And they never would have if Cam hadn’t believed in her. This moment was proof that Lilith should believe in herself.
Maybe Cam was a little forward. Maybe he pushed her buttons…frequently. Maybe he’d done some things he shouldn’t have done. But who hadn’t? He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. He surprised her. He made her laugh. He cared about her brother. When he stood next to her, he made her stomach churn—in a good way. He was here with her, celebrating, now. And all of that together made Lilith sway where she was standing. She gripped the barstool to steady herself and realized:
This was what it felt like to fall in love with someone. Lilith was falling for Cam.
Approximately 1000 BCE
The sun didn’t rise over Lilith anymore. Moonlight no longer spilled into her dreams. She drifted through her days, still wearing the embroidered wedding gown, now soiled with sweat and dirt, collecting nervous glances from others in her tribe.
Without Cam, her world was bleak.
In the gray and misty dawn, Lilith was meandering near the river when a hand touched her shoulder. It was Dani. She had not seen him since the day Cam left, and it hurt to see him now, for he was part of the world she associated with being in love. Dani did not belong in this emptiness.
“It’s like looking into a mirror,” Dani said, his gray eyes brimming with concern. “I never knew it could hurt this much for someone else.”
Lilith had always liked Dani, but he could be a little vain. “They said you had returned to your tribe,” she said.
He nodded. “I’m only passing through.”
“From where? Have you—”
Dani frowned. “I don’t know where he is, Lilith.”
She closed her eyes, unable to pretend that that was not what she’d intended to ask.
“I wish I could tell you it gets easier,” Dani went on, “but when you truly love someone, I’m not sure it ever does.”
Lilith squinted at the blond boy before her, seeing the pain in his eyes. Liat had been gone only one month longer than Cam, yet Dani spoke as if he’d had centuries of heartbreak.
“Goodbye, Dani,” she said. “I wish you happier days.”
“Goodbye, Lilith.”
Still wearing her dress, she dove into the river. The chill of the water reminded her that she was alive. She rose up, then floated on her back and watched a pair of starlings cross the sky. Before she knew it, the current had carried her around a bend, and Lilith found herself before a familiar bank of wildflowers.
This was where she’d first held hands with Cam, first felt his touch.
She waded to the bank and climbed out of the river, wringing water from her hair, feeling the sodden dress weigh down her steps. The carob tree’s branches stretched toward her, familiar as an old lover.
This had been her place before it had been hers and Cam’s. She pressed her hands against the tree’s rough bark and felt around for the recess where she’d stowed her lyre. It was still there.
She left it where it was.
Thunder rumbled, and the sky grew ominous. A sharp, cold rain began to fall. She closed her eyes and let the pain of missing him swell within her.
“Take my love with you when you go.”
Lilith opened her eyes, startled by the way the song had snuck up on her, like it had been borne in the rain.
The song was raw and haunted, just like she was.
She sang the words aloud, changing a few notes of the melody. Applause came from above her. Lilith shot to her feet and looked up at a boy about her age sitting on a branch.
“You scared me,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest.
“My apologies,” the boy replied. He had a square face, wavy amber hair, and brown eyes. He wore a camel-skin cloak, like most of the men in her tribe, but beneath it Lilith noticed strange, coarse, blue pants that were tight around his ankles, and bright white slippers tied in an elaborate crisscrossing fashion by thin, white ropes. He must have traveled from a village very far away.
He swung down to a lower branch, watching her. Rain shone in his hair. “Are you a writer of songs?” he asked her.
Tucked behind her lyre was the parchment book her father had given her as a harvest gift. It contained all of Lilith’s songs. “I used to be,” she said. “Not anymore.”
“Ah.” The boy leapt down from his branch. “You are suffering.”
Lilith was unsure how this boy seemed to know what she was feeling.
“I can see it in your eyes,” he continued. “All great makers of music have one thing in common: heartbreak. It is where they draw their inspiration from.” He leaned forward. “Perhaps someday you’ll thank Cam for the inspiration.”
Lilith’s pulse quickened. “What do you know about Cam?”
The boy smiled. “I know that you still long for him. Am I right?”
In the distance, Lilith could see glimmers of her peaceful village. She could hear her sisters’ voices.
“I believe my heartbreak to be very deep,” she said. “I hope it is the deepest, for I would not wish this pain on anyone.”