Chapter 60 #2
Kaelis shifts a little closer still, fingers unraveling before his hand wraps around my waist. “No one will hurt you, not while I draw breath.”
“Only everyone who already has,” I try to say teasingly, but I don’t miss the flex in his cheek as he tenses his jaw.
“When the world is ours, I will make sure that you never know pain again.” There is nothing but determination in those words.
We finally reach our destination. It’s a small watering hole tucked into the rock of the mountain cliffs that make this stony back wall of Eclipse City.
From a fissure in the stone, a tiny waterfall has formed—little more than the amount of water that would stream from a gardener’s watering can.
It trickles down over the rock to a shallow pool that would barely be large enough for a young child to bathe in.
It’s the one spot in Rot Hollow that is free of debris and grime. A halo of cleanliness forming in an arc where the water splatters.
“This was one of the few consistent sources of clean water for us.” I walk up to the edge of the rock. Tiny stacks of thin copper coins have been placed—glots. There’s about a dozen of them.
“Some kind of offering?” Kaelis surmises of the money. It’s barely enough coin to afford bread for a week. But bread for a week here is better eating than most get. So I can see why he’d be curious as to why no one takes it for themselves.
“Something like that. They’re left around All Coins Day.
” My gaze settles on the back of the pool, where copper winks in the moonlight.
Nearly a hundred glots rest there, almost a doln.
That is real money to the poor and hungry.
“Those with a little extra leave a little. There isn’t much here to celebrate.
No Arcanists are coming here to offer to repair windows or mend shoes.
” As I speak, I empty the contents of my own pockets.
What little there is. I hadn’t been planning on coming tonight.
If I had, I would’ve brought more. “No one has the money to entice students or clan members. When hunger is your dinner and imagination is your warmth, the best you have is hope, and a wish.”
When I finish, Kaelis stares at me and at the coins. Without instruction or word, he steps forward and rummages around in his pocket. Of course the man has only four dolns—those will absolutely be taken and not wished upon. But he leaves them anyway, stacking them as neatly as the rest.
My surprised eyes meet his. Kaelis gives a slight smile.
“What next?” he asks simply.
I pick up a coin and hold it between us. There was a time when this little scrap of copper would’ve meant the world to me. Now it feels so thin and flimsy.
Clutching it to my chest, I take a breath and close my eyes, searching for my wish. It was so simple the last time I did it…so easy. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I wished for it—money, vengeance, Arina’s well-being. But it feels as though the world has tilted. Everything’s different and…
Strength. One word pops into the forefront of my mind, and I make my wish. When I’m finished, I toss my coin into the pool.
“What did you wish for?” he asks as the coin sinks to the bottom. I glance at him. “Or is it bad luck to share?”
“I wished for the strength to finish things once and for all. To actually bring about a new world and not just talk or daydream of it.” I adjust my cloak around me somewhat uneasily.
“The strength to protect those I love and not be swayed or shaken from the path I’ve chosen.
To be better than I ever have been before. Kinder. More thoughtful.”
He assesses me, then finally nods and turns to the pool, selecting a copper coin rather than one of his dolns, no doubt knowing those can do more good staying dry. Kaelis takes a breath, and his eyes flutter closed. After a second, he tosses the coin into the pool.
“What did you wish for?” I repeat his question.
“For your world to be everything I imagine it to be.” He gives me a slight smile and looks at me as if everything stops and ends where I stand.
It’s going to happen so soon. Within hours, if Arina is miraculously up to inking her major. Before I know it, everything around me will be no more. It’ll be replaced with the same, but different. He will be the same, but different.
An aching feeling worse than any I’ve ever known tightens my chest. I am drawn to him, the gap between us shrinking to nothing. There’s barely enough light to see by. No lanterns in the windows. Only the moonlight above to cast him in a silvery outline.
I reach up, hand hovering just off his face without actually touching him. He leans into my palm, and my thumb traces his cheekbone. His palms find my waist, pulling me achingly close. His warmth radiating through every layer.
The kiss he initiates is so slow that I want it to go on forever, yet my grip on him and the movements of my mouth try to hurry it. Breathless, I pull away too quickly for either of our liking. The moon is awfully high in the sky.
“Come with me to the Stone Citadel, the ancient stronghold of the Worldkeepers,” I whisper.
“Clara…” My name is all he can say as it dawns on him what I’m offering.
“I’m to be initiated tomorrow. Come with me; I want you there for it.”
He’s stunned to stillness. “You…you would invite me to one of the most secret and sacred rites of the Worldkeepers?”
“Yes,” I say without a moment of doubt or hesitation.
“Then it would be my honor.” He means it, too.
“Good. We should go now, though. We’ll be ahead of the rest and find a place for you to hide.” I take his hand. “I didn’t get a chance to show you inking the vessel, but I can show you this.”
Together, we go off into the night.