“AX, show Tariel a view of where we are. Then slowly pull back until you reach space and Donna’s sun, so she can understand what space is… its size, the distances, the planets, the moons, the ships.”

  AX obeyed immediately. For almost an hour, it projected videos, diagrams, and comparisons. It explained everything with a gentle, patient, almost affectionate didactic tone. Tariel absorbed every detail as if she were seeing the world — the Universe — for the first time.

  She leaned forward, eyes shining, fascinated by each discovery. When AX showed the size of Donna and then the immensity around it, she brought a hand to her mouth, incredulous.

  “I… had no idea.” Her voice came out shaky. “Donna itself seems huge… and then it turns into a tiny dot lost in nothingness. My head hurts trying to understand this.”

  I smiled.

  “Donna is a tiny dot in space… and we are a tiny dot inside Donna.”

  She turned to me, still sitting on the bed while I remained lying down, watching every reaction.

  “It’s incredible,” she murmured, like someone confessing a secret.

  I took advantage of her enchantment and gently pulled her against my chest.

  “Now I can tell you Eliza’s story,” I announced. “A Sekvens who was traveling on a Xeranto ship on its way to Ethar, a planet full of life, but without a single person.”

  She settled herself between my arms, attentive.

  “There are few things capable of causing an accident to a ship,” I continued, “and one of them is precisely what made it possible to travel through the phases of time: the temporal wave. It is as thin as a strand of hair, as long as the distance from Donna to its own sun… and it cuts like a blade. It appears and disappears without warning.”

  AX projected an animation of the wave migrating from one phase to another. Tariel frowned.

  “Hard to understand.”

  “Then imagine it like this: an invisible thread appears out of nowhere, cuts everything in its path, and then vanishes.”

  “Ah!” She laughed. “That’s easier.”

  She moved closer, seeking warmth. I went on:

  “That wave appeared and cut through the ship. The alarm sounded, but the explosion hurled Xerantos and Sekvens at absurd speeds through space. One second earlier, everyone had been captured by their Observers and saved… but the wave affected the Observers too.”

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  “We lost track of where we were,” AX explained. “As if the map had been torn away. We could only see what was nearby.”

  I nodded.

  “Exactly. Thousands were left adrift. The Observers that were close joined together, waiting for rescue or for the wave to end. The priority was the Sekvens. Everyone moved together toward Ethar. Everyone except Eliza’s Observer.”

  “She was alone?” Tariel asked.

  And, without warning, she took off her T-shirt, leaving her breasts exposed.

  My breath failed.

  “Why did you take your clothes off?”

  “I felt hot.”

  “I think you got anxious…” I touched her face, smiling, “…but now you’ve made me anxious too.”

  She blushed, but didn’t cover herself. She simply nestled against me again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  I continued the story, trying to keep my focus.

  “Her Observer descended on Ethar, but very far from the others. There was no communication — it depended on the phase of time — so all that remained was to wait. But Eliza had no time. She wouldn’t survive long enough.”

  “Did she die?” Tariel asked, almost whispering.

  “Calm down. I’ll get there. The Sekvens say that every living being has love, even if only a little. Four hours after landing in a green field, she fell onto her back, exhausted, staring at the pink sky. The heat and the different air hastened the end.”

  Tariel listened as if her life depended on those words. Later, she told me that no one, in her entire life, had ever told her a single story.

  “When she fell,” I continued, “a flock of rainbow birds was flying overhead. Curious, they landed nearby. Eliza’s body begged for energy, for love. Sekvens love is so intense that we can feel it crossing the body… the way you felt it earlier, speaking with Melissa.”

  “Yes,” Tariel confirmed. “I felt as if something pulled at my chest.”

  “That’s what the birds felt. Instinctively, they touched their beaks to her lips — where the Sekvens concentrate energy.”

  Even unconscious, almost dead, Eliza still had love to give back. Each bird that kissed her had its energy drained instantly. It flew a few meters and then fell, dead.

  Tariel covered her mouth, horrified and enchanted at the same time.

  “After many birds sacrificed their lives, Eliza came back to herself. But Sekvens do not take lives. When she woke, she chased them away… but soon fainted again. Unconscious, she couldn’t drive them off, and the birds returned in flocks. They called this phenomenon The Kiss of Death.”

  Her silence was dense. I caressed her bare back and went on.

  “Ten hours later, the rescue ship landed nearby. They saw a living tableau: thousands of rainbow birds scattered in a circle… and Eliza at the center, still alive.”

  “Sad, but beautiful,” Tariel said, and tears ran down her face.

  “She survived. Today, in the Rainbow Museum on Antéia, the bodies of the 233,521 birds that gave their lives for her are preserved in time.”

  “That number is… enormous,” she murmured, hugging my torso, seeking safety. “The Sekvens are so different…”

  “They are. And they are beautiful. But you…” I slid my thumb along her chin, “…are as beautiful as any Sekvens.”

  She smiled slowly, tilted her face, and kissed me softly. Then she rested her head on my shoulder and fell asleep curled against me.

  During the day, Tariel was pure light: curious, alive, in love. It seemed impossible to imagine the life full of pain she had lived.

  But at night… she woke up crying. She touched my chest, made sure I was there, and then went back to sleep.

  And even today, sixteen years later, she still wakes up searching for me in the dark.

  That’s why, from that first night on… I never again stopped sleeping beside her.