“Orion.” She extended her hand.

I took it in mine and bent to kiss it. Then I held a chair for her to sit. The waiter came over and she asked for a glass of red wine. It trundled off to the bar.

“I feel as if I’ve known you all my life,” I said to her.

“For many lifetimes,” she said, her voice soft and melodious as a warm summer breeze. “Don’t you remember?”

I closed my eyes in concentration and a swirl of memories rushed in on me so rapidly that it took my breath away. I saw a great shining globe of golden light and the dark brooding figure of a fiercely malevolent man, a forest of giant trees and a barren windswept desert and a world of unending ice and snow. And her, this woman, clad in silver armor that gleamed against the dark-ness of infinity.

“I… remember… death,” I heard myself stammer. “The whole world, the entire universe… all of space-time collapsed in on itself.”

She nodded gravely. “And rebounded in a new cycle of expansion. That was something that neither Ormazd nor Ahriman foresaw. The continuum does not end; it begins anew.”

“Ormazd,” I muttered. “Ahriman.” The names touched a chord in my mind. I felt anger welling up inside me, anger tinged with fear and resentment. But I could not recall who they were and why they stirred such strong emotions within me.

“They are still out there,” she said, “still grappling with each other. But they know, thanks to you, Orion, that the continuum cannot be destroyed so easily. It perseveres.”

“Those other lives I remember — you were in them.”

“Yes, as I will be in this one.”

“I loved you, then.”

Her smile lit the world. “Do you love me now?”

“Yes.” And I knew it was so. I meant it with every atom of my being.

“And I love you, too, Orion. I always have and I always will. Through death and infinity, my darling, I will always love you.”