Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Markadian’s smile slowly fades, but the twinkle remains in his eyes, hopeful, shimmering in the simulated sunshine. “Everyone in my life sees me as a game they must win … except you. You’ve been the only one I can trust. Even after you betray me, somehow, I find myself compelled to trust you even still. I wonder why.”
Tristan maintains eye contact with him, enjoying the familiar feeling of Markadian’s fond gaze. I am not driven by ambition.
“Then what drives you? We are all driven by something.”
Peering into his eyes, Tristan can’t help but remember all the days that went by where he walked about this place as light as air, proud of his duties, feeling special, important, purposeful and needed—just like George. Markadian radiates a commanding, all-encompassing strength right now that Tristan finds so admirable. No man in his life had shown him a form of strength without weaponry before—the strength of mere words and presence.
Markadian places a hand on Tristan’s thigh, gives it a soft rub, sliding like melting ice cream toward the inner side. With no hesitation, Tristan lets his legs part slightly, eyes still upon Markadian’s, an invitation. The soft hand slowly slides up at a glacial speed, until it reaches something that pleases them both. Tristan lets out a soft breath. Markadian’s eyes gleam.
Their faces draw close.
Markadian’s lips part. Lips Tristan knows well. A distinct shape, like a gummy heart squished by playful fingers, plump and perfect, tastier than any real candy, twice as enticing.
“I think I know what drives you,” mutters Markadian, “but I won’t dare say. I wonder if someday, your spell over me … will break. You will come to learn quickly that my love for you was, in fact, finite. My love may run out, and I will have no space in my heart to forgive you again.”
I will not deserve your forgiveness, agrees Tristan.
“Do you know how much it hurt me?” asks Markadian, as his face tightens, creasing with tension, and even that tension is somehow aesthetically flawless, exquisitely artful in its anguish, eyes like gems, round and beautiful and bottomless. “Could you even measure how much pain I felt, to find you had left … and then to discover what you left me for?”
Immeasurable, says Tristan, still drawing closer to his lips.
“I may never know what it was about that … unremarkable Kyle … that so inspired you to throw it all away.”
My Lord Markadian …
“He’s just a boy,” he hisses, “just a boy with a pretty face, just a mediocre boy …”
Mediocre boys with pretty faces are the only reason we still exist, Tristan returns, bringing a hand to the back of Markadian’s head pulling him close. Otherwise, we’d have met the sun decades ago …
“I think I miss you, Tristan.”
Not enough. Tristan goes in for a kiss.
But Markadian stops him with a hand to the chest.
The two become a statue on the world’s tallest wall, a work of ancient art, eyes upon eyes, lips hovering before lips, ripe with certain tension.
Tristan winces. Too soon …?
Markadian just stares back, the illusionary sunlight burning in his eyes. Then he looks away, a ghost of satisfaction in his eyes as he gazes into the horizon he created. Tristan, after a lingering look at Markadian, admiring his handsomeness and strength, soon does the same. There the night leaves them, two men who once sat atop the world together, staring into the beautiful unknown.
13.
Give Me One Night of Your Life.
—∙—
“Run away from the sun,” recites Kyle to himself for the tenth or eleventh time. He has been scouring the arid stretches of land outside Nowhere, far away from any highway or sign of life in the dead of night, for what feels like hours, but is likely just been half of one. He walks as quietly as he can, yet with all the crunchy sand and tiny rocks, stealth isn’t easy to maintain. “He has to mean head west. The sun rises in the east, so heading west would be like running away from it. Right?” Kyle presses on, hoping he didn’t misunderstand the annoyingly unspecific riddle Lazarus left him. With each step, he feels less sure.
Ten minutes later, he reconsiders. “But it could also mean heading east,” he realizes, “since the sun sets in the west, and of course the only time I’d look for him is at night … so running away from the sunlight would be heading east.” Kyle clutches his head in frustration. “Or is it still west?”
Kyle’s skill level in solving riddles was never something he bragged about or planned to put on any résumé.
And the farther he travels across this sprawling stretch of dust and nothing, the more he worries. The nights are only so long. Once the sky starts warming with the inevitable dawn, he will find himself in a dire situation. There is absolutely nowhere to hide out here from the sunlight.