Nyxlyn Nightbloom's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The frame stayed in Solara's lap. The bracelet stayed on the table. Between them, the daffodil in its small vase held still, as if the room itself was waiting. Nyxlyn heard the retro radio on the side table humming a low tune, some old song Solara liked. An orange cat wandered in from the kitchen, brushed against the leg of the dining chair, and settled on the bright sun rug at their feet. Nyxlyn watched him curl into a circle. She needed a smaller thing to look at before she asked the bigger thing. She pressed her palms flat on her knees. Two winters of silence sat behind her teeth. She had already said the hardest word. One more question could not undo it. "Solara," she said. Her voice came out steady, which surprised her. "Have you ever loved anyone?" Solara did not laugh. She did not deflect. She did not reach for a joke about dawn being jealous or the sun forgetting its manners. She set the frame down on the table, careful, like it was made of thinner glass than it was. Then she looked up. Her eyes were not bright the way they were when she talked about herbs or a new tonic. They were quieter. Steadier. "From the moment we met," she said. Nyxlyn's hands went cold, then warm. The radio kept playing. The cat kept breathing on the rug. Nothing in the cottage moved except the small tilt of Solara's shoulders as she took a breath. Nyxlyn had prepared for a maybe. She had prepared for a kind, careful no. She had not prepared for a sentence that answered every question she had carried for two winters in five words. "You mean that," Nyxlyn said. It was not a question, but Solara answered anyway. "I've meant it the whole time," Solara said. "I didn't know what to do with it. I was scared I'd burn something that wasn't meant to be burned. So I kept it in a frame. I kept it on a bracelet. I kept it where I could see it and you couldn't." She pressed her hand flat to the table, next to the bracelet with both their initials. "I'm done keeping it there." Nyxlyn reached across the table. She did not take Solara's hand yet. She laid her own beside it, close enough that their fingers almost touched, and left the last inch for Solara to close. The cat opened one eye on the sun rug. The radio turned over to a new song. Solara moved her hand the last inch. Something two winters old ended in the small room, and something new, unnamed, and unafraid began.