Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Weston doesn’t say a word as we trudge through the tunnels, his stoic mask firmly in place as he stares ahead, keeping pace with my short strides. His quiet and borderline monosyllabic nature isn’t new to me, but this feels different.
Had the story affected him as much as it did me?
Is he worried about the dust?
Is there something else going on?
My thoughts are consumed by wondering what could be making him even more irritable than usual, and this is not where my focus should be on this shift.
I have to find the right time to ask him to send me back, but with the shift in his mood, I’m worried this chance Sig dropped into my lap will be wasted.
Changing his mood may be the only hope for a different outcome, so I need to ease the tension.
“Where are we searching tonight?” I ask.
We take a few more steps before he answers, as if he had to convince himself to respond, and when he does, his voice is a low grumble, his words short.
“Where do you want to search, princess?”
Ignoring it and the way it makes me bristle, I continue on. “You mean there’s no plan tonight?”
“We can make whatever plan you want.”
I can feel my irritation rising, but I stomp it down. It won’t get me anywhere if we start bickering again.
“Have you searched a lot around the mountain? That is where the cure is, so it could make sense that the dust is there too.”
“We can look.”
“With all the activity there recently, maybe the island will show us something.”
“Maybe.”
“Are you alright?” I say, stopping in front of him and spinning so I’m blocking his way. I cross my arms over my chest, unable to hold in my rising irritation any longer. “You seem like you’re pissed at me, and I don’t know why.”
“I’m fine, princess.”
“Did I do something?” I ask, a twinge of nerves settling in my stomach. I don’t know if he’ll tell me, but I need to at least pose the question. If it was something I said, I want to clear it up before I bring up what I really need to talk about tonight.
“No.” He stares down the tunnel over my head, refusing to look down at me, making me feel like his words and his behaviors are not aligning.
“Fine,” I say, turning on my heel and storming through the tunnel. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, then I won’t talk. We can search in silence and I’ll just blindside him with my question instead. Maybe the element of surprise will help catch him off guard enough to say yes.
Bounding ahead, I lead the way through the tunnels, the pathway there more familiar with the number of times we’ve gone back and forth through it, but this time we’re not going to the lookout.
A small tunnel branches off the main, and I take it, climbing the steps at the end until my head almost hits the top of the tunnel.
I push slowly, lifting a trap door above me, and peer out, scanning the surrounding area for any movement or signs of Voyagers.
Once it feels safe enough to leave, I prop the trapdoor open and climb the rest of the steps, Weston close behind me.
He lowers the door with a thud, and I don’t bother with any more niceties.
“Are there more caves?” I ask pointedly.
“More caves?”
“Yes, like where we met. Are there more of them?”
“Yes.”
Huffing loudly, I start toward the stone bridge.
The only cave I know exists is where I met Weston, but knowing that one is hidden behind the falls of the lagoon, I assume there are others tucked away in the same area.
Our cave was empty, and led nowhere, not counting when the island opened up and let Weston leave through the solid rock, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a clue in another.
“This way.”
Weston steps in front of me, and my breath hitches as he reaches back, lacing his fingers through mine.
His thumb presses tightly to the back of my hand as he guides me through the landscape, and all my irritation melts away with the contact.
Flames lace up my arm and my heart pounds erratically in my ears as I trail behind him, trying to calm the frantic thoughts in my head.
I never knew holding someone’s hand could feel this chaotic, this protective.
This possessive.
Moments ago, he couldn’t even meet my eye, and now he’s pulling me behind him, leading me through the jungle, his firm grip clutching me as if he doesn’t want to let go. No other guard would have dared to touch me this way, not even Brynne, but he didn’t hesitate.
The mist from the falls quickly dampens our clothes, and my hair sticks to my neck as we cross the bridge to the same side as the lookout.
Following the curve of the lagoon, we walk along the edge, the nearby trees giving us some cover in case anyone is prowling the area at night, or might come around the bend of the main path.
Weston’s grip on my hand doesn’t loosen as we approach the edge, the dark water below making the lagoon seem like an endless abyss, and my stomach flips at the mental image of falling in again, even though I know how to swim.
