“and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. "
Calliope does not find herself in the darkness of the mountainside gallery to ponder art. There is no joy to be found her in heart tonight. Her skin crawls across her bones like snakes, shadows and things better left forgotten in dead world. Even her horn feels strange tonight; like it's both lighter than air and hungrier than a lion.
Tonight she hides in the darkness because she can feel old fragments of herself rattling inside her lungs with every breath. Tonight the mountainside seems a place for war instead of thinking about her her body seems more full than it did a month ago.
Perhaps that is why a part of her isn't surprised when Eik finds her.
Their gazes meet and it's storm to storm, fury to fury. If there are leaves in his chest there are flames in hers, enough flames to eat a forest. Calliope wonders if he can see the barely contained violence running like a lion across the plains of her skin. Tonight she feels like she could bay at the moon like a wolf and she wonders if he would join her.
His question only fans the flames in her chest and lures the lion across her skin. “Fear never changes, not like faces and skin might.” Once she knew a skin-walker, once she electrified an ocean to save him from the weakness of his male heart. “Find out what it is that a man fears and his flesh will always crack like a lie.” Lightning crawls between her teeth as she smiles like a scythe, all metal sharp curves and hunger.
“Who are you hunting, Eik?” And oh, she cannot help the wicked part of her that hopes he might look her in the eye and say, God.
