CHAPTER 25
DAVINA
Two weeks ago
I HAD BEEN RIGHT.
The rope hadn’t been secured and I was going to die, right when we were so damn close. The abilities inked on my skin were as useless in that moment as that cursed rope, for neither vibrating or becoming intangible could stop gravity.
I fought, tried to grab onto something—anything that would stop my fall.
“LACHLAN!”
Something locked around my waist. The world spun. My side and chest slammed against a wall, hard and unyielding, knocking the air out of my lungs in a ragged gasp. Stone. Solid. Safe.
My boots scraped, then caught. The impact reverberated through my bones, but the surface beneath me held. Air came in and out of me in forceful breaths, lungs straining to inflate.
“You’re alright.” The voice, deep and certain over my ear, soothed my soul.
I savored the feeling of the stone against my side and .
. . no, not stone. It was Zephyr’s body I was pressed against. As solid as the cliff wall I had initially mistaken it for.
His arm was tightly wound around my waist, his front pressed to mine.
My palms fisted over his coat on instinct, grounding myself.
My battering pulse ebbed slowly, as the realization that I was alive sank in. I slowly blinked my eyes open, and I couldn’t find it in me to care when sheer relief manifested through tears slipping from their corners.
“I’ve got you, Lachlan.”
And may sap curse him, but he did.
It took a few more seconds for me to shove the terror lodged in my throat down enough to be able to speak, but the captain didn’t push me, nor did he let go of me, the feeling of his strong arm around my waist keeping me tethered.
When I finally blinked up at him, mere inches away, his gaze burned with an intensity I wasn’t prepared for.
Thunder rolled down my spine at the proximity of our noses.
Our mouths. Separated only by the fabric covering both of our faces and half an inch of zipping air.
“Thank you.” It came out as a broken whisper, and even if it should have been impossible for him to hear it over the roaring wind, understanding filled his eyes.
His hand shifted slightly, thumb grazing along my ribs in a subtle, grounding motion that sent a ripple skittering down my spine. “You alright?”
I nodded, unable to formulate words.
“Can you continue?” And cursed sap, the look in his eyes. Gone was the stern, cold captain. No trace of him when Zephyr looked like he was ready to carry me the rest of the way if I so much as wavered.
It was a testament of how shaken I was that I considered just hanging in there for a bit longer, but that was stupid on so many levels I couldn’t even begin to count them.
So I straightened slowly, spine steeling against the weight of what almost happened. What could have happened. “Let’s get this over with.”
I began to turn but Zephyr’s arm tensed, stopping me. “There’s a gap in the stone just in front of you.”
Turning my head carefully, I gazed down to see that the ground did in fact disappear for about two feet, mere inches away from where my right foot stood. I inhaled sharply. I’d been so focused on the goal, so relieved not to have to go back, that I hadn’t been watching the ground right beneath me.
“You should be able to reach the other side without jumping.” I swallowed, determination barreling through the fear that threatened to take hold of me. “I’ve got you.”
With Zephyr’s hand firmly clutched in mine, I moved. Vertigo swept over me as my body swayed to the side, the wind still hissing past us like a living, vengeful thing. My groin stretched uncomfortably wide, bordering on painful . . .
My foot found stone.
True to his word, Zephyr did not let go of my hand, moving in time with me so that his hold did not waver.
Only once I stood fully on the other side did I dare turn my head back to him.
I did not loosen my grasp on his hand when the captain followed, determined to offer him at least a fraction of the support he had me.
It was obvious he didn’t need it, his much longer legs more than able to cover the gap seamlessly, but he didn’t let go either.
He gave my fingers a light squeeze then gently pulled away, wordlessly urging me forward.
I pushed through the last few meters in a daze, barely registering the narrow ledge beneath my boots. The wind howled past, clawing at my clothes and hair, but I just kept moving.
Only when we stepped into safety—as soon as I felt Zephyr following me into blessedly ample, solid ground—did my body threaten to give up. My knees sagged, and only years of training and feminine pride held me upright, one hand brazed on the cliff wall.
“That was intense,” Zephyr mused.
“Could’ve been so much worse,” I muttered, breathless.
“It would.” His tone made me glance up, blinking past the looming dark spots threatening to fill my vision.
