CHAPTER 30
DAVINA
Two weeks ago
I TRIPPED OVER MY DISCARDED BACKPACK AS I RUSHED OUT OF MY COMPARTMENT, the flap falling shut behind me with a dry thud. Pure instinct had me walking across the tent.
Finally, I’d cracked it, after all the nights Zephyr and I had spent trying. My lips parted to call out for the captain just as my fingers reached for the lace holding his flap shut—and then stilled.
I froze in place.
Do I want Zephyr knowing?
Then again, could I really do this without the Kobrants’ insight? Sneak off in the middle of the night, request a pod to Kamar’s capital . . . and then what? I didn’t know the land or its history. Didn’t know its traditions. I could try, but . . .
If I were truthful to myself, going solo wasn’t a viable option. Besides, I had the upper hand now. If it came to it, I would outmaneuver them.
Before I composed myself, the canvas in front of me lifted. Wild green eyes met mine in the dimness, scanning me from head to toe.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was gruff, sleep-ridden, but his posture was tense. Alert. His fingers twitched, as if aching to reach for me.
A strange pang struck my chest. Why did something have to be wrong for me to reach out to him?
No—what was wrong, for me to have reached for Zephyr before Armand?
My loyalty was to Widesight. So what if we’d saved each other in Kan’s crumbling pyramid?
What if he had saved me repeatedly on that mountain?
What if we had been breaking our brains together for the last three nights trying to understand Sircelen’s words—
“Davina?”
My breath hitched. My name on his lips . . .
I shook my head, willing the gooseflesh away, remembered why I had come for him in the first place, and looked up at him.
Fuck it. We were in this together, whether I liked it or not.
“I’ve got it. I cracked it.”
His eyes drifted down to my mouth. “What?”
“Sircelen’s journal. I know where the stash is.”
Dark eyebrows shot up, and his whole frame seemed to expand. “Where?”
I lifted the notebook, already open on the page with all my scrawled thoughts, schemes and arrows, pointing at the last line.
“Look.”
Kamar = moon.
He leaned in. His gaze followed the inky threads on the page, brow lifting a notch with every new line.
“Shit . . .” he murmured, doing a reread.
Awe and relief softened his features. “It makes sense.” A soft warmth unfurled in my stomach, and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from smiling like a child given her first commendation.
“That last riddle must be the clue to where he left the stash, and the crying moon has to be a reference to Kamar. By the Old Gods, you’re good, Lachlan. ”
There wasn’t enough biting in the world to keep my cheeks from flushing at that. I tried to cover it by shaking locks of hair I’d pushed behind my ears earlier loose.
When his eyes found mine again, they burned. With pride, yes, but also with a heavy, fiery warmth that had my heartbeat quickening.
Has he stepped closer? Or have I?
His words were a soft, reverent whisper when he said, “Absolutely brilliant.” His gaze dropped to my lip, still caught beneath my teeth. “Such a conundrum.”
The very air seemed to fracture.
And then Captain Zephyr Kentar’s hand was on me. I sucked in a breath, frozen as long, warm fingers slid along my temple, pushing a wild curl back.
All of a sudden, that timid warmth in my stomach burst into a blaze, racing through my body and making my toes curl. When the rough pad of his thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, I forgot how to breathe. It slid lower, tracing the line of my lip, coaxing it free from between my teeth.
Every coherent thought scattered.
Maybe I’d hate myself later. But right then? There was nothing I wanted more than to close the distance between us.
Professionalism, alliances, and diplomacy be damned.
I’d been trying so hard to hold onto my hate for him .
. . not realizing when or where admiration had seeped in through the cracks.
Keftara had changed everything, and in the after, it was getting harder to see the Zephyr that would most likely end up betraying me as the one who now watched me like he was the sea and I the moon he couldn’t stop chasing.
My gaze dropped to his lips, soft and full.
How would his beard feel against my cheek? Against my neck?
The distance between us had been stolen—erased from existence. A mere inch separated my mouth from his.
“Davina . . .” This time, my name fell from his lips like a prayer.
It was so wrong. And so fucking right. The world reeled around Zephyr’s sharp intake of air, spun around the grip of his hand on my jaw when it grew tighter.
A muttered curse broke the spell, followed by the whisper of canvas shifting.
I jerked back, heart in my throat, taking two quick steps away and clutching my notebook to my chest like it was a shield.
Shit.
My gaze snapped to Zephyr’s just as his snapped to mine. His eyes were no longer the green of a lush forest, but that of a violent sea. He was breathing hard, but he wrangled his expression into stillness as a figure appeared in the main space of the tent. His jaw locked.
