“Where will you go?” Kest asked her eventually as they walked under the starlit sky. He said it hesitantly, carefully.
“I honestly have no idea,” Nira replied. “The Twins, maybe? Or Hyden. I always wanted to see Hyden. If I think about it for a while, I’m sure I can figure out how to make some money with my Pure Light without giving myself away. I could go to the Great University and learn smart-people things.” She sighed. “Or maybe not. I’m still getting used to the idea of not being dead. Everything else can sort itself out.”
He nodded. He was quiet, but she sensed a building tension in him. He wants to go home, but he’s scared to tell me. Her heart fell. He was all she had left! What would she do if he deserted her? She firmed her mouth and steeled her heart, waiting for him to speak.
“So… if you go to Hyden,” he began, stumbling over his words, “or, you know, wherever… then I, I think I should…” He trailed off uncertainly.
She wished he’d just spit it out.
“Do you think you might need a bodyguard?” He said the words in a rush.
She stumbled to a halt, baffled. “What?”
“Because I, I…” he flailed, “I could watch your back. Keep you safe? I know you’re pretty good at that on your own, but I could… help.” His words wound down to a stop, and he looked scared and vulnerable.
“Kest,” she said, smiling. “I don’t need a bodyguard.”
He shrank in on himself. “Right. Of course not.”
“But I do need a friend.” She reached up to brush her fingers across his cheek, and he looked down at her in surprise. Even scraped, scarred, and missing an eye, he was the most perfect man she had ever seen. “And you’re the friend I want with me, no matter where I go.”
His smile was the brightest star in the darkness, and her heart overflowed at the sight of it. She couldn’t help herself. She slipped her good hand behind his neck and pulled his face down to hers. Their trembling lips found each other in the night, and she lost herself in the velvet softness of his strong embrace. In the tumbling eternity of their kiss, she realized that her head wasn’t even hurting.
All too soon they separated, both of them breathing fast and feeling light as air. She tucked her head into his chest and let him hold her. A gentle rumble shook her head, and she realized he was laughing. Looking up at him, she saw the wonder and happiness she felt within herself reflected on his face. She started to laugh, too. Neither of them said a word. They didn’t need to.
There they stood, on a dark, hard path at the end of the world, grinning like loons and giggling at a joke no one had bothered to tell. “Come on, idiot,” Nira finally said, feeling like her face was going to split in half. “Let’s get going.”
And off they strode, hand in hand, into a future that neither of them could see.
About the author
Cameron Hopkin is a novelist and psychology instructor living in Utah. Over the years he has worked as an actor, construction worker, call-center desk jockey, wedding DJ, waiter, theatrical set-builder, census employee, janitor, and research assistant. He holds a Ph.D. in social psychology. At some point he ran out of books and ended up writing his own just to keep his brain quiet. He lives with his wife, four daughters, dozens of chickens, and an avalanche of dogs in a state of constant panic and occasional, unexpected bliss. You can find news and blog-length musings at cameronhopkin.com as well as short-form snark and stupidity on Twitter under the handle @cameronhopkin.
