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IT SEEMED THAT I NEVER dreamed anymore, except for very rarely. When I did, it was always frighteningly real to me, and I was pushed out of it wondering just what was real and what was fantasy.
Over the past few years, I’d had only a couple of dreams stick with me to that terrifying degree. One constant dream that came featured a little girl with reddish brown hair and glowing eyes. Sometimes she had a boy with her, too, but this time, as I slept in Raiya’s arms, I heard her voice as she spoke to me.
“You’re here,” she said.
I blinked my eyes, seeing into a dream world. I was in a place that looked just like Shoreside Park at the height of summertime, and I saw her.
The little girl, not much older than five, came running up to me. I caught her in my arms, and she giggled. I felt myself laugh, and she laughed as I twirled her around and pulled her against me. It seemed so natural to hold her, to play with her, to dance with her.
I glanced around to see if her brother was around, but didn’t see him.
The little girl clung to my arm. “I’m glad you’re here again. I wasn’t sure if you would come back.”
“Huh?” I suddenly felt cold.
“Ian said he didn’t think you liked coming here to see us, since you never said anything or tried to play,” the girl said. “But when we saw you earlier, I knew you liked us.”
“Ian?” That’s the name ... of one of ...
I glanced down at the little girl in my arms. She suddenly looked too familiar to me. “Aria.”
Raiya’s oldest daughter, the same one I’d seen in my mother’s garden, smiled at me. “That’s me,” she said.
“You’re ... ” I couldn’t bring myself to say dead, but she was looking at me so expectantly it ushered in my charm reflexes. “Beautiful.”
“Just like Mommy?” she asked.
I felt a lump form in my throat. “Yes,” I said, “just like Mommy.”
“Mommy says I look just like her,” Aria said. “Except for my nose. She says I got your nose.”
I froze. “My ... nose?”
“Yes,” she said, pointing to her straight nose, its perky pointedness matching my own perfectly.
“You’re mine.” Shock hit me hard and fast, leaving me feeling lightheaded.
How is this possible?!
“Of course I am,” Aria said, as her arms reached up and hugged me. It was the only thing that kept me together, forcing me to perform.
“And the others?” I asked, barely able to breathe.
“All of them are waiting for you, Daddy.” Aria placed her small hands on my cheeks, which were suddenly wet. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
I jolted upright, slamming into the real world.
“They were mine,” I muttered. I ran my hand over my face and felt the sweat and tears mixing together. “All of them.”
Raiya stirred next to me.
I reached over and ran my hands over her stomach, as if I was trying to find something that had been misplaced rather than lost.
“Hamilton,” she snapped. “What are you doing?”
Some part of me realized how irrational I was being. I stopped and slumped away from her, looking down at my hands in something more pervasive than defeat. “They were mine,” I repeated, barely hearing her.
At my words, she sat up and looked at me. One look at her, and I didn’t need any other form of confirmation.
The lump in my throat from earlier came back with a vengeance. “They were mine.”
“Yes,” Raiya whispered. She leaned against me, trying to offer me comfort in a situation where no amount of comfort could be given.
“How?”
“SWORD was able to get DNA from your blood samples, the ones your dad had scheduled, while you were in the hospital. They wanted to see if they could produce a child Star on their own.”
I thought of the small bags Raiya had carried through the site. Our children. “It didn’t work, did it?”
“No.” Raiya’s voice nearly broke. “Not the way they wanted it to, anyway. They were all sent to the other realm before they ... ” Her voice trailed off, and I was left devastated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“You already felt bad about me,” Raiya said. “I was planning on telling you later on, after ... ” She shook her head, ducking her eyes away from mine.
“After we were married and talked about kids?” I suggested.
“No. I was just going to tell you later.” Even in the low lighting of the early morning, I could see the faint blush across her cheeks. “But if that’s something you want, and it’s okay if you—”
“Yes.” I thought of the little girl—Aria—and how I’d felt having her run into my arms. A new kind of sadness threatened to boil over as I realized I would never hold my little girl in this world. “Yes, that’s what I want. God, that’s everything that I want.”
As I felt the new source of grief swell up inside, I pushed myself into her arms, letting myself sink against her as I released my anguish.
She held onto me, bravely facing the force of my agony, responding to me in love and compassion.
Long, quiet moments passed as I held onto her, trying to work through it all. As I processed my newfound grief on the inside, I barely managed to perceive the world around us. Outside, I could hear the cars passing in the street as the morning bustle began. Through the boarded windows, I could see cracks of dawn creeping up on the distant skyline.
“We really should go back to your parents’ house soon,” Raiya said. Her voice seemed to echo throughout the room.
“I know,” I said, even as I reached out to pull her head onto my shoulder, letting her slide into the crook of my neck. I was glad for the sudden change in topic, even if it was one we would have over and over and likely over again.
