“Months ago,” he began, “when I was still teaching on the mainland, I had a moment not unlike your own when I was trying to set my course. I wanted to plan and know where I was heading. I wanted to know exactly how my life was going to unfold, and what my purpose would be. And yet even with the next five years planned before me, I panicked one night, lying in bed thinking about it.
“I remember staring up into the darkness and feeling the stone walls close around me. I remember trying to envision my life and what I wanted to become and being unable to picture it. But perhaps that feeling came from my subconscious sensing that my time on the mainland was nearly gone, that I would soon depart from that life and those plans, even if that felt impossible and overwhelming at the time.”
Adaira was listening, her eyes fixed on him.
“I don’t think you need to give your parents an answer,” he continued. “At least, not for a while. But neither should you rule yourself out. Perhaps you will find, years from now, that you’ve changed your mind.”
She nodded, but he could still see a spark of doubt in her expression.
“Do you want to come closer?” he asked, a bit gruffly.
Adaira held his gaze, and he struggled to keep his breaths steady and even. But her words from earlier were haunting him, stirring his blood. He wanted to sing them back to her—Come into the darkness, come into the deep with me. He wanted to find that edge with her, the edge she had spoken of, when one thing becomes another. When the superfluous at last fades away, leaving behind nothing but salt and bones and blood and breath, the only elements that matter. The edge where the very essence of each of them was found.
Adaira must have seen the desire in his gaze. She moved across the water and settled on his lap, sitting face-to-face, eye-to-eye, breath-to-breath with him. Jack had to swallow a groan. It always took him by surprise how he reveled in being this vulnerable with another soul.
He marveled at how his own heart could exist outside his body.
“You don’t know what you do to me,” he whispered. “By you alone I could be undone.”
Adaira raised her hand from the water to trace his collarbones, his golden half coin, flickering in the light.
“I know it well,” she replied. “But only because you have done the very same to me.”
She kissed him, softly tracing his lips with her own, and Jack’s eyes closed. He wondered if she had imagined this very thing happening when she had sat in this place alone. Then he felt Adaira’s teeth nip his mouth and drag along his neck, claiming him as her own, and he followed her lead, the water splashing as he rose with her in his arms.
It had been wise of her to invite him this far into the cistern, into a cavern with only the stone walls and the water and the fire, burning everlasting from a torch. A place never touched by the moon and stars and sun, nor by the wind. It was good that she had made him tread through the deep water, nearly drowning, although Jack wouldn’t have cared if anyone heard the ragged sounds she drew from him now, or the cries he coaxed from her.
He held her against the rock, her legs wrapped around his waist. He was completely lost in her, lost in what they were making together. They were reaching that edge, the place where they both melted, and he knew that she was the only one he wanted to find in the darkness. The only one he wanted to hold the shape of his soul, even with his thorns and dreams and wounds.
He trusted her entirely. And he had never trusted anyone like that before.
Jack watched the rapture flicker across her face; it stole his breath. Her fingers slid into his hair and tugged until he could hardly tell the pain from the pleasure. He gave himself up to both.
He and Adaira eventually stilled, tangled together and heavy limbed. They slid down to sit on the submerged bench again and Jack held her close, as if his heart would cease beating should distance come between them. She hid her face in the crook of his neck as her breaths slowed and the flush on her skin faded.
Jack closed his eyes, his fingertips memorizing the curve of her back. He thought, I could live for a cold, dark eternity and never forget this night.
He could remain like this. He could remain tucked away from the world with her; she was his sustenance and his steel, sharpening him, sustaining him. She was everything he needed, and his music was pale in comparison to her. He would choose Adaira over all others, over his craft.
The torch’s fire wavered, as if it heard his thoughts.
Jack’s eyes flew open. He stared at the nearly extinguished flame, and Adaira stiffened in his embrace, seeming to realize how terrifying it would be here in utter darkness.
“Jack?” she whispered, easing away to glance at the torch.
He stared at the fire until it seemed to scald his eyes, and he willed it to burn. I am hers tonight, and you must burn until then. Burn until dawn when I can sing for you.
The fire sparked but regained its dance, although the light it cast was much dimmer than before.
“I think it’s time to return to our room,” Jack said, weaving his fingers with Adaira’s.
She made no reply, but she guided him quickly back through the cistern, the depths below provoking a shudder in him. As they returned to the stony bank, he saw they were the only two remaining. Everyone else had departed, and even the torches along the walls were burning low. Jack could hardly discern his pile of clothes as he emerged from the water.
He and Adaira dried off with their plaids, rushing to don their garments. The cold air was like a slap to his skin as they wound through the corridors, the shadows steadily encroaching after a few of the torches had died.
But the fire in their hearth was still alight, to Jack’s relief. It had nearly burned to embers, but it was still there, just as the wind still howled beyond the windows.
He removed his clothes for the second time that night and crawled into bed beside Adaira. In the dying light, he could see his breath again like clouds.
“You’re trembling,” Adaira said. She traced his shoulder, the planes of his chest. “Are you cold?”
“I’m afraid,” he confessed.
She drew closer, until her body absorbed his tremors, and her heat melted into him. “What do you fear?”
“I don’t know what the morning will bring,” he whispered. “I don’t know what is going to happen when I sing against Bane.”
She was silent for a moment, caressing his hair. But when she spoke, her voice was low and rich, and he closed his eyes.
“I’ll be there with you, Jack. No matter what comes, I’ll be at your side when you sing.”
He thought about the other times he had played for the spirits. For the sea, for the earth. For the wind. Adaira had been with him, and she had been an anchor. Singing for the folk made him forget who he was, but her presence reminded him that he was mortal and dust.
He listened as Adaira’s breaths deepened. Soon she dreamt, but Jack lay awake, inhaling the cold night air.
When the fire died at last, Jack knew what Ash was trying to express. Jack needed to play alone. If Adaira was with him, he would choose her. His heart belonged to her, and the fire needed his undivided attention.