Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek

But there is a glimmer of hope, and to Liska that is enough. Like a beggar, she has learned to enjoy crumbs.

‘You are not a monster, Liska Radost. You are sunlight, and you breathe life into everything you touch.’

‘I must tell you, my enchanting fox,’ he murmurs, ‘that you deserve someone far better than me. And yet –’ his fingers brush the tip of her ear, linger there – ‘and yet, and yet and yet, I am a selfish creature, and I do not want to let you go.’

‘Stop.’ With sudden frustration, she grabs a fistful of his shirt, pulling him closer. ‘Stop that. You are the most dreadful boy I have ever met, but you are mine, and you will not be taken by a cantankerous old god.’

(Of women, he’s heard it said ‘she will be the end of me’, or ‘she will be my undoing’. None of that is true for Liska Radost. She is not the end of anything, but the beginning of everything. He has been dead a long time, and she is his resurrection.)

‘When I realized what was happening, I nearly despaired. How could this meddling village girl be my match? But of course you were. Of course you were. In nature, everything balances itself. There can be no winter without summer, no shadow without the sun. You are my soul, Liska Radost. I lived seven hundred years to find you.’