Chapter 12
Kyron
I felt it. Gods, I fucking felt it.
That’s the thing my brain can’t let go. Not what I saw, not what I heard, what we all heard through the open window.
The fact that my hand was flat against the wall and my legs wouldn’t carry me anywhere else.
Saying his name while looking at me. Her back arched as she came around him.
The bond. I felt it, felt something snap into place and something cracked open in my chest.
Except this time it wasn’t mine. It was Locke’s. And I felt it happen from the other side of a goddamn wall.
Not in the same way, but it was there.
Ameena finds me on the porch before anyone else is up. I’m sitting on the top step with my elbows on my knees watching the sky go gray, and she lowers herself down beside me without a word. We sit like that for a while. She smells like wood smoke and the lavender she keeps in the kitchen doorway.
“You didn’t sleep,” she says.
“No.”
She looks at me like she can see right through me. Something careful in her face.
“Trust your gut, Kyron.” She pulls her shawl tighter. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that what you feel is usually more honest than what you see.”
She pats my knee once, pushes herself up, and goes back inside. The screen door clicks shut behind her.
I stay on the porch longer than I realize. The sounds of everyone moving and Ameena making breakfast finally get me moving.
Vaelor has the route mapped by the time everyone’s eaten.
Back paths through the lowlands, cutting south before the border crossing into Memory territory.
Three days on foot if we keep pace. He traces it on the table with his finger, pointing out tree cover and the open stretches we’ll need to move through fast.
“If anyone’s tracking us from the Academy, they’ll expect us to head north toward Whisper,” he says. “Going south buys us time.”
Nobody argues. We already decided this. Memory. The archives. Whatever answers are buried there about what Nova is, what she became at that lake.
We leave within the hour.
The first stretch is easy. Thick tree cover, soft ground, cool air. No immediate threat and everybody knows it, which means the tension that’s been sitting on this group for days has nowhere to go.
So it goes sideways.
Rane starts it. He stretches his arms over his head, yawns, and says to no one in particular, “Boy, I do love a good cup of tea.”
Nova glances at him. “Okay?”
“Don’t you, Beckett?”
Beckett doesn’t look up from the path. “What? Oh. Yeah. I do.”
“It’s unfortunate we didn’t get that tea last night,” Trey says. “We were all really looking forward to it.”
Vaelor makes a sound. I glance over and he’s pressing his lips together so hard they’ve gone white. His shoulders are shaking.
Locke coughs.
“Agreed,” Beckett says. “Right, Nova?”
“Hmm?”
“The tea.”
Rane bumps her shoulder. “How we didn’t get any last night?”
“Oh.” Nova frowns. “Yeah, that sucks. Ameena’s tea is really good.”
“Because someone got distracted when they went to get the water,” Trey says.
It lands. I watch it land. Her stride hitches. Her head turns. She looks at Rane, then Beckett, then Trey, then Vaelor who is actively dying, and then her face does the math.
The blush starts at her neck and climbs.
There it is.
That blush. I’ve been chasing that blush since the first time I saw her standing in our doorway, pale eyes giving nothing away, cheeks going pink when our eyes met.
I told myself I wanted to know everything that makes her do that.
Turns out one of those things is getting caught having sex outdoors within earshot of five men.
“Oh my god,” she says.
“Poor Ameena,” Rane says, shaking his head. “I swear she was scandalized.”
“Oh my god.”
“Open window, Nova.” Trey’s grinning now. Not hiding it at all.
She covers her face with both hands and walks faster. Locke, a few paces ahead, glances back. His ears are already red. He knows exactly what’s happening and he’s choosing not to be part of it, which is the smartest thing he’s done in twenty-four hours.
“I hate all of you,” Nova says into her palms.
“No you don’t,” Vaelor says, and his voice is so warm and so amused that she drops her hands and looks at him and I watch her face shift. The embarrassment cracks. The corners of her mouth twitch. She fights it. Loses.
She smiles.
Not the almost-smile. Not the tight one she gives when she’s being brave. The full version. The one that lights up her whole face, the one I’ve been trying to earn since the day she walked through our door.
And she’s giving it to all of us at once, embarrassed and annoyed and happy. Genuinely happy, and before I make a fool of myself, I have to look away for a second.
“You owe Ameena tea,” Beckett says.
“And water,” Trey adds.
“And an apology,” Rane says.
“For the noises,” Trey clarifies.
“I will murder every single one of you,” Nova says, but she’s laughing now, actually laughing, the kind that makes her whole body shake.
