Chapter Eight
"Loralia!"
Bannack wrapped his arm through the vines hanging from the trees and called out to Loralia again. His eyes were focused on the massive expanse of ice that stretched across the cavern where the reflection of the sky had been when he was last in the underground world. He screamed for her again, not sure if he should even attempt to step on the ice, and remembering what she had said about believing in the reflection in order for it to be real. Considering he had no idea what it could possibly be reflecting in order to appear as a block of ice, he couldn't bring himself to believe in its ability to withstand his weight.
Finally Loralia appeared on the other side of the expanse much as she had the first time he saw her. Her body gave off the same soft glow, but this time it wasn't being entranced by the glow that made him want desperately to cross the cavern and be near her. This time it was knowing that she was inside that glow, emanating it from her smooth, soft skin and her hypnotic eyes that made him need to get over to her. He could feel his body responding with almost painful intensity and his heart pounded just knowing that she was close again.
"Bannack?"
Her voice sounded confused and she didn't step any closer to him.
"Loralia," he said again, "I need to talk to you."
"I don't have anything to say to you," she said.
The words made him feel like his heart had constricted and he couldn't force any breath into his lungs.
"Please," he said, taking a step down the trunk of the tree and toward the edge of the ice, "I just want to tell you that I'm sorry. If after that you want me to leave and not ever come back down here, I will. It will be the hardest thing I ever do in my life, but I'll do it if that's what you want, as long as you just let me talk to you for a few minutes now."
Loralia looked down at the ice and saw it breaking. Long, fine cracks appeared across the surface, forming patterns like lace until the pieces started to melt away, disappearing into the blackness of what was once again the reflected sky. She had created the ice to keep him away, but the sound of his voice and the desperation in his words told him that she hadn't been wrong about what she had reflected from him. It was questioning it that had brought her to the truth, however, just like questioning the sky had brought her to the ice that now melted into the stars. She wondered if outside it was raining.
"Please, Loralia," Bannack said again, "Let me come over to you."
There was a moment of stillness between them and Bannack watched as her eyes explored the sky that now stretched across the cavern, and then lift to him. He was worried that she was just going to tell him to leave and that he would never see her again, or maybe that she would make a floor for him to walk across and then make it fall away right when he was in the middle of the room so that he disappeared to wherever Jem had gone when he fell during the battle. To be honest, he really wouldn't have blamed Loralia if she decided to do either. He realized now how horribly he had treated her, and if she refused to have anything to do with him after it, it would be completely justified.
Loralia's slim, graceful hand lifted slowly to her neck and rested on her compact for a few seconds before she loosened the chain and took the small silver compact in her hand. She opened it and focused it on the wall behind him just as she had the first time that he saw her. The sky disappeared, replaced by the dark grey of the stone.
"Is it safe?" he asked.
"Is it?"
Bannack knew exactly why she was asking. She had already done what she could do to get him across to her, just as she had done everything she could to reach out to him and connect them. Now it was up to him. He had to trust in the solidity of the floor beneath his feet just as he had to trust in himself and in her. If he didn't, there would be no way for them ever to be together.
Taking a deep breath and keeping his eyes focused on Loralia's, Bannack stepped forward. The ground was solid beneath his feet and he continued ahead. He walked in silence, crossing to her with deliberate slowness to prove his absolute trust and confidence in the floor and in her. When he was within a few steps of the edge of the expanse, he stopped and reached his hands out to her. This would be the moment, the moment when he would lose his trust and fall victim to the struggle within him again, the moment when he would let the conflict inside him rise again and send him tumbling down into the sky.
Instead, the ground stayed secure. He didn't waiver in his desire to have her in his arms and as she stepped forward to join him on the solid stone that had replaced the sky. He knew that as long as she was there with him, the stone would stay exactly where it was. The sky was transient, always changing and shifting, never staying the same as if it didn't know exactly what it wanted to be. The stone, though, was absolute and definite. It was strong and solid, and never changed.
This is what he felt now as Loralia walked toward him, reaching out to rest her cool, soft fingers against his palms so that he could hold them and draw her forward into his arms. What had once been transient like the sky was now like the stone, and he would never again allow himself to deny her, even for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair as he cradled her against his chest.
Loralia pressed herself closer against him and he heard a gentle sigh slip from her lips.
"You don't have to wonder who you are, Bannack," she said.
The words struck him and he leaned back to look at her.
"What do you mean?"
"You worry that you don't fit what you are supposed to be; that you don't live up to what people expect of you. You wonder if you are really who everyone has always told you that you are, or that you should be."
It was something that Bannack had never expressed to anyone, a feeling that he had carried within him his entire life and never given voice to, even to his closest family and friends. He understood now that it was not her that had caused all of his struggle, but himself. It wasn't that he was upset about her being another species that he didn't know anything about, but that he didn't know himself well enough to trust that he could be the mate that she deserved.
"You are a warrior, just as you were born to be. You are strong, you are brave, and you are powerful."
As she spoke, Loralia's hands drifted from Bannack's shoulders down his chest. He felt her fingers exploring his body through the fabric of his clothing as if memorizing the curves and planes so that she could remember them even when they were apart. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him so that she could feel more of his body and how much he needed her. Suddenly she drew in a breath and looked down.
"What is it?" he asked softly.
"Did I do something wrong? Did I try to go too fast?"
Her voice sounded thin, almost like she was afraid to ask him the questions. He took her hands in his, pulling them off of his chest and holding them between them, giving them a slight shake so that she would look at him. He hated that she thought that it was her fault that he had run away from her, and he was going to do everything that he could to show her that it wasn't true.