Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
AIRIK
By twilight, the city of Buriji gleamed like a lost jewel on the horizon.
Buildings climbed into the skyline, glowing blue, purple, and green.
It was now less than a few hours’ walk away.
But the journey had taken its toll. Nora’s limp had worsened, and his own body wanted to collapse.
They stopped beneath the bridge spanning the river, which would lead directly into the city.
Airik sat back against a stone pillar, afraid to move, or else he’d explode with emotion that, once out, could never be smothered back down.
Now armed with the knowledge to build a fire, Nora stoked a decent-sized fire. His fist clenched around the grip of his sword, watching her lips blow.
It would be a day at most now. Once he made the call, Nora and Lucky would be taken from him.
He already planned to ask Aelior to keep Lucky and Nora together—what was the point of being under a general’s watch if he couldn’t make requests?
The best he could hope for would be stolen glimpses of them during his brief moments in Zarmur.
Nora wore one of his white shirts and no trousers, striking him with such need to possess her that he had to look away. The star and wings of the Veynari insignia covered her entire left breast like a shield.
“I think it makes sense,” she suddenly announced, staring at the uneaten zarro on the leaf before her, “that you’re made to promise not to touch anyone.”
His shoulders tensed. “This is what your mind is doing? Thinking of things you will never understand?”
At the sound of his contempt, she looked up, catching him with those eyes.
He returned her glare. While he’d been wasting away inside, so thoroughly destroyed that he now wondered if he could ever wield the Sword of Ulliel again, she’d been pondering the Oath.
A concept that would soon be irrelevant to her life.
She gave him a look he recognized—one he’d seen on the faces of thousands before her and that he hated.
The open stare of disbelief and pity, given to him by those who watched him from a careful distance, during the desperate rituals of a civilization that would soon be lost and folded into the Veynari.
In those moments, standing alone at the top of a temple’s ruins—he’d been responsible for hundreds of them now, all of them reduced to a single pile of rubble in his mind—he’d feel the inexplicable tide of something like despair.
Witnessing those below beg for salvation at the foot of what had once been statues of gods Airik did not know.
His sword, his presence, and the memory of all that he’d done in the hours before—crushing opposition so completely that death seemed the most merciful outcome—were enough to warn the living not to resist again.
And he had tried to show them mercy by letting them have a final prayer—an offense for which he could have been branded.
He had forced himself to listen to words he’d never understand and to bear the hate in their eyes.
Each time, the thickness of an emotion he could not name had grown in his throat until he could barely breathe.
The same way he now fought his lungs from gasping, under Nora’s gaze.
Are you disappointed in me, demon eyes?
“If your definitely-not-evil Veynari want to produce the perfect citizens, there’s no room for chance. Why would they allow the strongest among them—people like you—to form connections? You’d be out of control. You’d want to stay with your partner. Maybe raise a family with them.”
Her features, distorted by the flame between them, seemed out of reach. “You’d be a terrible soldier if you were allowed to form a bond, to care about someone who wasn’t part of the engine’s plans for you.”
A tunnel closed in Airik’s vision. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a realization made long ago, buried under oaths, fear, and anger, struggled to break free.
Nora’s finger moved back and forth across her lip.
“You said matches didn’t stay together—but your parents did.
They were with you long enough to teach you things.
” Her smile went crooked. “Your dad had brands, so clearly he disobeyed the Veynari. He wanted to be with your mother. And they had you, the way you are, on purpose. They loved one another. And they…loved you.”
It felt like she’d split him open, his heart bleeding out.
“I don’t know that word,” Airik rasped. He’d never felt so small in his life. “That word does not exist. Not in my world. Not where you are going. Forget it now.”
“Really?” she asked, so softly he could barely hear it. “Of all the words you know, you don’t know that one?”
He heard her sniff, then Lucky yelp as he crowded into her lap. Before Airik could stop himself, he rose and stood over her, his body rebelling against his mind. “Stop. Don’t weep over this. What they did was selfish…and wrong.”
She shot him a fierce look, unbothered by the tears that undoubtedly stung in her eyes.
“What did they do that was so wrong? Loving one another, or loving you enough to keep you as you were? You should consider yourself lucky not to know what it’s like to have parents who no longer love you because you ruined their lives. ”
He forced himself to hold her gaze, unhearing of what she said. Lifted chin and pretty, plump lips turned into an indignant pout. Her dark eyes were intense—challenging him with an uncharacteristic flare of temper. She was the moon, the stars, the suns, and even the entire sky and all its depth.
Damn you, he thought, entirely at her mercy. She looked at him like she wanted him. Even now. After how terrible he’d been to her. As if there was something left in him to want. He couldn’t kill this desire, the final weakness in him.
What was wrong with her?
In one swift move, Airik pushed Lucky away and dragged Nora beneath him, caging her between his arms and legs. Her beautiful mouth opened with a gasp. Lucky, sensing Airik’s slipping control, knew to keep clear.
“You ask questions with answers that don’t matter.
What do you know of love? You should teach it to me, as you taught me to kiss.
So I know everything I’ll never have again.
So I can miss it and want it when you’re taken from me.
So I know what made me like this. Weak. I’m not unkillable… like this.”
Her eyes glittered, full of tears. “I-I’m sorry.”
Airik stilled, his blood turning to ice. “Sorry for what?” Her hair shuddered with his breath.
“That I kissed you! I shouldn’t have said it, and I should’ve said no when you asked for it. But—you did ask me to. And I wanted it so much, too. I thought it’d be…okay.” Her voice cracked. “Just once.”
Rage—always rage—spun within him like a typhoon closing in. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. He tried to will himself off her. His body, ravaged by want, refused to obey.
He licked his lips, wanting to drink the globes of moisture from her lashes. “Something is wrong with you.”
A tear slipped down the side of her face, disappearing into her hair.
“Your tears have no color, but I see the sadness in them. Too much of it—nothing can fix it.”
More tears slid down her face. He wished for an atmospheric processor to plow into him, to stop the words he knew hurt her. “The kiss—you are right. I will forget it as you will—”
“I didn’t say that I would forget it.”
He let out a moan, powerless. Everything she said was right and wrong at the same time.
Needing to feel her in some way, he twisted the hem of her shirt in his fist, pulling it tight against her body.
The strain of the white fabric against her breasts wasn’t enough. Her belly shook with frightened breath.
A worse fear than wanting her struck him: That she’d ever stop wanting him. That she’d truly be sorry for teaching him a kiss.
The scent of flowers and fire drugged him. “I wanted you in my clothes. It was like…I could touch you. The only kind of touch I could have.”
He dipped his head low, brushing his lips against the Veynari insignia on her breast, feeling the stiff peak beneath. Nora shuddered. It must’ve been a trick of his intoxicated mind, but he felt her rise to meet his mouth.
With a growl, Airik pushed her down. “But now…all I want is rip it off.” The tip of what had to be her nipple grazed his lip, and an urge to bite rose ravenous in his heart. He had to leave her.
“Are you still only sorry? For what you’ve done to me?” Why couldn’t he stop talking? Or be better? “I don’t want to fix you. And I don’t want you to know what is broken with me, either. Because of you…I will never be okay.”
Through the thin white fabric of her shirt, he glimpsed a dark circle on her breast. His cock strained against his pants, reaching for a woman who could never be his.
Pushing off her, he got up. “Don’t move. Stay here and be…sorry.”
Muttering a command to Lucky to keep close to Nora, Airik left them.