Where We Ended

by Ashley Munoz

I was just a fraud, a little girl riding the coattails of a boy who wanted to keep her.

I stole a step back right as Alec explained, “Natty, this is Fable. My father.”

Silas, your brain is my favorite part of you. My gloomy, dreary prince. Protect it at all costs.

“Guess you really will burn the world down for her. You’re about two seconds from striking the match…I hope Fable understands the devastation he’s about to cause. For all of us.”

“Nomen est Caelum.” My name is Heaven.

“Caelum non est verum.” There is no Heaven.

pulchra.” Beautiful.

Silas was starting to get better at Latin lessons too, and while I still hadn’t translated that little bit, he called me Caelum enough that I learned it meant heaven. I wasn’t sure why he called me that; he always just blushed when I asked him.

“I’m Alec.” He smirked, then dropped his gaze to my hands. “And you’re Artie.” My confusion only worsened. “Artie?” He ruffled his jet-black hair, which was shorter than Silas’s. “Yeah, for Artemis.” “My name isn’t Artie or Artemis.” He stared at me like I was clueless, or should have figured it out already. “You’re a huntress.”

Simple. Dark. Lonely. Just like me.

The thud of my shoes hit the bridge, but Natty didn’t turn, and that was something I liked about her. She was so calm and unassuming; she was the last rays of a sunset that kissed the world before dipping into starry oblivion. Since I was about nine years old, I realized I wanted to be the kind of person who could be compared to galaxies, like her. But as I grew up, all I found in my chest was a black mass. A void where nothing could survive.

Give me your dark and I’ll hand you all my light.”

“He’s just intense…and then there’s that tattoo, you can see it in the video, it’s of Artemis, Goddess of the hunt. She’s got this golden hair and green eyes. Her bow has all these swirls of darkness and sunlight bursting from it, it’s beautiful. I remember staring at it when he crossed his arms over his chest, realizing the arrow in her bow points directly at his heart.

Alec Tattoo

She was mine, and after taking all her firsts and offering her mine, I knew she would be for always.

Caelum. “You’re the closest I’ll ever get to heaven, to redemption or being found worthy. I look at you, and I see hope. Isn’t that all heaven is? Hope, eternity spent in the one place we can’t imagine living without? You’re that for me. You’re my religion, Natty. My place of worship and devotion. God wants nothing to do with me, but for some reason he still gave me you.”

“Silas was given the nickname, The Roman, because of how he chose to torture our father’s enemies.

“Silas chose to crucify his victims. He thought that up all on his own, and our father completely loved it.”

“Forever, Caelum. I’ll want you for that long, and then longer when the devil demands my soul.” She kissed my chest. “He can’t have what belongs to me.”

“I’m going to allow you the chance to choose, Alec. I’ll either cut high enough so that tattoo of Artemis, which we all know you got for Natty, is removed from your body completely. Or you can lose your hand.

“You locked her up, thinking you could make her love you…but you can’t force the sun to shine, just like you can’t stop it from setting. I hope betraying her trust was worth it, Alec.”

“Anything happens to you, Caelum, and my brain won’t matter. Nor my heart, or anything else that allows me to breathe. It’s you or it’s nothing, my love.”

“I’ve wanted to make you my wife since I was seven years old. Whenever you’re ready to carry my last name, you’re welcome to have it.”

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but whatever it is, I want to face it as your wife.”

She smiled up at me. “So you were faithful to me?” “Where else would I go, Caelum? You’re my home, my heart…my entire fucking soul.”

“Dolemus, sed praecepta tua mihi irrumabo significant cum uxor mea hic adest, hoc modo vultus.” Sorry, but rules mean fuck to me when my wife is in here, looking like this.

“I’m a baker, babe. I’m up before the sun.” He played with the straps of my apron, and whispered. “You are the sun.”

You took my sons’ hearts. One lost his hand. The other seems to have lost his mind. You owe me a legacy… I haven’t decided if I just want to end you by carving out your heart or fuck you and fill your womb with another heir. Either way, you’re mine. See you soon, daughter.

“If you walk out that door, we’re over.” I whispered loud enough for him to hear me, painfully aware that I was about to break my own heart. Silas didn’t bend to anyone’s will, including mine. The silence in the room grew uncomfortable. My hope had grown long, tattered wings like something from the deep. A dark place made up of broken dreams and loneliness. I held my breath, waiting… “Tu meus es sol, luna mea. Vitam meam. Revertar ad te.” You are my sun, my moon. My life. I will come back for you. With that, the door opened and closed on a whisper.

“Let the stars see you, Caelum. Let the heavens witness how depraved and fucked I am to take you out here, right where all of them can bear witness to my obsession. I’m nothing but darkness, and I’ll continue to steal your light for as long as you have air in your lungs and you carry my heart within your chest.”

Like a fucking puppy, I followed her downstairs where she pulled on a black apron over her dress, it was blank, but I stared at it wondering if I could somehow add a property patch there too.

Silas, I love you. I’m yours, I will forever be yours. -Caelum

“We’re crucifying them. Every last person who knew what Dirk was doing to my wife.”

She liked going to the library when she managed to get a ride into town. She’d do a loop, library, coffee shop, and then the fountain in the town square. The woman she liked to cook with didn’t always drive a truck, occasionally she rode on the back of her man’s bike, leaving Natty without a ride. The next day I bought her a yellow moped with a note attached: Galeam gere tuum cerebrum meum est tertium ventus de te mea res clara, sponsa pulchra. Wear a helmet - your brain is my third favorite thing about you my bright, beautiful bride.

Your soul, Caelum. Your soul is my favorite thing about you.

“She knew our love was made of the very same substance that makes the stars stay in the sky, and the currents that spread throughout the rivers. We’re an ocean wave: violent, turbulent and steadfast. No time apart would ever diminish that.”

The Stone Riders name and acronym was on the front but on the back… Property of Caelum “You gave me a property patch?”

while I’d been raised as a Destroyer, accepted becoming a Death Raider, it looked like, through love, I’d reluctantly and permanently become a Stone Rider.

Alec’s grave, however, had a white headstone, standing nearly three feet tall. I’d never tell Natty that I was the one to pay for it. Because as far as I was concerned, the asshole hurt her and there was no reason to honor him. But my wife was good, and she had forgiven him. So, it was for her that I made sure he had a nice gravesite.

Under his name on the headstone, I had paid extra for his beloved tattoo of Artemis to be replicated on the stone. So, for all of time, his love for my wife would be remembered.

“Rook Alec Silva,”