He releases my hand and the absence of his is too apparent as I watch him lower himself over the edge until he’s standing, his chest even with the ground.
Arms raised, he beckons me forward without a word, so I take the last few steps and plop onto the ground, scooting myself through the grass and reeds and letting my feet dangle over the side.
I don’t know how far down the ledge he’s standing on is, but I know I’m not as tall as Weston, so it is a farther drop for me. I slowly slide over the end, pointing my toes and trying to feel for the perch, when his hands wrap around my ribcage, lowering me in front of him.
My eyes don’t stray from the laces on his vest as he cages me against the sheer rock face, and I don’t know if the fluttering in my low abdomen is from fear of falling, or fear of his proximity. Before I can decipher which, he breaks the silence.
“There’s an entrance just that way. You go first, I’ll be right behind you,” he murmurs, and I nod in acknowledgement.
He pushes off the wall, giving me enough space so I can spin around and scale the ledge, moving in the direction he indicated. Before I can step out of his reach, his hand presses into my low back, supporting me and sending shivers up my spine.
Heaving a breath, I focus on my steps and my grip on the rock, not on the heat from his hand, burning me through my shirt. The entrance to the cave is dark, and I step inside with a sigh of relief that doubles once I hear his footsteps on the stone behind me.
“Are they connected at all?” I squint into the darkness, trying to make out the shape of the space, but I can barely see a few paces in front of me.
“Some of them are, but they don’t go all the way around. The one I brought you to before isn’t.”
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. The moonlight illuminates the entrance, casting him in complete shadow, so I can’t see his expression.
“I’ve gone this long without being found. That wasn’t going to change.”
“But you got out, even though there wasn’t a way.”
His dark figure shrugs slightly. “I know the island. You didn’t.”
I look forward again, facing the darkness before us. “I’m still not going to know the island if we can’t see where we are going,” I mutter, and the moment the last word leaves my lips, a torch appears on the wall, casting the cave in a dim glow.
“Thank you,” I whisper to whatever powers are watching.
Weston lifts the torch off the wall, and walks toward the back of the cave, where a jagged tunnel cuts into the rock.
We wordlessly trudge through the cave, following the tunnel as it carves through the land.
The tension from before is back along with Weston’s scowl, so I focus on the task, scanning the surfaces for carvings, trying to find doors or levers.
The island doesn’t change, does nothing to alter our course, which I take as a sign. Maybe we are on the right track.
Hours pass and we emerge into a large shallow cave, the round opening in the cliff face pointed directly at the mountain across the lagoon. I walk over toward the edge and peer out, getting caught up in the view of the moonlit falls cascading down into the dark water.
“Was what you said true?”
I pull my eyes away and turn back to the cave to find Weston standing in the middle of the space, watching me.
“What did I say?” I ask.
Is he finally going to bring up what is bothering him? He said I did nothing before, but was he lying? Again?
“Was no one there? For your ceremony.”
Oh.
It was the story that bothered him, but not the story specifically, what inspired the story. He’s been quiet since we left the ship, and I wonder if he has been brooding about it since I uttered the words.
I look down at my boots and nudge a pebble around on the ground.
“It may have been a story, but I wasn’t making it up,” I say. Admitting this feels harder than it should, especially after deciding to tell Fin because I wanted him to know about me, about how I got here. Weston knowing feels infinitely different, more vulnerable and raw.
“He invited no one?”
He mentions my father so casually, and it is still hard for me to connect them together, even though it feels like a past life. I curse the tears that well, blurring my vision as I look up at him, his teal eyes burning into mine.
“He didn’t let them in.”
The muscles in his jaw ripple, clenching harder than I’ve seen before, and the intensity of his gaze only deepening.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I was alone,” I say, trying to smile through the pain and loneliness that comes rushing back once again.
I don’t know if my time in Dawnlin will ever fully erase it, especially since I need to go back, and nothing there will have changed.
I’ll just know everything and everyone I’m missing until I am the one who can make the decisions.