Page 71 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“It isn’t from nothing. It is fromyou.”

I was so angry—how could he still not understand? “What am I, if not nothing?”

It was in the name I gave myself. Reshaye. No one. Nothing.

Caduan’s lips went thin. In a movement so abrupt that it made me stumble, he wrenched me closer. He pressed my palm to him—down past the buttons of his loose shirt, against the smooth skin of his chest.

It was so unexpected that I tried to pull away, but his fingers tightened again.

“Listen,” he demanded. “Stop fighting, andlisten.”

I wasn’t sure why I obeyed. My breaths were still heaving, hard enough that at first I heard nothing but the rushing of my own blood in my ears.

“What do you feel?” Caduan asked.

“Nothing.”

“Not true.” His eyes met mine, spearing me. “What do you feel?”

Nothing, I still wanted to say. But then, I became aware of faint, faint movement beneath my fingertips—the thrum of warmth beneath his skin, a steady rhythm.

I became aware of the movement of his chest, rising and falling. Not just beneath my fingertips, but against my cheek, where his breath caressed my skin.

As soon as I noticed these things, they were everywhere.

The warmth of blood moving beneath his skin. The rhythm of his breathing. The minute vibrations of the muscles of his hand, still wrapped around my wrist. The sheer warmth of him, close enough to surround me like an embrace.

The sensation was like falling into something warm and familiar.

All this time, and I had felt so alone in this empty body. Perhaps my body was empty, but how had I not realized that being close to another could feel so similar to sharing one? I had been so certain that I could not understand this strange unspoken communication that I ignored these things. But now I wanted to bury myself in the minute movements of his flesh—in his breath, his heartbeat, in the low vibrations of his voice.

I did not realize that I had moved closer until he spoke, so quietly, and I felt it through my whole body.

“What do you feel?” he asked again.

“I feel… you.”

I watched the muscle tighten at the corner of his upturned mouth, the flutter of pulse beneath his fair skin. I felt his breathing grow slightly more rapid, because I felt everything, now. His other hand had gone to rest at my back, a barely-there touch that sent ripples up my spine. For a moment I thought he would pull me closer, and I welcomed it, because I was nothing now but the desire to lose myself in the body of another.

But he did not. The touch remained light, gentle.

“You think you are alone, Aefe, in this body. But there is life everywhere. In blood and flesh. In breath. In a heartbeat.” His thumb gently caressed the back of my hand, where he still pressed my palm over his heart, and my breath shuddered.

“Tell me,” he murmured, “is this empty?”

“No.”

I struggled to speak.

He pulled away slightly, and a small wordless sound of protest left my lips. But he still cradled my back, still gripped my wrist. He removed my hand from his chest and then pressed it to my own, so we now stood face to face, my palm to my heart.

“Tell me what you feel,” he whispered.

At first, nothing. My own body seemed lackluster compared to everything I felt in his.

But then…

A steady beat, rushing a bit too fast. The inflation and deflation of my breath, the rhythm of my lungs. Warmth. Growth.

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