A Star and a Kiss

In a glimmer, the corridor of Grayfall fell away, revealing the life force of centuries and lifetimes around him.  Instead of lockers and plaster walls, Cyndric found himself in an aisle of piled cairns and slate gray monoliths. The clothes on his back changed shape and substance, flannel and cotton to leather and linen and small metal studs.

Now he saw that he stood at the end of the aisle.  Paving stones broke through moss and grass and earth.  A man stood to his left, garbed in a dark hooded cloak but wearing a warm smile for Cyndric.  Who was he? Why didn’t he speak? And what was the golden object he held in his outstretched hands?

Cyndric looked out again, and the aisle had filled with people.  Then as if in reaction to a silent signal, they cleared the aisle and stood between the stones to leave the aisle clear.  And then he saw why.

Her.  Bright copper hair tumbling about rounded feminine shoulders.  She looked at Cyndric, smiling, as she walked down the aisle to the cheers of the crowd.  This was the girl Carter had been badgering, only this wasn’t her at all. Cyndric’s whole being lunged with love for her in both her forms.  One he knew with the certainty of the gods, the other he had never seen before. He loved them both.

Now she approached him, peeking out from her long, stray curls with eyes the color of evergreens.  The universe had spun. This was not Grayfall. Cyndric didn’t know where he was. He could only know the rightness of it, the purity of her love, and the great happiness of the people all around them.

The cloaked man moved forward.  Cyndric saw the golden object looked something like a crown.  The man, a holy man by the look of him, asked Cyndric to kneel.  Cyndric did so, soon feeling the weight of the crown on his brow.  What magic was this?

There was another crown, a smaller coronet.  Cyndric knew this was for the young woman.

“Lord of the Dragons,” the cleric said, “take this and crown your chosen bride as your wife and as your queen.”

Before he could lift the coronet into his hands the scene snapped back to stark Grayfall.  Cyndric nearly screamed in magical frustration. A vision! It had just been a vision!

Not so.  The girl in the corridor was no mere illusion.  He had been about to wed her. And now she needed him.

At first the light in her eyes grabbed him and held him.  They were a marvel in contrasts, the deep green found in the hearts of gems and forests illuminated by a bold and clear inner brightness.  As she looked up into his face, her eyes seemed to twinkle.

Cyndric believed he could see her soul.  She was allowing him to know her most intimate essence.  He saw something he had almost never seen in his life. His mind protested, insisting he’d gone crazy, but the whole of the rest of him was seized by a deeper knowledge.

He saw love.

Right then, he didn’t care about logic or reason.  Compelled by some unidentified power, he raised his hand to gently caress her soft, serene face.  As he touched her he expected her to pull away, sending him hurling back into reality. But she remained still, a smile forming on her blush lips.

What was going on?  They’d never seen each other and yet here they stood, gazing at each other, locked in an exchange of warmth and electricity.

She nearly buckled in surprise when Cyndric lifted her hands to his lips.  Her skin had never been so sensitive to any touch as it was to the warmth of his kiss.  “So this must be it,” he whispered. “The lightning love. It’s real.”

All of the love and devotion of a thousand lifetimes came upon her, flooding her senses.  But what could she know of a mortal life? By the gods, she was immortal. She’d had no other life but her current incarnation.

Or had she?

“The lightning love?”

“Two souls of reborn lovers finding each other again.”

The pause was more intense than awkward.  Cyndric looked down at their joined hands.  “Do you believe in the gods, Asteria?”

“Of course.  Do you?”

“I always have,” he said.  “But not the way I do since I first saw you.”

He had kissed her and kissed her well, and now nothing would be impossible.

Cyndric gazed in wonder at Asteria, his senses full of her ethereal beauty and alluring spirit.  His reborn great love, his lightning love, his everything. Here was the divine gift the existence of which he’d doubted that same morning.  She was the woman who shared his soul. At that moment he could have toppled over the cliff and remained in the air beside her, so much did all of him soar.

He reached out to caress the lips he had been kissing.  As she closed her eyes, she appeared to delight in his touch.  This had to be magic. How else could she be reacting to him this way, so happy and gratified?  She opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he quaked in the joy she inspired.

Asteria.  He loved her already, as his other incarnations had, but he also loved the person he had just begun to know.  Her kisses had been sweet warmth from a sweet soul. She had acted in kindness, and in her presence he felt comforted and reassured.  But he had also listened to her take on Carter. She was funny and sharp-witted. What else would he discover? Cyndric found the prospect breathtaking.

Now they had returned to Bluffview Way.  Asteria let him slip his arm around her as they walked.  His mind returned to the vision he had in the hallway, of standing stones and crowns and Asteria about to become his bride.  Who had they been then? Had his imagination run away with him, or had he seen into a previous incarnation? He turned to look at her and almost buckled at the warmth in her eyes.

And her lips.  The gods, her lips.  He didn’t doubt they had shared her first kiss.  Her innocence had an energy of its own. He had been so occupied with communicating the right message that he hadn’t thought through the effect she would have on him.  Now she possessed him, nothing less. Already he couldn’t wait to taste her lips again. He thought to stop right where they were to kiss. Just a few more steps and they would be at her house.  What would happen? What could happen? The lightning love never provided any details.