight. He couldn't scream anymore. He couldn't run. Instead he sank to his knees, falling apart from the inside out as that familiar stillness passed over his mother's laughing face. Helpless. Helpless. Helpless.

Something grabbed his hand and Aaron's eyes flew open.

He was lying on his side in the high barn loft buried under a pile of furs, covered in sweat and shivering. All around him lay the lumps of his sleeping team. Across from him lay Sapphire, eyes open, holding his hand tightly in hers.

He was still shaking from the nightmare. He must have woken her up. Heat flooded his cheeks and Aaron opened his mouth to apologize, pulling his hand away in embarrassment.

Sapphire held fast and shook her head once. No talking. He let the words die on his lips.

She stared at him, and he stared back. There was no concern in her expression, no questions he didn't want to answer. Just a quiet sense of understanding. Her dark blue eyes roamed his face, taking him in slowly, methodically. There was something so intimate about it that Aaron could hardly breathe.

Sapphire smiled slightly. She squeezed his hand again and then released, drawing her arm back under the blankets. She closed her eyes.

Aaron couldn't look away. He gazed at her until her breathing grew slow and shallow. He lay still as wave after wave of emotion washed over him.

A blaze of clarity turned the worming trails of suspicion to dust. Whatever fate had planned for Sapphire, it didn't matter. They'd fight it. They'd win. They were a team, a team with a starsinger, gods damn it, and a lead on the most powerful Old World artifact known to humanity. And if one day Sapphire's secrets brought more trouble down on their heads, Aaron didn't care. He knew where he'd be standing.

You are not my enemy, he thought as he watched her sleep. You could never be my enemy.