"Are you worried?" I ask.
"I do not worry."
I sink a little more into Black Moon Draw, a little further from my apartment in the city. The more I think of him, the fewer barriers I can throw up between us. While still barbaric, he's single handedly trying to prevent this world's equivalent of the apocalypse. I'd like to think, if given the chance, I could leave my home for twenty-five years to risk my life fighting a war that hasn't been successfully won in a thousand years.
Then again, I won't submit a resume to a new position to find a job making more money that might require me to step outside my comfort zone. What does that say about me? What right do I have to judge him?
"You're so much braver than I am," I whisper, stricken by the comparison of our two existences. Between us, he deserves to be the real person and me the secondary, cardboard book character thrown into a story so the hero has someone to talk plot points out with. No one can stand that kind of character.
In my place, in reality, he'd change the world.
The single thought cores me. Fatigued, sorrowful, I start crying.
"I have never seen a battle-witch weep so readily," he complains. He hugs me closer to him, rubbing his stubbly cheek against mine.
I touch his jaw and neck tentatively with the fingertips of one hand, awed by the sandpapery roughness, warm skin, and the pulse beating strong and steady. This reality is like the sunrise, a flare of light in the darkness followed shortly thereafter by the entire world bathed in brilliance.
I am the worst person ever to live. Drawing a shaky breath, I close my eyes and review my life up until now. What the dead warrior queen says clicks, and her words repeat on a loop in my head.
How often are we given a chance to make a difference?
She's right in every way. My life was a waste before Black Moon Draw; it was utterly meaningless, filled with empty dreams and fear of failure covered by a thick layer of insecurity and desperation.
But here, in Black Moon Draw, I can help the most courageous man who ever existed save his world. He doesn't wear Christian Grey's suits or have Mr. Darcy's gentlemanly manners, and his world isn't perfect and pretty, waiting only for a heroine he can't resist to complete it.
My mind spirals down this track for quite some time. The Shadow Knight holds me quietly. Any chance I had of remaining emotionally untangled is rapidly fleeing.