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copyright 2007 by Esther Mitchell

“Stars”

             She lay staring at the stars, and tried not to think, or to feel time slipping away from her.  The cool light above her seeped into her soul, as comforting as the warm flesh that pressed against her side.  Cyra sighed.  Jacal’s warmth might as well be as far away as the light of those stars.  By the morrow’s light, he’d be gone again, and she would go back to the hunt, conscious of the danger he faced and unable to halt it.

            For now, he was here, and she refused to dwell on their inevitable separation.  Instead, she fixed her eyes on the stars and recalled the tales she remembered.  The Cynlasch, the Warrior-Poets, told of how the Ri crossed the void from the stars, in some ancient day, to this gold-green world at the edge of all the stars.  Since she first heard the tale as a small child at mimari’s knee, Cyra always wondered where among the stars the Ri came from.  Which light was theirs?  The Heaven Star that bathed the world in pale blue light by day?  Or that flickering red one that seemed to rest on the tree tops?  Or was it only a story, only a myth?  Cyra couldn’t even remember the Ri, so long ago had the ancient people disappeared.  Only the Cynri, the Warrior-caste, remained.  No one ventured into the shadowlands beyond the Fyrpadach – the Fire Maidens – since the Ri vanished.  To do so was strictly forbidden.  Yet Cyra wondered about the Ri often, as she watched the stars.

            The stars…

            “Jacal?”  She murmured her lover’s name into the night above, not wishing to disturb him if he was asleep.

            “Hmm?”

            “Do you think it’s true, what the Cynlasch say?  That the Ri came from the stars?”

            She heard his sigh, as he shifted to look at her. “I don’t know.  I was just a boy when we crossed the Fyrpadach.  No one but the Cynlasch have ever spoken of the origin of our people.”

            “Not my people.”  Cyra’s eyes turned away as familiar pain burned through her chest.  Being an oddity was familiar to her.  It was hard not to grow used to being viewed as a strange creature, only half-blooded, and never fully accepted.  “I am Cynri.  I never knew the Ri.”

            His arms closed around her, drawing her snugly against the warmth of his chest, where she could hear the steady, comforting beat of his heart.  “You are as much Ri as you are anything else.  The Cynri are Ri.  We are all that is left.”

            She raised her eyes to face, made out the shape of his smile in the near-dark.  She knew the reason for the tender curve to his lips.  It was the same reason so many others sneered at her.  Her eyes.  Jacal often whispered that he loved the color of her eyes, so rare among their people.  Green.  Not just any green, but the deep, forest hue known only among the purest mixes of Cynri and Krylish blood.  His own dark eyes, so typical to the Cynri, to the Ri, softened as he leaned to murmur,  ”I’ll miss you, Cyra.”

            Her eyes closed and again she was aware of the dull ache in her chest, even as she fought the urge to wrap her arms around him and hold him here, beside her, forever.  But she would not.  Could not.  He would leave in the morning for Spirits alone knew where, and she would watch him leave without a tear in her eyes.  It was the way of things.  The hazard of loving a Cynrathach – a Warrior’s Saviour – in a time of such illness and evil.  There were so few Cynrathach, and so many ill to care for and cure.

            “Be careful, Jacal,” she murmured, unable to help the fear in her voice, as she pressed closer to him.  Her lips traced the smooth warmth of his chest before she sighed.  ”I wish I could go with you.”

            His hands smoothed her back, cupped her body against his until she could feel the hard heat of his body pressing intimately against hers.  He nipped her neck lightly, then whispered against her ear.  “You are Clymra’s head Hunter.  They need you.”

            “They need you, too.”   She pulled back to fix a defiant glare on him. 

            “Aye, but others need me more, right now.”  He sighed at the mutiny she could not hide in her eyes.  He rolled then, taking her with him as he lay on his back.  His hands stroked her hips, and he shifted her body against him, gently entering her.   The fierce, loving light in his eyes took her breath away even as his husky murmur caressed her through the night air.  ” Cyra, we are never far apart.”

            Her eyes felt weighted, her body alive with need as she slowly shifted above him.  It was difficult to think.  Especially when his fingers brushed her breasts, her belly, heading lower toward where they were joined.  But she had to make her argument.  She had to get him to see…  “Your work is too dangerous, Jacal.  What if your spirit cannot return to your body?”

            She heard his husky laugh.  “Have a little more faith in me than that!”

            She could only answer with a moan as his fingers found her.  Her head tipped back and she stared at the stars as he took her beyond them, the evergreen scent of him enveloping her senses.  Morning’s light would come soon enough.  She would not waste these precious night hours by borrowing trouble.