My Beautiful One

22. Under the stars

"Really?" I was genuinely shocked. It wasn't as if Sebastian had a problem with talking -we'd talked for hours before- it was that he had a problem with talking about himself.

Sebastian took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Yes. Really." His eyes opened again, and for the first time since he'd shown me his scars in the training room, I saw a flash of that immense pain in them. It seemed like the real Sebastian was already gradually begun to come through. "But why? Why would you listen?"

I smiled at him. "Because I care."

It was the truth. Somehow, I had come to care about Sebastian. Yes, he had done bad things. Yes, there were points of dark in his personality that may well be dangerous. But I cared about him because when you looked past all of that, the person I saw seemed amazing to me. By all laws of order, I should have hated him entirely, yet I didn't, and I have never understood why.

"So how does this work?" Sebastian asked, smiling wryly back at me. "This whole 'pouring out your soul for no apparent reason' thing?"

I shrugged. "It's pretty simple, really. You just think of something that's bothering you, something you've been keeping to yourself, and say it out loud."

The Shadowhunter frowned, confused. "But what's in it for you?"

"Nothing; that's the point. I'm listening because I care about you, not because I expect something in return."

"I don't understand why you care about me," Said Sebastian doubtfully, "By all laws of order, you should hate me. Why don't you hate me, Amari?"

"You know, I was just asking myself the same thing." I looked away from him, my gaze fixed on the middle distance as I tried to find my answer. "But I honestly don't know."

Sebastian wrinkled his nose as if annoyed by my answer, before standing up and looking around the room. "I suppose this isn't the best place to think. We should go somewhere else."

I followed suit and got up to stand next to him. "Go where, exactly?"

He smirked and held out his hand. "I have a place in mind. Come with me and you'll see."

I grimaced at the devious expression on his face, but took his hand anyway. That look meant trouble, if I knew from experience. "Fine. But if we die, I'll kick your ass in hell."

Sebastian chuckled. "That's my girl."

Before I had a chance to comment on his words, he had pulled me after him through the east wall, and we were consumed by darkness. 

It was only a few seconds later when we slipped through the 'door' and came to be standing on the new terrain. It was so dark in this new place, I wasn't sure we'd even arrived at all. But my eyes adjusted eventually, and I gasped when I saw the landscape before us.

Desert.

Midnight, in a barren, sandy desert with dunes that towered as high as buildings and nothing but endless sand turned silver in the moonlight for miles and miles. That was incredible, but the best bit by far was the night sky above us.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sebastian murmured, joining me in staring at the thousands of stars that littered the velvety black sky. "You can see everything because there's no light here. No pollution."

"No people." I added. The wind blew softly through the sands, making thousands loose grains slowly shift. It was like the whole desert was sighing.

"I come here to think." He said. "I climb that dune, and sit right up there-" he pointed to a tall sand dune around twenty five metres away "-so I can see the whole sky. It's too hot to come here during the day, but at night..."