100

Raxthezana

in my arms, skin-to-skin, was the closest to deity I’d ever felt. The light in my private quarters was just enough to see the scars dotting her perfect skin, and my heart clenched at the knowledge of her pain. I knew perfectly well what they represented, what it felt like to remove or don the armor, but for countless years had I forgotten to notice the scars.

They were just as much a part of me as my eyes or my lungs, something to dismiss as unimportant.

But seeing them on my mate, my lover, brought them into sharp focus.

I could identify those scars with pain. But I also recognized them as a symbol of freedom and triumph: CeCe’s scars meant she could traverse Ikthe as an apex predator like me; she was free to roam and explore, to hunt without fear. And her scars symbolized her triumph over an early and unjust death. Her victory over the corrupted machinations of an unholy Queen and a faction full of greed.

I spied the pensive expression on her face last night after we showered and before we kissed each other’s scars, the way she scanned her arms and legs in full light, seeing for the first time with perfect clarity the ways that this star system and my people had become a permanent part of her being.

As I kissed my way down her muscular body and murmured words of affection and adoration, I yearned for her to feel my ardor for the wonder that she was in my life.

As my eyes tracked the constellation of tiny star-shaped marks scattered across her skin like the human freckles, they slid to my own arm, similarly decorated with the implacable reminder of my place in Theraxl culture. I thought myself beholden to the hunter’s life, bonded to Certain Death and to the service of my people, but so too did my armor free me from weakness in a place where strength equaled life. If the shel scars meant that CeCe had triumphed over her foes, could not my own? And with CeCe’s help, had I not triumphed over my own enemies?

The Queen had thought to slay me, yet I lived. Fate had thought to steal love from my life, and yet she lay in my arms.

Heart filled with awe; I sent a prayer of thankfulness out into the universe. Nay, I did not perceive Holy Goddesses, but I desired that this feeling of profound gratitude would spill out of my bosom until it flowed into the far reaches of existence, and perhaps it would mean something as it did so.

When CeCe nestled deeper into my embrace, I kissed the crown of her head and let a single tear slip down my cheek and drop, where it anointed the scar on her neck. The former Queen had said the words, “You are not permitted to breathe my air.” But I would say to my mate, Your breath allows me to breathe.

CeCe sighed, her breath caressing my skin and giving me new life.