Chapter 28 #2
“I made a mistake,” she said so quietly Stone almost missed it.
“When we were all children. I made a mistake and it ruined my family. It ruined me.” Aesira lowered the torch and faced Stone.
“I can’t afford to keep making mistakes.
To keep disappointing and hurting people.
I have to find Desmond. I have to get this right.
Kamari will be out of time. The treaty will be abolished.
War will be back in Vargah and Novaria before we know it.
” Hurt flashed across her face, in her eyes, in the tightness of her mouth.
Stone wouldn’t have that.
“The very fabric of my being is stitched together by my mistakes,” he said. "It doesn't mean I don't deserve a chance at a future. It doesn't mean you don't either.”
Silence hung around them as she watched him. Her face morphing between sadness and resolve. Then, she stepped forward, her arms snaking around his middle, her face pressed against his chest. "Thank you."
His hand found its way to the back of her head where he anchored her in place. "For what?"
She looked up and he had to fight against the urge to thread his fingers through her hair and keep her close.
"I just think I've needed to hear that for a very long time," she said.
To his pleasure, she pressed her cheek back into his chest, her voice muffled through the fabric of his shirt.
“Eldrin was only nine when he died. We were huddled together in our safe room. Kamari, Eldrin, and I. We were meant to stay put. Stay quiet. He heard the singing first and wanted to follow it. Kamari tried to stop him, but I let him go. I opened the door. I dared him to look.”
The beating in his chest slammed against his ribs and he wondered if Aesira could feel the way his heart overworked when she was close to him.
“The Strix was waiting on the other side. It flew so fast, he was gone before I could even scream.” She pressed her face deeper into his chest, so he held her closer, one hand around her waist and the other against the back of her head.
“I was sent to the Order that same year and if I fail this, I’m done,” she said.
She peeled herself away, letting the spot against his heart grow cold.
“The Order has already stationed me elsewhere but if I don’t make this right, I’ll be forced to hang up my armor.
Forced to join the temple. Live a life of solitude.
” A broken smile spread across her lips.
“Pathetic, right. The great Aesira Zeliath.”
Her dry laugh rang down the cavernous tunnels.
“I’m a fraud. My reputation is built on desperately trying to please others in the hopes of burying my own mistakes.
I thought coming here I’d be able to find a part of myself worth saving.
Be this great person so many others see but the truth of who I am—a reckless, broken girl with horrible habits of hurting those she cares about—can’t be outrun. ”
He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “If you are a fraud, then we are the same." Her face twisted, then a deep, nefarious growl cut through one of the tunnels, splintering the stone in the wall of runes.
“What was that?" Aesira clutched his arm.
Another growl shook the ground beneath their boots, vines quaking on the walls.
“Run.” Stone grabbed her hand as she ditched the torch. The ladder creaked and wobbled.
Another low growl from the hallway. Closer. Louder. “Quickly," he said, pushing Aesira up, the ladder shaking beneath the weight of them.
The ceiling shook, rocks tumbling to the ground, slicing into their arms and legs on the way.
“Almost there,” Aesira said.
She reached the top, pulled herself up. Stone was a few rungs behind, another ear–splitting roar reverberated up the tunnel. Stone’s hands gripped the opening, Aesira’s fingers pulling at his shirt, when the last rung gave way, making him slip farther down. “Stone!”
He caught himself, pulled himself up and out of the opening just before one of the rungs on the ladder snapped and they slammed the hatch shut.
“A dragon?” Bee’s honey eyes were wide as they sat around a campfire. “A real dragon?”
“We don’t know if it was a dragon.” Stone tossed a stick into the fire.
Another headache was brewing behind his eyes but he was thankful that whatever feeling had gnawed at his stomach in the tunnels had disappeared.
“We didn’t actually see anything but whatever it was, it was not happy we disrupted it,” he said.
Aesira glanced at Stone through the flames.
The firelight mixed with her eyes, kissing her skin in warmth.
They hadn’t talked since they fled the hatch, hurriedly told Birdie and Bee to find a campsite as far from the ruins as possible, and now they were here. Not saying what they should be saying. We almost died, again. You told me your secrets now let me tell you mine.
“I guess we can rule out that the king is not anywhere underground.” Birdie wrapped her arm around Bee’s shoulder. “A small blessing.”
“I’ll take the first shift,” Aesira said.
Birdie and Bee found a place to curl up and Stone should have left too, should have found somewhere quiet to close his eyes until it was his shift, but he couldn’t find the strength to leave her alone.
Not after what she told him underground.
When she noticed he was still next to her, she sighed and bumped his shoulder. “Go to bed,” she said. “I have this.”
“I’m not tired.” It was a lie. He was exhausted but he wrapped his fingers around hers and held her hand tightly.
“I wanted to tell you something, before…” He shook his head.
“Well before whatever that was, interrupted us.” She stroked her thumb along the back of his hand, he savored the gentle notion. “I’ve seen Ravki before.”
Aesira studied his face and he wanted to shrink against her burning eyes. She was so beautiful. Powerful. Leagues above him, but she was also right here, still holding his hand, and maybe that meant more than he would allow himself to believe.
“What do you mean?”
He was grateful for the crackling fire and the hooting of what he assumed to be owls in the background.
All the noises covered up the unnatural pounding of his heart.
“About ten years ago, I was desperate to get away from Vic. To get the cadre out. So I went to Soo and drank her tea.” Their eyes met and something quiet like hope blossomed in his chest. “The same one we drank before.”
“And it showed you Ravki?”
“It showed me a woman with dark curly hair. Mismatched eyes.” He ran a hand down his face.
“You were standing in an open field of endless green and all around you were golden flowers. I didn’t know what the dream meant at the time.
Didn’t know you even existed. I figured her tea didn’t work.
” He took in a labored breath. “Then I saw you at the Phoenix.” He stole a glance her way but she was watching the fire, brows pinched.
“There wasn’t any mistaking who you were. ”
“But the tea points you to what you desire most…” Her voice faded, as if she had answered the question before she even asked it. “If you didn’t even know me, how could you dream of me?”
“I don’t know. It’s why I pulled away at the Phoenix, why I left.
I didn’t know if what was happening was real or a dream but I want to make one thing clear.
” He gripped her chin, softly pulling her toward him until their eyes met.
“I didn’t walk away because I didn’t desire you, I walked away because of how badly I did.
” His eyes dipped to her mouth and his body remembered just what it was like to have those lips on his skin.
He’d learned it was a dangerous thing to want, to desire things that were too good for him.
Which is exactly how Stone found himself, still.
Both wanting and desiring a woman who was too far out of reach.
A dangerous game, one that he knew he’d never win, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.
If there were odds to beat, he’d find a way. “I still do,” he said. “Desire you.”
He dropped his hand from her chin but she didn’t pull away from his gaze. “And the golden flowers from your dream? Did you know what they were?”
A log popped in the fire, sending embers of light into the air. “I had a good idea of what I thought it could be,” he said.
A beat of silence save for the crackling of the fire and the pounding of Stone’s heart. “This has never been about finding Desmond for you, has it?”
“No.” He turned so their faces were close. Noses nearly brushing. “I mean, not at first, but I care about it now. About finding him.”
“Why?”
He assumed she already knew, but it was like she wanted to hear him say it. Needed to hear him say it. He wrapped his finger around a loose spiral curl.
“I care because you care.”