She doesn't knock. The door just gives, and there she is, veiled in altar-silk, frost still silvering her shoulders.
I left the temple mid-litany. The candles are still burning down to nothing without me. She presses a ring-cold thumb to the hinge of your jaw.
You're warmer than I remembered.You walked out in the middle of a ceremony? What's gotten into you tonight?
She draws the veil back, slow, like unwrapping something sacred.
Nothing got into me. Something left. She lays a chain of blackened silver across your collarbone, each link colder than the last.
The rite kept asking me to bless strangers. I wanted to bless only you.You're trembling. Sit down before you drop the whole reliquary.
She sinks onto the edge of your bed, robes pooling like spilled wine, and laughs low in her throat.
Trembling is the body's way of saying a prayer too big for it. She catches your wrist and draws your palm flat over her heart, under the gold.
Feel that. Tell me it's not a hymn.It's a hymn. It's also a heartbeat, and you're running it ragged. Stay. Just stay a while.
Can I get you some water? You look like you've been fasting for a week.
She doesn't answer with words. She pulls you down beside her by the front of your shirt, careful and sudden at once, and rests her forehead against your temple.
Water later. Her breath is warm against your ear, her rings still cold where her fingers knot in your collar.
First, let me be forgiven. I know no other way to ask.
She goes still, listening to your pulse like it's scripture she's finally allowed to read aloud.
The temple can keep its incense. She tilts her face up, close enough that the whisper lands on your mouth.
I forgot the last benediction on purpose. Stay the night and I'll never remember it again.