His hair was windswept, jaw tense and dark with stubble where the scarf had fallen to his neck. His expression was so raw and brutal, it shredded through every shield and defense.
“It was nothing.”
But we both knew it wasn’t nothing. The weight of his action settled on my shoulders like a second backpack, heavier than the one digging into my shoulders. I owed him. A damn life debt, like those from the stories I used to read at night.
It complicated everything.
It makes betrayal harder.
“It seems you were right,” he said, after a beat. “There’s a nook over there that should offer enough protection for us to wait the wind out.”
I followed the line of his gaze to a fissure in the wall of the mountain that looked wide enough for us to sneak in.
It was a titanic effort to get my legs to move, but I hadn’t made it this far by giving up. As if he was perfectly aware of it despite not bringing it up, Zephyr stayed glued to my side while we closed the distance to the crevice.
We were both silent as we unpacked our bedrolls, setting them side by side in the narrow space.
There wasn’t enough room to lie flat without parts of us sticking out into the wind, so we arranged ourselves the best we could, with our torsos tucked into the rock and our legs protruding under the cover of the rainproof bedrolls we carried.
Zephyr had to twist slightly, angling to give me room. I did the same, trying to match the gesture and ease the squeeze, but it was a losing battle. We were too close. Our arms pressed together from shoulder to elbow, the heat of him leaking into me like a living coal.
It was a few minutes later, while we both munched on some of the dry rolls from Kamea, when he finally broke the silence. “Can you relax while you are intangible?”
I tensed at first, taking the question as that of a rival trying to understand the limitations of my skills, to gain an edge. But then I reminded myself that he’d just saved me, and that I had worked with allies that would not have done what Zephyr did for me on that cliff.
He’d earned something. I was willing to give some slivers of truth.
“No. I can only hold it for a few seconds at a time.”
“Do you know what happens if you don’t let go? Would you get stuck or . . .”
“Or would I be cut in half by whichever body I’m halfway through?” His eyes flashed at the prospect. “It’s a possibility, I guess. I don’t really know. I’ve always let go once it starts to feel off. It’s what I was taught.”
He hummed in thought. Only when I caught his gaze travelling between my shoulder and the wall did I understand that he was asking in case I was able to sink into the rock so that we both could get more space. Guilt pierced my gut.
Not a rival digging for weaknesses. A large man asking for some room to breathe.
I surged forward. “But I can move out if you want. The wall itself offers some cover, and with the bedroll I can—”
His hand pressed firmly against my stomach.
“Don’t.” A slight push had me settling back on my bedroll before I could argue.
I was grateful for the dimness in the crevice when I felt heat rising to my cheeks.
“Once we’re done eating, we can lie on our sides.
There should be more than enough space that way. ”
I nodded, but guilt still ate at my innards as I rushed to finish the roll.
Mid-bite, I asked, “Did you get the ink upon joining the army?”
Zephyr snorted. “No.” He swiped the crumbs on his lips with his wrist. “We had to endure two years of training before we could opt in to be sapped. Out of almost two hundred yearly recruits, only twenty are given the privilege. The rest are relegated to be foot soldiers or lieutenants for the rest of their career.”
I stopped mid-bite. Cursed sap, that was . . . brutal. I did not want to imagine what those two years entailed, to filter people like that.
“And still you got two abilities?”
He gave me a smirk that said, that’s how good I am, but offered no further explanation. And although I knew there had to be more to the story, I was too tired to pry the truth from him.
Silence stretched for a few minutes, in which I focused on keeping my jaw chewing and my throat swallowing the roll, despite its dryness.
“How common is intangibility in Widesight?” Zephyr asked after a while.
“Not much.”
He took a long drink from his waterskin, then lowered the bottle. “That’s what I thought.”
I cocked my head. “And here?”
“The same. Maybe one in a thousand can take it.” The longing in his voice caught me off guard. Camouflaging was quite rare as well, and despite its commonness, I’d always thought psychokinesis was one of the most powerful skills granted by sap.
I finished eating, and did not lose any time before getting into my bedroll and lying on my side.
He watched me, and I thought I caught a flicker of amusement in his expression at my haste.
Still, he did not pass on the chance to sit straighter, his shoulder looming over me as he claimed the emptied space I’d left behind.
“Maybe there’d be more,” he said slowly, “if more people were allowed the chance to be tested.”