I Shall Rewrite the Stars

Chapter 20

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“—can you hear me?”

“Juba?” I whisper, cringing at the ache in my head. “What happened? We…we were just in the river, weren’t we?”

He pulls me closer, his arms warm against the cold skin of my waist. Though I cannot see him in the pitch darkness around us, I feel Juba tense.

“You struck a rock as we fell, rememb—no, I suppose you couldn’t remember that. You’d lost consciousness by the time we’d surfaced.”

I press my forehead to his chest. “I don’t remember hitting anything.”

“You wouldn’t open your eyes, no matter how many times I’d asked you to. Though, for the most part, that might have been for the best. The journey here was violent.”

“Forgive me for making you endure it alone.”

Juba says nothing, and we lie in a silence broken only by the echoing trickle of running water. A light breeze sweeps through then, and shivers ripple across my arms.

“Are we not outside?” I ask, peering up. I can barely make out Juba’s face, and my cheeks warm as I find him watching me.

“We’re not,” he says. “The current sucked us into a cave system. We were thrown around for a long while before ending up in this place.”

“I don’t imagine those beasts from before will be able to follow us. Not for the time being, at least.”

“I’d assumed the same, and so I set up as much a camp as I could, but without natural light it’s difficult for even me to see clearly. I’ve considered starting a fire, but my supplies are low and damp.”

“Still, you’ll have to try before we can leave, won’t you?”

Juba tenses. “I will, but…some adjustments must be made before then.”

“Adjustments?”

“Our clothes were soaked. It’s dangerous enough to sit around drenched to the bone, but you were unconscious and freezing and I…I did what I believed to be best.”

Confused, I try to lean back—to see him better. Pressing my palm into Juba’s chest, I freeze when his hand catches my waist.

My bare waist.

Breath caught in my throat, my cheeks feel aflame—burning hotter when I realize that Juba’s chest is just as bare.

There is no clothing between us.

“I didn’t see anything!” I cry, only to immediately curse myself. Of course I didn’t see anything. I’ve been unconscious!

Of all the reactions, Juba bursts into laughter.

The sound echoes, bouncing around us full of warmth and genuine delight. Embarrassed as I am, my heart flutters at the sound. In our past life, I’d only heard him laugh like this twice.

“Shouldn’t I be the one swearing to have seen nothing?” he asks. “Even if you’d seen all of me, no one would care. But your reputation—”

“Let all the world question my reputation,” I grumble. “I know you would never do anything without my permission, and that’s all that matters.”

“What faith you have in me.” As he speaks, Juba pulls me an inch closer. Lips to my ear, he whispers, “Just because the Juba of your first life was so trustworthy doesn’t mean that I am. You shouldn’t assume that I’m as immune to temptation as he was.”

“That…”

A fresh lump forms in my throat, and my cheeks burn the hottest they’ve ever felt. Juba of our first lives told me several times that I was beautiful, once we were exiled, but he never showed any carnal desire for me.

How could he?

It was too dangerous for us to be intimate. We could not even consummate our marriage for fear that we might sire a child who would be tormented by Gustavian!

Yet now, in a life where Gustavian is still so far away, I summon the courage to brush my fingers along the hard muscle of Juba’s chest. My knees press into his bare thighs, and his hot breaths grow shallow.

Could this Juba find me…attractive? Could there truly be something about me that sets his heart ablaze, and makes him irrational?

“Selene?” Juba whispers, a catch to his voice. “I didn’t mean to…I wasn’t trying to…”

“I know,” I say, and take a deep breath. “You’re still a man, no matter how much I trust you, so I should keep my guard up. I understand.”

“Yet you still trust me?”

“Always.”

“Even if I admit that it was hard not to steal a glance at you?”

“It might have crossed my mind to look, too, if I’d been in your position. Not that either of us should be surprised. I am not ugly, and you are exceptionally handsome, Juba. Isn’t it natural that we might feel the desire to look at beautiful things?”

“I-I…” he flounders, and I imagine his face going red. “Thank you?”

“That sounded like a question,” I snicker.

“According to Romasian preferences, I’m not—”

“Neither of us is Romasian, so what’s it matter what they find attractive?”

“Selene,” he breathes, stone stiff when I lift my arms around his neck and pull us flush together.

“I don’t care what Roma might think,” I insist. “When I see you, I see you, Juba. I see the friend who has comforted and protected me in two lifetimes. I see a man I admire, both for his mind and his physical appearance. It wouldn’t bother me at all if you were to say that you feel the same.”

I feel Juba’s jaw shift twice before he finally says, “You should know that I heard what you said to Raja—in the forest, I mean. I heard it all.”  

A pulse of fear sweeps through me. “I…I will never ask you to resume our past lives’ relationship. Love should be freely given, not coerced or demanded, so I—”

“Are you insinuating that your memories didn’t coerce you to feel something for a total stranger?”

“As I said when we first met in this life, you were no stranger to me, Juba. I’d already lived for five years at your side—”

“As his wife, while I’d had no idea who you were.”

I shake my head as much as I’m able. “We’d only shared a couple years of marriage before Gustavian tore us apart.”

“That doesn’t—”

“What does it even matter now? I have never intended to ask you to marry me again, even if my heart aches for it. Even if I still dream of it, I won’t—”

“That isn’t something for you to decide all on your own!” Juba shouts, and his arms tighten around me. “From the moment I set foot in Kemet, I could feel something pulling me—calling out to me. And then I found you. Even if I can’t remember the idiot who failed you in that first life, I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that there was no going back. We were bound by some unknown force that has only grown stronger, and now…now I am done fighting it.”

“What are you saying?” I breathe.

