I’m not being hunted. I’m already caught.
No one else seems to notice as the wild god approaches me and I move backwards and away from the fire. They’re caught up in the flames and the song, and the platform is under the blanket of approaching night, a place of half-shadow. The backs of my calves hit the platform, and I can’t move back any farther, I’m trapped.
It’s exactly where I want to be.
The god stops just out of reach. “Proserpina,” he says.
With the fire at his back, he’s beautiful, he’s so beautiful, and I realize with a breathless rush of rightness that this is it. There are no more maybes after this, no more half-measures, no more half-love. This is us—after grief, after anger, after too many hurts to name—finally taking something that’s earned. “Yes?” I ask.
“I want
