Raef left the cellars to find the circle of sky above the wall filled with stars beyond counting. He felt like he’d been skinned, and yet that was a relief. He felt strangely free of a weight he hadn’t known he’d been carrying.
He did not know why he alone could see in the dark. None of the other priests or Initiates could. And the shadowknife—he’d forgotten about it. Stepping through the black door had made him forget. Sifting through his memory now, he knew he’d been somewhere else. Somewhere freezing. He’d awoken in the smoldering ruins later, dazed but alive.
Prodding the memory, all he’d forgotten, he found the edges jagged. The tower’s fall and his escape had left him unable to remember the knife. He had the shape of it now, of the hole inside him. Pieces were still missing.
Stumbling into the night, Raef pressed a hand to his belly to quell its rumbling.
Cricket song filled the air. He heard nothing else. The wall muted the city’s clamor. He hadn’t even heard the temple bells ring the sunset.
Kinos waited outside, perched on the base of a broken column, his night-blind eyes wide as they sought the light. He looked a little afraid, a little lost, but not as much as he had when Raef had found him. There was almost something birdlike, something delicate, to his lean frame.
Raef approached cautiously, filled with the notion that Kinos would fly away if startled.
“Was there anything down there?” Kinos asked.
“I don’t think so,” Raef said. “I mean, I didn’t find anything.”
“What do we do?” Kinos asked.
“We won’t freeze,” Raef said, letting out a breath that Kinos had changed the subject. “And the shades won’t bother us if we’re not bleeding.”
“Then we should check.” Kinos inched in Raef’s direction.
He lifted his shirt over his head, showing Raef what he’d wanted to see since he’d first opened the box.
Kinos smiled. He knew that Raef, and only Raef, could see him.
“Check my back?” he asked, turning.
“You’re, uh, fine,” Raef said, unsurprised that his voice had dropped low.
“Your turn then,” Kinos said, stepping closer and nodding to the hem of Raef’s shirt.
Raef’s breath caught. He’d done this before, but this time felt different, new, like showing any part of himself to Kinos went deeper than any water he’d ever dove into. Turning, Raef tugged off his shirt before he could think himself out of it.
He knew he wasn’t beautiful. He had pale skin that reddened at a touch. His wiry shape was formed more from hunger than labor. His heart thrummed, surely Kinos could hear it.
Then Kinos touched him. His palms were cold, but Raef did not pull away. Raef closed his eyes. Kinos’s hands were warmer by the time he’d worked his way to the small of Raef’s back. Raef held his breath as Kinos trailed the tip of his thumb along the waist of Raef’s pants.
“Turn around,” Kinos said, voice husky. “Show me your arm.”
“I’m fine,” Raef said. “I can see, remember?”
“You’ve been sneaking looks at it since we met,” Kinos said. “Let me see it.”
Raef had clutched his wrist to his chest.
He’d come this far, brought Kinos here, and told him how he’d been raised, but this was another step, another dive into deep, deep waters.
“You asked me to trust you,” Kinos said. “Trust me back.”
Raef nibbled his lip.
He didn’t fight as Kinos took his arm.
The black crescents had darkened and spread. A second ring of moons now encircled the first. The mark had grown.
“What is this?” Kinos asked. Squinting in the darkness, he brushed two fingertips along Raef’s arm, sending a jolt through his body. His fingers traced around the mark but did not touch it.
They were a contrast. Raef, pale; Kinos, golden-skinned.
Kinos stood just a little shorter. Raef would have to stoop if they were to kiss, and how he wanted to kiss Kinos in that moment.
Raef tried to keep his voice calm and not betray the leaping beat in his chest.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Really.”
He wished he couldn’t hear the want in his voice.
Someone like him. That’s all he’d ever wanted, but there was no one like him.
He’d gone through the door. Father Polus had sent no one else.
Only Raef had survived and he had no idea why. Kinos was the first person he’d met who didn’t feel like a stranger. Raef couldn’t explain it better than that.
“It showed up when I fought the knight,” he said. “The one guarding the box, when I went to save you.”
“You mean when you went to steal me.”
Kinos moved, trailed his fingertips up Raef’s arm to lay his hand flat over Raef’s heart, his palm warm on Raef’s smooth skin.
Raef didn’t move. He didn’t want to break whatever spell had this beautiful man touching him.
Kinos’s secret smile deepened.
His thumb shifted to Raef’s jaw. He tilted Raef’s head downward and leaned in.
The kiss filled Raef’s chest, his skin, with pressure. It knocked on his heart’s closed door, and for the first time in a long while, he considered opening up.
It was far from his first kiss, but it felt like so much more.
When Kinos pulled away, Raef had to remember to exhale, to inhale, to start the bellows of his lungs again.
“Thank you,” Kinos said.
“For what?” Raef asked, still feeling like all the air had left his world, like he’d swam to the bottom of the bay. “You kissed me.”
“For stealing me.”