Page 82 of She Who Devours the Stars
I turned, because I couldn’t not. She stood in the center of the hallway, all soft-edged and angry, like she’d just spent the last hour arguing with herself and won.
I grinned. “Who says I don’t care?”
She took a step closer, eyes locked to mine. “You pretend like nothing gets to you. But it does. It gets to all of us. You just don’t let anyone see it.”
I leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “So, what is it you want to see, Alyx? The meltdown? The Void Event? I’ve given them both already.”
She shook her head. “I want to know what’s left. After the joke, after the power, after everyone else runs away or burns out. What do you actually care about?”
I started to answer. Stopped. Started again.
“Dyris,” I said, voice low. “She’s the only one who ever got my number. She’s planning three moves ahead even when she says she isn’t. She makes the world feel smaller, and I like that.”
Alyx didn’t flinch. “What else?”
I thought about the spa, the way the water carried sound, the way Dyris let me talk until I ran out of ways to sabotage myself.
“You,” I said, before I could overthink it.
That stopped her.
I pushed off the wall, stepped into her space, and felt the air thicken. “I care about you, Alyx. Even if I’m not good at saying it. Even if I can’t say it without making it a punchline.”
She let the words settle. Her hands balled into fists, then relaxed, then hovered at her sides like she was getting ready to fly or punch me, maybe both.
“And the world?” she asked.
I shrugged. “The world’s a mess. Maybe I’ll care more if it ever bothers to care back.”
She smiled, but there was nothing soft in it. “Maybe you should make it earn you.”
Something trembled in the air, a deep background note. The mythscape around Alyx rippled, the ambient light flexing in time with her pulse.
I caught it, and my breath, both at once.
“Alyx…”
She shook her head, hard. “Don’t.” She bit her lip, and for a split second, I thought she might cry, or scream, or Awaken on the spot. She didn’t. She just breathed.
“You haven’t Awakened yet,” I said, softer than I meant.
She met my eyes. “I don’t need to. Not for this.”
For once, I was the one who didn’t have a comeback.
She stepped in closer, until we were nearly touching. The air between us was charged, not with myth, but with something rawer.
“Then maybe stop trying to carry me,” I said, voice almost a whisper. “I can handle it.”
She grinned, sudden and feral. “Was that flirting?”
“Only if you want it to be.”
She leaned in, just enough to make my heart stutter, then pulled back. “If it was, it was accidental.”
We laughed, together this time, and for a second, the world felt lighter.
Down the hall, I saw Dyris. She stood in the shadow of an arch, arms crossed, unreadable. I wanted to wave, or call out, or ask her to referee, but before I could, she turned and walked away, leaving us alone with the aftermath.
