An Excerpt from The Gate at Dusk

This may change. Just an excerpt from book 2 of The Civilization (2024)

““You know you’re not really here, right?”  
Kadsa turned her eyes from the twin suns dipping behind the rolling hills of Mehronur’s meadow. Why would he say that? She sat right next to him.  
"I am right here.”   
Khansu squinted, boyishly beautiful against the setting suns. His small, full lips pouted. “You are beside me, but you’re not really here, Kadsa. We’re not together.”   
Kadsa met his eyes, unease brewing. He waited for her to understand what he had told her. She glanced at his left hand, coiled into a fist on the grass. She should take it in hers, show him he was wrong. They were here together. Maybe, she thought instead, lean into him, put her head on his shoulders, and snuggle against him. Kadsa reached for his warm hands.  His gentle smile revealed neat and even teeth.   
  Kadsa breathed again. He teased her. “Sure, I am not really here,” she said, winking at him. “I’m nowhere.”   
“I am serious, Kadsa,” he said, squinting at the suns. “When they dip below the horizon, you’ll leave and so will I.”   
Kadsa glanced towards the twin suns, partly buried already. There was some mythos about gods locked in a duel, or lovers trapped in an eternal dance, bound to each other by destiny. “If I am not here, why does this feel real?” Kadsa squeezed his hand, forcing his crimped fingers apart. “You feel real to me, Khansu. We’re here together.”   
“You’re dreaming that you’re here and I am invading your dreams. It’s not real.”   
“I want it to be real,” she said, yearning. “I want to be here with you.”   
“You can be here with me,” he said, braiding their fingers. “You should come back to Mehronur. Come back to me. I need you.”   
Khansu's face blended into the suns’ faded gleam, his words and every inch of him drifting out of reach, from her touch, her eyes. 
Kadsa jolted from sleep. Her alarm clock chimed with a critter jingle she no longer cared for and had only selected because it reminded her of sleeping under the stars. She slammed her hand over the stop button, silencing the sound.   
Then she sat upright in the tiny bedroom, the sound of screeching cars and voices outside the apartment, smacked in the middle of what her mother called, the mid-town, cozy, busy, and connected. 
She hated it.   
But she smiled. Today was the beginning of the rest of her life.  
Today was the day she returned to Marut. ​