CHAPTER 59
The soil of her love was rich enough that her heart bloomed flowers, so beautiful I didn’t dare pick one. While I hesitated, the buds began to wither and close. And when at last I reached for what was offered, I found the flowers bowed in death.
—AN ORANGE WHO LOVED A PURPLE
Vincent died for something. For someone.
He died trying to give his brother a second chance at life, and in a single day, William threw it away.
He turned Vincent’s gift into something shameful when he attacked an unarmed Edmund, driven by vengeance, grief, and blind fury.
The act was caught on at least a dozen Bonds, likely replaying across campus already.
Now that shame will stain Vincent’s memory. Vincent died so William could live, and William used that life to destroy all the honor his family had left.
I ride the elevator to my floor, so tired I let my head rest against the wall as the car ascends.
I smell like blood, wet sand, and yesterday’s sweat.
I want to shower, then sleep away the confusion and pain that cling to me like dead skin.
But when I push open my suite door and shuffle into the salon, I find I’m not alone.
Edmund is asleep on my sofa, his head bowed forward. He’s still in his Fraternity uniform, his hair tangled at the top, his face crusted with ash and blood. He sleeps like a stone, the only sign of life the slow rise and fall of his chest.
I don’t bother wondering how he got in. He’s a Blue. For all I know, he came through a hidden door behind my lavatory wall. But the fact that he’s here must mean Rosamund isn’t seriously injured.
I move with quiet steps until I reach the sofa.
Even in sleep, his face shows no peace. It’s marked with deep, tired lines, as if he’s finally collapsed from something that’s been grinding him down for weeks.
My eyes drift over the face I once loved, the one I still love despite what he did to me.
All I want is to let him sleep, to rest as he did that night in the hovercar with his head in my lap, knowing I was beside him.
Yet it’s clear he didn’t come here for that. He came to tell me something, hopefully to explain why he offered me Bliss and why he turned into a completely different person when he did.
I bend toward him, carefully withdrawing his saber from my scabbard, and as I push it into his hand, he snaps awake and catches my wrist. His eyes open wide, blinking in the light, then lock onto mine.
“Loredana,” he says, easing his hold on my wrist.
The way he’s looking at my face, as if he’d resigned himself to only remembering it, makes my chest hurt. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I said I’d find you.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to—”
“No.” I firmly pull my arm free. “Not why you came, Edmund. Why did you try to make me take Bliss? Was that your revenge? And if you couldn’t forgive me then, why are you here now?”
He glances at the saber in his hand, as if suddenly realizing he’s holding it, then slides it back into the scabbard on his hip. The sofa creaks as he stands. “I gave you Bliss because I knew you wouldn’t take it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It wasn’t supposed to make sense. It was supposed to make you hate me—enough to never talk to me again.”
I frown, not following the logic. “Why? Because of Charles?”
“No.” Edmund shakes his head, his brow furrowing with regret. “Charles wasn’t the reason. He was an excuse that came at the right time. If it hadn’t been him, I would’ve found another.”
A twinge of pain reverberates through me as I realize there can be only one reason left.
“So, it’s because of what you said in the elevator, then?
Because I couldn’t tell you I loved you, too?
” My hand curls at my side, half in frustration, half in the effort not to reach for him.
“Edmund, don’t you know I wanted to say it?
That the only reason I didn’t was because I knew I’d killed your cousin? ”
“Yes, of course.” Edmund draws closer, his boots leaving a trail of sand and blood on the carpet.
“I didn’t know what to think at first, but I understood as soon as I saw the video.
” He stops beneath the chandelier, its light enhancing the strain in his face.
“I meant what I said in the elevator, Loredana. I still mean it. But I also realized I never should’ve said it, because that wasn’t love. It was me taking what I wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
Edmund falls quiet, every movement controlled, yet within the stillness of his body, his desperation surfaces like a dark, red focal point.