“Lucas and Lyra might be worried about us.”
“That’s a good point, given how they saw us leave.” I tried to smile again and found it difficult. “More specifically, how they saw you leave, and left me to chase after you.”
“You found me,” Raiya said. “Eventually.”
“We are in complete agreement on that note. But since seven years is too long to risk it again,” I replied, “it’s better if you don’t leave anymore. Especially like earlier today.”
“I’m sorry I rushed out of there, but—”
“No, I can understand that part,” I told her. “I’m more concerned with how you used your power. You sort of transformed into Starry Knight again, but it wasn’t exactly the same.”
Raiya nodded. “I know,” she whispered. “And I’m worried about that.”
“I think that’s a smart position to take on the matter.”
“It is. I wouldn’t want to end up like my sisters.”
That made me worried. “What do you mean?”
“On the other side of Time, in the Immortal Realm, my sisters were imprisoned inside of my star,” Raiya said.
“I remember that, and, seeing as how it didn’t turn out well, I think it’s best to avoid that sort of situation again.”
“Good. That’s a smart position to take on the matter,” she said with a small smirk. “But they weren’t imprisoned right away after they decided to join Alküzor and Orpheus. Orpheus wasn’t technically imprisoned at all—he was caught up in the supernova, and that’s how he more or less wound up in Apollo City, I suppose. The exact logistics of it are a mystery.”
“So?” I asked. “What does it mean?”
“Stars—and people—don’t always feel the punishment for their transgressions right away,” Raiya said. “Sometimes the consequence of bad decisions affect us more on the inside, silently, before surfacing.”
“I can see that,” I said. “But I can also see it the other way, too. That’s how I fell in love with you.”
“Charming.”
“You weren’t, really, when we first met.”
“I grew on you.”
“That’s the point I’m making. You were a surprise I didn’t want, and didn’t like, but I couldn’t ignore you.”
Raiya grimaced. “No need to make it sound so terrifying.”
“It was.” I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “But it was a good kind of terrifying.”
“You shouldn’t distract me,” Raiya murmured as I ran my fingers through her hair. I felt her pleasure, though, and I knew she was only half-joking.
Peace and caution settled into me at the same moment. It had been several years since I’d felt this way—like I had something more than a job and career to live for; that I had an actual life to live for. The last time I felt this way, my mind couldn’t help but remind me, I lost it to SWORD and their scheming. And I didn’t just lose Raiya—I lost so much more, too.
I knew I had to take this seriously if we were going to survive together this time. If we didn’t survive together, I wasn’t going to survive, period.
“Okay,” I said, letting her feel the weight behind my word.
“Well then, as I was saying, it takes time for the fruits of our choices to come to the surface. I’m forgiven, but I have to keep my power in check down here,” she said. “As do you, of course.”
“Otherwise?”
“Otherwise we will need to be stopped, just as my sisters were.” She sighed. “The quest for justice often leads to the temptation for revenge.”
“I guess, by that logic, that mercy leads to judgment?”
“I’d think you would feel something more along the lines of mercilessness,” she replied.
“Makes sense.” It was hard for me to imagine not killing Rosemary once we managed to find her. I didn’t admit (and didn’t want to admit) that was the exact temptation I was facing, especially after hearing Aria call me “Daddy” for the first time.
“If I let it get out of control, I could easily transform the way I did and destroy people.”
She looked uncomfortable at the thought, and I felt discomfort myself; I didn’t know if there was any fallout from her attack on the city earlier. I’d been more worried about her, and about making sure Lyra and Lucas went back to my parents’ house.
I gripped her hand. “Everything will be alright,” I told her.
She arched an eyebrow at me. I mirrored her look; I’d been right about that before, even if our situation was a pretty terrible way to be right. At least we were together.
“Yes, everything will be alright,” she said, “but it might not be that way until we are gone from this world.”
“I have more hope than you do regarding that,” I said.
“Hope’s not going to keep me from hurting other people if my power gets out of my control.”
“When it comes to your powers, I’ll be here to keep you in check, and you can do the same for me.”
“That’s hardly going to be enough.”
“It’s not like we have a lot of other options. Besides, we’re good at keeping each other in check. Even if we’re a few years out of practice.”
“I don’t know.” She smiled at me. “With all your lawyer training, you might be running circles around me.”
“I’ll tell you when I get too dizzy.”
Raiya gave me a playful punch on the arm, and we finally made the decision, painful as it was, to head back to my home. We had a long day ahead, and between the two of us, at least half of it was going be spent napping.
The other half, for me, would be planning revenge. (Hey, Raiya might not have been able to go through it without losing herself, but I certainly had the option.)
☼15☼