Locke turns around. I expect him to keep walking, to do the Locke thing where he pretends he’s above it and lets the moment pass. Instead he walks straight back to her, cups her face in both hands, and kisses her. Right there on the path. In front of all of us.
Nova makes a small surprised sound against his mouth. Her hands come up to his wrists but she doesn’t pull away.
When he lets go her face is flushed for a completely different reason.
“Worth it,” he says. Quiet. Just for her. Then he turns and keeps walking.
Rane’s mouth is open. Beckett has stopped moving entirely. Vaelor looks like someone just told him a secret he already knew.
That’s not Locke. Locke doesn’t do things like that. Locke is walls and silence and fists, not public declarations on a dirt path in front of us. Whatever happened between them last night changed something in him. Cracked something open that isn’t closing back up.
Which makes me more certain of what I felt last night. Not less.
Her back arched. His name on her lips. Her eyes finding mine.
Feeling their bond snap into place in a way that felt muted compared to when ours did.
But that’s what it was. Their bond.
I speed up. Fall into step beside her. The others drift naturally, giving us space without me having to ask.
I put my arm around her shoulders. She tenses for half a second then settles against me.
I lean down. My mouth close to her ear.
“You were beautiful,” I say. Quiet enough that it’s just for her.
She goes still. Her face tilts up toward mine and the blush is already spreading across her cheekbones. She knows I saw them. She’s known since last night, since she looked up through the glass and found my eyes. But hearing me say it out loud is different.
“Kyron—-”
“Just wanted you to know.”
I let my arm slide off her shoulders and slow my pace. She walks ahead, her hand coming up to touch the side of her neck where my breath hit her skin. She doesn’t look back.
I keep slowing until the group passes me. Let the distance open up. Locke’s been at the front but he’s been watching —- I could feel it, the weight of his attention every time I got close to her.
I catch his eyes and he drops back.
Falls into step beside me. The ease that was on his face all morning is still there, but something else is sitting under it now. He’s been thinking. I can see it in the way his jaw is set.
“We need to talk,” I say.
He glances at me. The smile fades a little. “About what?”
“Last night. When you were with her.”
“Seriously? Are we comparing notes now?”
I give him a look. “No. I just need to know. Did something happen at the end? In your chest. Like something cracking open. Or slamming shut. I don’t know which.”
He stops walking. Stares at me.
“How do you—”
“Because the same thing happened to me. When her and I were together before everything went to shit.” I take a breath. “It’s a bond, Locke. An actual fucking bond. Something clicked into place that had nothing to do with sex.”
His jaw works. “Bonds aren’t real, Kyron. They’re old stories.”
“I know what they’re supposed to be. I know what the system says. I’m telling you what I felt.” I hold his gaze. “Did it happen to you or not?”
Neither of us moves. He swallows hard.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like we’re both virgins, Locke. She has no idea because she was. You know what it’s supposed to feel like. Just like I do.” I run my hand through my hair. “You can’t tell me it felt normal.”
I look at him. He’s avoiding my eyes.
“You felt it, didn’t you.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I let that sit for a second. “There’s more.”
He waits. Hands at his sides, opening and closing.
“Last night. When you were with her.” I have to push the words out. “I felt it happen, Locke. Your bond. Whatever locked into place between you two —- I felt it. From inside the house.”
Nothing moves in his face for a long time.
“That’s not possible.”
“I know.”
“You can’t feel someone else’s—-” He stops himself. “That’s not even in the old stories.”
“I know. But I was standing at that window and it hit me. Same moment. Same thing.”
Neither of us talks for a while. The group’s voices have faded ahead. A bird calls somewhere in the canopy.
“Every time,” he says slowly. “You’re saying every time one of us is with her—-”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I felt yours. I don’t know if it goes both ways or if the others will feel it too.” I run my hand through my hair. “I just know it happened and I can’t un-know it.”
He starts walking again. I fall into step beside him and let him be quiet.
“Does she know?” he asks.
“No.”
“The others?”
“No.”
“Then it stays between us. For now.”
“Agreed.”
A few more steps.
“You should have told me sooner.”
“I know.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“I won’t.”
He nods once. We walk in silence for a bit.
“We need to tell them,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“And her.”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “Not yet though. Not until we know more.”
“Agreed.”
Ahead of us Nova glances back over her shoulder. Her eyes find mine and she gives me this small, shy smile — the kind she’s still learning how to give, like she’s not sure she’s allowed.
Something flares behind my ribs, bright and sudden.
I will do whatever it takes to keep her looking at me like that.