CHAPTER FOUR #2
“Fine.” I nodded reluctantly. “But if that is the case, I will only explain once we find them.”
“Gods, are you always this stubborn?” He ran a hand over his face, the rigidness of his posture betraying the attempt at hiding his exasperation. “And I would like my dagger back.”
I was already moving. We’d wasted enough time. “If you don’t kill me, you’ll find out,” I said over my shoulder. Exactly how he’d called out to me in the alley. “I think I’ll keep the blade. It’s not like you’ll use it. And I’d hate for a perfectly sharpened weapon to go to waste.”
Triumph crept alongside my shadow as Kodhan’s boots clamored behind me. He made no attempt to take the blade back.
Sliding the dagger into the waistband of my pants like Kodhan had, I tucked my undershirt beneath it to avoid any cuts. Not ideal, but it kept the blade in place, and left both my hands free.
We crossed several other corridors housing closed doors. And all of them were haunted by that incessant ticking noise.
“We’re going in circles.” I blurted after our tenth turn. “There’s no one else here but us. We would’ve heard or seen at least one other person by now.”
Doubt stitched Kodhan’s eyebrows together. “Impossible. It wouldn’t make sense to leave two of us stranded in a maze of empty rooms.”
“Nothing is impossible. Not when it comes to Maverick. We are the only two competitors here, I’m sure of it.
” I gnawed on my bottom lip, contemplating.
“The doors and ticking must be a way to confuse us, to make us think we’re going somewhere when in reality we’ve passed the same rooms multiple times. ”
I reached for the handle closest to us and yanked. Locked. “One of them has to be hiding a way to another wing. Or a way to the Dome.”
“Perhaps.” Apprehension lined the set of his shoulders. “You speak his name informally. As if you two are close.”
The accusation was not wrong. But Kodhan didn’t need to know that. Not if it meant that he would use it against me.
“As close as someone cursed by the gods can be to someone who was blessed by them. He sees me as a puzzle he can solve.” I saw them far too often, those wheels turning behind his onyx eyes. Spinning in endless curiosity. Grinding with frustration.
“But he cannot solve me. Cannot fix me. He’s failed. And he never fails at anything. So he keeps me close to him, for when he is ready to try again.”
Kodhan followed closely as I continued yanking on each door. All locked. “His little display made it seem like much more than that.”
The back of my hand tingled. “Yes, well.” I cleared my throat. “When two people spend as much time together as we have, it is only natural to be properly acquainted.”
He tried blocking my path, only for my shoulder to ram into his arm as I plowed by regardless.
“He could have sought out any member of his court after his declaration. Any woman. Stars, he should have sought out his Second. The one tasked with ensuring his head remain on his shoulders. But he sought you out instead. Ignored everything his duty required until he was finished speaking to you.”
“He wanted to try again.”
His huff of annoyance blew strands of hair at the back of my head. “You look upon his court with distain. And yet you speak just like them. Evade the truth just as masterfully as they do.”
I whirled on him, doors forgotten. He barely stopped in time to avoid crashing into me. But made no move to take a step back. “Do not pretend to know even one single thing about me.”
The emotion that flashed across his face was too quick for me to discern. But in that small moment, it affected him so wholly that he shuddered.
Again, that mask slid back in place. Tucking that emotion away as if it had never existed.
“I just want the truth.”
“And you have it,” I snapped. “Call it close. Call it anything you want, if it’ll satisfy your burning desire to know what is far from your business.
There is no name for what exists between Maverick and I.
Not truly. It is simply a thing that balances between a line of ice and fire.
What you saw was a display of what happens when it simply rests in the middle.
But do not think that because of what you saw, I’ve never been burned. Never been frozen out.”
Although my answer was honest, he didn’t seem to like it. His expression darkened. “Has he ever hurt you?”
The question jarred me. Forced a surprised breath through my lungs, bringing our chests flush against one another. “Not physically.”
“But he’s hurt you in other ways,” he pressed.
I was on the move again. I tried another handle, if only to avoid the ire in his stare.
Maverick used his bare hands to tear wounds into those who wronged him. Those same hands snapped the necks of those who posed threats to his kingdom. Though they had always been soft with me.
But how many times had he cradled my heart to his chest, only to splatter it across a wall?
How many times had he unspooled the fine threads holding me together?
With him, there was comfort. A comradery that I could find nowhere else.
An understanding.
Although we sat on two opposite sides of a peculiar scale of power, of hatred and admiration, we were both different. Both scrutinized and held at arms’ length by the rest of the kingdom.
But with him, there was also uncertainty. Affliction.
Many answers danced across my tongue. But only one made it past my lips, barely more than a whisper, as I finally pulled on a door that gave. It raced up the stairs that beckoned us forward, and came crashing back down until it fell, broken and bruised, at my feet.
“It doesn’t matter.”