Page 86 of Synodic

With my mouth parted in an unbelieving smile and my eyes wide with wonder, I turned to Rowen to see if he was witnessing this too. But he was already looking at me, eyes alight as if I was his own personal meteor shower.

As I took him in, I could see why.

The way the light moved upon his face and body was hypnotizing. I tried to capture this perfect photo of him in my mind. But before I could fully commit it to memory, the lights and colors shifted across his features, creating a different yet equally marvelous image. I tried to memorize the new changes, but they quickly evolved again, and I soon realized that capturing such a thing was like trying to catch the very light itself. Impossible.

I leaned in closer to Rowen so he could hear me through the loud music and singing. “It’s breathtaking.”

He said something back to me, but I couldn’t make it out over the new song that exploded through the air.

“What?”

Rowen placed his hand on the small of my back, releasing a swarm of colorful butterflies throughout my stomach. He led me to a small, secluded cove, isolating us in our own swirling paint palette.

“I was worried you wouldn’t wake in time to see them,” he said, for what I assumed was the second time.

“How did you know they were coming?” I asked curiously.

“Nepta. She could feel the rumbling over the ocean days away. About the same day your noxlily sprouted.”

Hearing Nepta’s name, I scanned for her wizened face amongst the crowd. It wasn’t hard to spot her with her long quartz headdress and tall double-mooned cane. She looked ethereal, ascendent, and godlike as she weaved her free arm through Celenova, manipulating the light into giant waves that soared and crashed into a group of children squealing with delight.

“I wonder where they’ve been?”

“Some say Celenova are the lost tears of the Elder Spirits.”

Remembering Xala’s words, I said, “Celenova hasn’t appeared in over a century. My disappearance couldn’t have been the cause.”

“Perhaps it is your reappearance that calls them back,” he said like it made all the sense in the world.

I looked out at the seemingly endless waves of Celenova, my gaze following its glowing path as it washed across the ocean and beach, then up and over the trees and mountains, dousing everything in a heavenly fire. I couldn’t fathom how something so incredible could possibly have anything to do with me.

With no end to the lights in sight, I asked, “Why me?”

A pinch appeared between Rowen’s eyebrows. “When I first came to be with the Wyn people, my waking thoughts felt like a nightmare. All I wanted was to close my eyes forever, but sleep was no sanctuary, it brought along demons all its own. Unable to rest, I took to walking the forest at night. Oftentimes I would walk until I crashed from exhaustion. Even though they offered me a home and a bed, I started to build small encampments around the village, never knowing where the night might take me. And I came to know this land like a perfectly balanced blade in my hand.”

My body stilled as he spoke, as if I was dealing with a wild animal that would flee at the first sign of movement.

“One night, after many sleepless years, a summoning-demon appeared near the village, dangerously near. It was mid-hunt when it came across my scent, and viewing me as a threat to its prey, the horned beast attacked me. I thought it was my lucky night. Finally, an avenging reaper come to kill me. And believe me, I wanted to die. But in the last second, one thought led me to raise my blade in defense. Takoda had worked so hard to keep me alive. Letting myself be killed would be a poor way to thank him.

“I fought the demon and almost got my wish. I may have won the battle in the long hard end, but I was left with my fair share of fresh wounds. Running into a summoning-demon is a rare occurrence, one you would never want to repeat, but a few days later, another one appeared. This one nearly scorched me to death before I slayed it.

“Only something with immense power could conjure such devils that lay in wait for their target, especially two in a row. Whatever they were looking for was near my new home, and as I came to see it, too close to a kind and accepting people. I took it upon myself to protect the Wyn from every demon and summoning that hunted too near. And hunt they did.

“It was one of the quieter nights when I first heard you call out in the woods. At first, I thought you were a ghost come to haunt me. I tried to ignore you, thinking I’d finally gone mad, but you called out again. And I realized it was a voice not meant to torment me, but a voice just as tortured as my own screams in the night.”

He let out a breath, and I realized my hands were shaking.

“I found you then, but I could barely see you. A cloud of black smoke surrounded you. I strained my eyes to see you through the gaps in the darkness; you seemed so small compared to the creatures I had come to expect. You were hardly wearing anything at all, not even shoes on your feet. You looked so fragile, so breakable. I tried to go to you but found no matter what I did, I couldn’t get close to you, touch you, or even speak to you. It was as if the smoke was keeping you caged.”

Hearing Rowen describe my nightmares from an outside perspective was startling, but everything he said rang true with all I had felt.

“You couldn’t see me, didn’t even know I was there, and I contemplated leaving you. For all I could do, I might as well have been an ocean away. But then you fell to the ground, and the darkness bore down on you even harder. I stayed, betting it would finish you off right then and there. There was no way you could survive, but you fought your way back to your feet, and you kept going through what I could only imagine was your own personal hell. Alone in impenetrable darkness. The world invisible to you.

“But you didn’t give up, curl in a ball, and submit to your fate. You got up, and kept fighting your way through the darkness with only your strength of will, as if you knew to move was to survive. In that moment I realized I couldn’t leave you, even if you had no idea I was there. So I stayed with you all night, would stay with you however long you needed me, but once the sun began to rise, you disappeared.”

His bleak eyes met mine through the rainbowed light, and even through his stubble, I saw his jaw twitch.

“I had no idea if I dreamt you or if you would ever return, but that didn’t stop me from trying to find you again. It was by complete chance that I’d found you in the first place; there was no way lightning would strike twice. But then you appeared to me again, and I almost collapsed in relief.

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