He turns to Laila. “Are we dead?”

Laila bursts out laughing. “Why would you think that?”

“Maybe because this feels remarkably like heaven,” he says, stroking her hands.

Laila entwines their fingers, and his rib cage feels as though it might burst from joy.

“And what makes you so certain that you would be granted admittance to heaven?” says Laila.

Séverin grins. “Merely the hope that you’d be so awfully lonely and bored without me that you’d find a way to sneak me in.”

Laila laughs again. She faces him. He notices that there is a line of gold at her throat, and that when the breeze shifts, the candlelight snares on the lush curves of her body.

She tips up his chin with one finger. “And how would you cure such boredom, Majnun?”

Séverin reclines against his cushions. He has not felt so light in ages, so untethered from sorrow. “Are you asking for a demonstration?”

“Or two,” says Laila, leaning over to kiss him fully. After a moment, her lips move to his ear. “Or three.”

Séverin does not waste time. In the back of his head, he knows that this heaven cannot last. That, eventually, the reality he has left behind will assert itself once more, inevitable as the dawn. He thrusts his hands into her hair, holding her against him, savoring each quick gasp and each small sigh. He kisses the line of her neck and traces her every curve with wonder and frustration, as if she is holy calligraphy in a language he cannot speak but longs to decipher. Eventually, Laila pulls him down to her, slinging her leg over his hip, guiding him to her. The world falls away. They come together like a hymn, the sacred set to song, and though Séverin knows he is not a god, their brief possession over the eternal makes him feel infinite.

Later, much later, Laila curls against his chest. He reaches for her hand, kissing the henna on her wrist. The city below is silent. A seam of gold touches the sky, and Séverin cannot account for the slow dread working its way through his body.

“You know, don’t you?” asks Laila softly.

There is a lump in his throat. Yes, he has guessed, but he cannot make himself say it.

“It was the only way, Séverin,” she says. “Once the lyre was played, the world changed. The temple was both the beginning and end of Forging, and as I am both Forged and human, the temple asked me to stay and guard it. I will oversee its power as it removes Forging from our world. In return … I will heal. I will live.”

Séverin has always been in awe of her, but in this moment, his awe borders on reverence. The temple can indeed grant powers of godhood, but it has not chosen him. It’s chosen her. He reaches for her hands, kissing the pulse at her wrist, and they lie like this for a few moments longer until Laila speaks once more.