Juba heaves a sigh. “I’m saying that I…” He’s quiet for a long moment, then tries again, softer. “I’ve never loved someone before. And while I’ve come to understand your feelings, I think, I know that I don’t share them. We’ve known one another for too short a time in this life for me to share them. But eventually, I’d like to.”

I release my breath. “May I ask what you do feel?”

“For you? That you are brave to a fault, a quick learner but someone who stumbles toward mastery, loyal and honest to a terrifying degree, and beautiful beyond all reason.”

My lips part, though I’m unsure what to say.

“For the Juba of that past life, I feel sheer contempt.” Juba’s tone darkens. “Based off all you’ve said about him, that coward was unworthy of your hand.”

“Don’t—”

“He may have helped you to clean up messes, but he never prevented the punishments you endured for having made them. He may have told you how to complete your tasks, but he only helped to finish them after your failures were noticed. He was kind to you, but his priority was always himself—”

“I don’t fault you for that—”

“Him!” Juba snaps. “Him, not me. I would never abandon you. If we were in danger, I would face it before you; if we were to be punished, I would offer myself up, first.”

“I will never want that—”

“And I will never want to see you suffer!”

Neither of us speaks for a long while, our chests heaving against each other before slowly, they fall to a normal rhythm. Angry as I am, I refuse to lower my arms or turn away. I don’t want to fight with Juba. I don’t want the memory of our confessions to be tainted by this childish bickering! But…

“You’re more honest in this life,” I whisper against the base of his neck. “At the very least, I can appreciate that.”

“I don’t want to be compared to that other man,” Juba replies, just as softly. “I despise the mere thought of him.”

“He was the only comfort I had left, once Gustavian stole everything in the world that had mattered to me.”

“Even so, he’s in a different…reality, while I’m here. Stop thinking of us as the same person. I want to build something between us, Selene, not us and your memories of another.”

“I understand,” I say. “And yet…until we met in this life, you were the same man. You have the same past, the same memories, the same voice…”

Another long silence passes, during which Juba pulls us up to sit—or rather, he sits and shifts me to perch in his lap. The new position brings a fresh wave of heat to my cheeks, which I soothe against his cool shoulder, whilst my arms slip from his neck to wrap around myself. For his part, Juba rests his left arm around my waist, and tips my chin up with his right hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes only just visible to me. “You’re right, it’s not as cut-and-dried as if you’d memories of a totally different man. But I need you to feel for the man that I am, right here before you. I need to know if you can love me, not just your memories of who I was supposed to be.”

“I already do,” I reply. “The differences haven’t changed anything for me. Your honesty, your brashness, is…aggravating, but you still sway my heart just as the Juba of my memories did.”

“And if I do more to differentiate myself? Do you think you can love a man who is so unrecognizable from him?”

“I died loving who you were meant to be. I can’t imagine not loving whoever you might become.”

“I can’t offer you what a principe might,” Juba presses. “I’ve no allies to call upon, no wealth squirreled away. All I have to offer is myself.”

“I don’t want anything else.”

I make out the tilt of Juba’s smile, just before he presses his forehead to mine.

“You could have anyone, and yet you chose me.” He breathes a laugh. “I won’t blame you if you change your mind.”

“I could never,” I huff, but smile all the same. “I wouldn’t blame you if you ran off and hid until this nightmare has passed.”

“I’ve already said that we’re bound. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I could stray from your side even if I tried.”

“Would you think less of me if I admit that that makes me happy?”

“Not even a little.”

We share a shy laugh, reveling in the comfort of the moment. But a swift breeze overhead suddenly become a shrill whistle, and I push back an inch, unsure if the sound is normal or a sign from Samira on behalf of the maharaja.

“Mrunal and the others must be desperately searching for us,” Juba says. Dropping my chin, he reaches back, then passes me a heap of stiff cloth.

“I hope they were able to escape the beasts safely,” I say, moving onto my knees and crawling a few feet away.

As I pull my clothes on, I feel a sudden gratitude for the darkness. It was hard enough to bare my heart just now, but to have done it in the light—or worse, unclothed in the light—would have been…

I banish the thought, and turn back toward Juba when I’m fully clothed. A minute or two later, a striking sound hisses through the air, followed by the flickering of a small flame.

At first, I see little when I meet Juba’s eyes, but as my vision adjusts, the intensity of his gaze makes me look away. I don’t regret a word of what I’ve admitted, nor the moment we’ve shared, but to face him now is…overwhelming.

“Selene?” Juba asks, as his hand finds mine. “If it’s any comfort to you, I’ve no intention of rushing. We’ve plenty of time to decide the extent of our emotions and how to deal with them.”

“I know, and I appreciate that,” I say, allowing him to pull me to my feet. “I just…”

“Will you never look at me again?”

My eyes whip toward his. “Of course I will! I—”

Juba smiles beneath pink-tinged cheeks and eyes filled with warmth, and I realize that he was teasing me.

“I will try my best,” I say. “Now focus. How are we to escape this place?”

Juba turns back, shifting the flame in his hand toward a dark opening in the wall across from us. “I suppose we should start there.”

I agree, and together we navigate a maze of damp stones and sharp rocks. Hours seem to go by, our flame little more than orange embers when a large, empty space spreads out before us.

“A new tunnel?” I ask.

“So it seems,” Juba says, and twines our fingers. “We’ll lose the light soon. I’ll do my best to guide us once that happens.”

“I know you’ll do just fine.”

He offers me one last smile, then turns and pushes forward. And I…I lock the beauty of the moments we’ve stolen down here deep within my heart.

Whatever awaits us above ground, whatever challenges or dangers we might face, for the first time in far too long, I feel confident that we will overcome them all.

Each and every last one. 

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