This Woven Kingdom

He realized, with some despair, that everything would now remind him of her. The very sun and moon, the shifting of lightness and dark.

“Will you not give me hope?” he whispered. “Tell me I will see you again. Ask me to wait for you.”

We are
neither of us in our right minds—”

“I grow tired,” he said, trying to breathe, “of being in my right mind. I much prefer this kind of madness.”

“There exists no bridge between our lives; no path that connects our worlds.”

“How can that matter? Is this not one day to be my empire, to rule as I see fit? I will build a bridge. I can clear a path. Or do you not think me capable?”

“Alizeh,” he said, moving toward her. She saw the anguish in his eyes, a flash of panic. “Please, don’t just disappear. Not now, not when I’ve only just found you.”

“Our time together has come to an end. We will never again meet. Our worlds will never again collide.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, suddenly serious. His hand moved to her waist, traveled up the curve of her rib cage. “Say anything but that.”

“What shall I say, then?”

“Your name. I want to hear it from your lips.”

“You have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you,” he said to her. “I feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.”

“I begin to fear you’ve done me irreparable damage. I should like to know who to blame.”

“Irreparable damage? Surely now you are exaggerating.”

“I only wish I were.”

She stopped herself, the words dying in her throat at the muffled sound of his laughter, the palpable tremble of his body as he struggled to contain it.

“Why do you rile so easily?” he said, still fighting a laugh. “Do you not see that your effortless outrage only makes me want to provoke you more?”