Chapter 16 #3
Xandros pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment before letting his hand fall.
“And you still wanted me to stay behind.”
His gaze found mine again, sharper now. “Because I wanted you somewhere my brother couldn’t reach you.”
I crossed toward the windows and swept one hand toward the city below. “And what about them? What about every person down there who is already living with this?”
His jaw tightened as he stepped farther into the room. “Their suffering doesn’t give Asterra the right to take from the Deepwood.”
“I know.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then why are we arguing?”
I gestured toward the window again. “Because knowing I can’t hand them my forest doesn’t mean I can look at all of that and feel nothing.”
Xandros watched me for a long moment. “Feeling something for them does not make their survival your responsibility.”
“You did.”
His brows drew together. “I crossed the Veil because I was ordered to find what was waking the roads.”
“And then you stayed.”
His mouth tightened.
I turned fully away from the window. “You could have saved every bit of strength you had for finding a way back here. Instead, you spent it helping people who didn’t trust you, fought beside Thornwardens who kept weapons pointed at your throat, and nearly let that road drain you dry because opening it gave your people a chance. ”
Xandros' mouth tightened. “That is different.”
“Why?”
He took another step into the room, the gold at his throat brightening with his frustration. “Because they are my people.”
“Exactly.”
His brows drew together.
I moved toward him. “That’s my point.”
“You are making a very different point than you think you are.”
“Am I?”
Xandros dragged a hand through his hair, leaving the pale strands disordered around his face. “My responsibility to Asterra does not make you responsible for it too.”
Something tightened deep inside me at the words, a pull I felt through my chest before warmth reached the star in my palm. My body seemed to recognize the distance he was trying to put between us even when I didn’t understand why.
I closed my hand around the heat and stepped toward him. “I know Asterra isn’t my responsibility. But I know what it feels like to have people depending on you, Xandros. I understand why you stayed, why you kept spending your strength trying to help them, and why you had to come back here.”
His expression shifted, though the tension never left his face.
“What I don’t understand is why you think any of that gives you the right to decide I should have stayed safely in the Deepwood while you came back here alone.”
“It doesn’t.” He moved toward me, closing some of the space I had crossed. “My brother ordering me to bring you here does.”
“And you refused.”
“You heard a command carried through a road.” His voice tightened as he took another step. “I grew up with the male who gave it. I know exactly how far my brother will go once he believes Asterra’s survival depends on you.”
Cold moved over my skin, but I held his gaze. “And leaving you to face him alone was supposed to be better?”
“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation.
My temper flared. “That was never your decision to make.”
“I know.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
His jaw flexed. “What did you expect me to do, Verena? Watch you jump through a closing road and congratulate you for exercising your independence?”
“I expected you to trust that I knew what I was choosing.”
“I was terrified.”
The words stopped me.
For the first time since we entered the room, the anger had left him completely. Gold glimmered faintly beneath the constellations climbing his throat, and his hands curled at his sides while he looked at me with the same raw fear I had seen the moment he caught me.
“When you jumped, I thought the Veil was going to close on you.”
The heat behind my anger faltered.
I had jumped through a collapsing road with an injured leg, Bramble at my heels, and no idea what waited for me on the other side, beyond four armed soldiers and a king who had already ordered Xandros to bring me to him.
Put that way, it sounded considerably worse.
My reasons had felt clear when the road began closing. Rhian. The Circle. The answers buried somewhere in Asterra. Xandros walking into this place alone.
That last one caught.
I had told myself following him was another choice the Circle had no right to take from me, but standing here with his fear written plainly across his face made it harder to pretend duty had been the only thing that sent me running.
Xandros moved closer, leaving only a few feet between us. “Then you stood there and argued with me as though being alive on the other side somehow made what you did reasonable.”
“I never said it was reasonable.”
His eyes narrowed. “An encouraging distinction.”
Despite myself, something in my chest loosened.
“I knew the road was closing. I knew your brother wanted me here, and I knew there was no guarantee I could get back.” My voice softened as I held his gaze. “I came anyway.”
“I know.”
I studied the hard set of his mouth. “You say that like it makes it worse.”
“Because it does.” He moved another step closer, and the warmth of him reached me before his body did. “You put yourself within my brother’s reach, knowing that I may be the only thing standing between you and whatever he intends to do.”
My throat tightened.