His eyes flick to my mouth, then back to mine, miserable.
“If this were only about what I wanted, I’d take you now and never let you go.
But I can’t do that to you. I can’t take your life from you when all I can offer is myself. ”
I stare at him, stunned, until devastation hits me with the full force of a crumbling wall. He’s talking about marriage and children, the kind of future we could never have, no matter how much we wanted it.
“Edmund,” I say, breathless, “what makes you think you aren’t enough?”
He tilts his head, genuinely startled by the question.
“You, better than anyone, should know how this works,” I say.
“I can’t just marry someone and have children for the sake of it any more than you can.
If it were that simple, you’d be able to marry Irene.
But it isn’t. And do you know why?” My voice wavers as I become painfully aware of how fast my heart is beating.
“Because those things only mean something when you love someone.”
The lines on his face deepen, as if my words have only heightened his conflict.
“It’s more than that, though, Loredana. There was an execution the other day—a Purple and a Green sentenced for being Vulgars.
I’d never put you in that position or try to push you that far, but it made me realize how much I’m taking from you by being with you. ”
“You’re only taking what I’m willingly giving you.
” I unclasp my hands, unable to hold back any longer, and press my palm to his chest. “You said you didn’t take it lightly when you kissed me.
Well, I didn’t take it lightly either. I knew it came with risks—ones that look worse when you’re watching people die for being Vulgars—but I don’t care.
” My throat turns heavy and sore. “Do you know what I wanted from you, Edmund? All I wanted was to give myself to you and hear you say yes.”
“Loredana, you say that now, but what about tomorrow?” Edmund closes his hand over mine.
“What about years from now, when I’ve taken all your youth?
When you’re not married, but your sisters are?
Even if I never marry, that won’t be a problem for me.
But you—as a low-citizen—do you really want to go through life without that protection? ”
He’s right to ask. Even I can’t deny that giving up marriage as a low-citizen would be a loss.
The three thousand civil credits are the smallest part of it.
Marriage boosts the value of every credit you have, so an unmarried person might lose ten civil credits for skipping a mandatory execution, while a married person would lose only five.
There are pages of benefits written into the law, so many that low-citizens build their entire lives around marriage, and the average age for marriage is twenty.
Even my testimony against Irene for trying to kill me would carry more weight if I were married.
I know all of this. I’ve always known it.
And still, none of it changes how I feel.
“If you knew how much I love you, Edmund,” I say, “you’d never ask me that.”
“Loredana.” He tilts my chin up toward him, as if pleading for me to understand. “It’s because I love you that I ask you that.”
The lightness of his touch pulls me closer despite myself, reminding me of what first drew me to him: the knowledge that while one of his hands can be fierce, twisting a saber through an enemy, the other always moves gently, lifting a shield over those he loves.
“Edmund,” I say, “if I told you I want to be with you, despite all the risks, would you still walk away?”
“No.”
The certainty in his tone catches me off guard. “Why? Why would you change your mind?”
“Because twice was enough.”
“Twice?”
He swallows, and his hand slips from my face in a slow, fractured motion. “I thought you were dead from the piranhas. Then again, last night, when the Rangers attacked. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t waste another second feeling like I’m losing you. I’ll go mad.”
The desperation in his expression—flickering like a fire he tries to extinguish, only to flare up elsewhere—makes me wonder if he already has.
I lift my hand to brush his cheek, hoping to steady him the way he’s done for me so many times, even when my sadness ran so deep it felt impossible to reach.
Edmund leans into my palm with a low breath, his eyes half-closing, as if the noise in his head has finally gone quiet.
My fingers move up to his hair, still matted with rubble and blood, and gradually, I feel him begin to ease.
I think about what he said, about how he was ready to let me go because of what he couldn’t give me, and I understand now more than ever why Jack and Dickie love him so fiercely; why Irene fell for him while engaged to Charles; why Rosamund clings to him as if they were conjoined.