Page 11 of The Midnight Arrow

I tried to hide the way my lips quirked.

“Just until you heal,” I told him. “And I’m convinced you’re free of infection.”

“Perhaps you’ll even join me there tonight,” he rasped. “I’ll keep you warm with my infected, feverish body.”

The laugh that bubbled up my throat…that one I couldn’t help.

All the amusement left Lorik’s face, and he stared at me until my laugh slowly died, until I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, grazing my cheek with soil.

“What is it?”

“You have a beautiful laugh too,” Lorik said. But gone was the teasing lilt in his voice. The words were guttural and raw andhonest. An honest compliment, devoid of any expectation. I didn’t know ifanyonehad ever spoken to me like that before.

“Oh,” I whispered, pleased, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

“Will you sing again for me?” he asked, settling more fully against the wall, though I was concerned about the growing chill in the air and the sweat slicking his chest. He paused. “Though maybe not that poem. I’m not fond of tragic endings.”

I studied this half-Kylorr, half-Allavari male, wondering where in the world he had come from. I suddenly wanted to knoweverything.

“All right,” I said, thinking that with those glittering blue eyes, he could ask me to go to the Below itself and I would.

And so I sang for him. I sang as I tended to my garden, as the moon slowly rose, as my glowflies buzzed all around me, and as Peek even settled close by without hissing at our guest once.

All the while, Lorik never took his eyes off me.

Five

Lorik hid his infection well. Better than most…until it reared its head the following night.

And it was ugly. The ugliest I’d ever seen.

“You stupid fool,” I whispered without malice, stroking a cloth I intermittently dipped in cold water across his face and down his chest.

Earlier this afternoon, he’d been burning up, his flesh nearly scorching to the touch. The only ray of hope had been the night nettle weeping out from his skin, a blue cast staining the washcloth, and requiring me to use gloves to touch him.

But there was no evidence of the poison now as he lay in my bed, thrashing restlessly in his deep sleep, his chest heaving. His long, dark hair was tangled around his sharp horns, and I’d nearly gouged my wrist trying to untangle it, so I left it be.

My back was beginning to ache from the chair I’d been situated in for nearly the entire day. I thought of how lucid and present he’d been last night, sitting in the back garden with me for seemingly hours until the chill had turned bitter.

I sang as I wiped his brow. Old Allavari songs, coupled with some human ones, ancient tales of our home planet, of Earth.

I had a few wax candles lit, infused with lovery leaves, the gentle smoke filling the air to help him breathe more easily. Shadows flickered over his sharp features, and I studied every dip and line and angle, trying to separate the Allavari from the Kylorr and failing.

There was something incredibly…otherabout him. I couldn’t place why.

“What is that song?” he murmured quietly without opening his eyes.

I kept my hand steady, pressing the cold cloth to his neck, though relief flowed heavy in my veins.

“A human song,” I murmured, watching his eyes flicker open.

Not a trick of the light,I thought, studying his eyes. Theywereglittering blue, the colors shifting in his irises, and my heart began to pick up pace in my chest.

“You know their old language?Yourold language?” he corrected, his voice paper thin but no less pleasing.

“No,” I admitted, swallowing, averting my eyes from his to focus on the cloth. “I’m sure I’m jumbling the words, but I memorized how they sounded. When I was…when I was at the orphanage, Correl had an old Halo orb. I found it in the cellar and repaired it so we could access the Quadrants’ databases. And we would play music at night, from all over the universe. The children always wanted to hear Allavari lullabies or Ernitian ballads. I was one of the only humans there, so I listened to my ancestors’ songs after they fell asleep.”

Lorik listened to me speak, his chest heaving with his labored breaths.