“Well, hello.” Armand spoke through a barely concealed yawn.
I turned, praying to every god I’d never cared to believe in that the almost-kiss wasn’t written all over my face.
“What are you doing there?” he asked, focusing on me. “Are you alright?”
Did he wake up with our voices? Did he know exactly what he had walked into?
Looking closely, I noticed he didn’t seem all that good. His skin had gone oddly pale, and the usual confidence in his frame was nowhere to be found, his shoulders curling inward like he was bracing against a blow.
My brow furrowed as I took a step toward him. “Are you?”
His hand clutched his stomach before he forced it away, the other lifting in a dismissive wave. “Yes, yes.” But the sharp wince on his face betrayed the lie. He turned stiffly, shuffling toward the tent’s main flap. “Just going for a walk—”
And then I heard it. It was hard to miss. A rumble to rival the roar of Kan’s Pyramid crumbling chamber echoing around the tent. Coming from Armand’s stomach.
His eyes widened in horror as he fumbled with the flap. He barely got it open before he stumbled through. The sound of retching split the air not two seconds later.
I sprinted after him. My friend was hunched over, one hand braced on his knee, the other digging into the loose dirt as his body convulsed.
He vomited once, twice, loud, ragged heaves that had my own stomach churning.
His face was a blotchy, furious red, and his whole body trembled with the effort of purging whatever was poisoning him.
Taking shallow breaths, I dropped beside him, sliding an arm under his chest and back to hold him up as another wave hit.
“Shhhh. It’s alright,” I murmured, even as I could barely keep us both from toppling over his sickness.
I was strong—strong enough to hold him upright under different circumstances—but I was running on little to no sleep, and a whole week of over-exerting my muscles, and my thighs were struggling to keep us aloft. But Armand was burning through everything in his system and there was no letting go.
“That’s it. Let it all out.” The last word came out choked.
What was wrong with him? Was it something we’d eaten or . . . My gaze landed on his calf, but the puncture wounds were covered by the fabric of his trousers.
My strength waned fast. Right when I feared we’d both collapse on top of Armand’s pooling sickness, another presence dropped beside us. A strong arm slipped beneath Armand’s opposite side, taking half his weight like it was nothing. I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
“I’ve got him,” Zephyr said, his shoulder anchoring us both.
Before I could catch my bearings, a second figure emerged from the shadows, breathless and blinking against the torchlight. It was Rolla, hair rumpled from sleep but eyes alert.
“Let me—”
I jerked back slightly, remembering the ink I’d spotted on her arm upon arrival marking her as a hydrokinetic, and realizing most people bearing such ability specialized in mending.
Rolla dropped to her knees beside us and pressed two fingers to Armand’s wrist. “The damage is too bad for the body to filter on its own.”
My voice was a broken whisper. “Damage?”
“He must have drunk or eaten something bad,” she said as she uncorked a squat, ridged flask and pressed it to Armand’s lips. “Drink. Slowly.”
Armand was barely conscious, but some part of him still registered the command, and he did as he was told.
When he finished, Rolla set the bottle aside and splayed her hand across Armand’s abdomen.
The glyphs on the skin of her upper arm caught my eye, and I watched transfixed as she moved her hands over my friend’s body, careful but firm.
Then came a sound I would never forget: the water inside Armand moved.
A gurgling, serpentine churn that made his whole body tense.
“Keep him upright,” Rolla snapped, and Zephyr and I obeyed.
Moments later, Armand gagged again, expelling the rest of the tainted liquid in one long, wrenching pull. The camp leader stayed focused, eyes closed but palms steady as she guided the remaining water through the stomach and bowels, cleansing him from the inside out.
The convulsions slowed, then stopped.
Armand sagged in our arms, barely conscious but breathing easier. His face had lost the scarlet flush. His skin was clammy, but his temperature was already balancing out.
Rolla checked his pulse again. “That’s it.”
I sat back, muscles screaming in relief, heart still lodged in my throat. Zephyr stayed with Armand, easing him into a recline while I caught Rolla’s eye.
“Could it have been the venom?”
Her lips pursed. “Maybe.”
Together, we rolled up Armand’s trouser, uncovering his leg. Rolla hummed under her breath, prodding the reddened skin around the half-scabbed wounds.
“I think you’re right.”
“Will he be alright?”
A too-damn long pause. “He’ll live. But he’s going to feel like he was trampled by a herd of camels come morning, and he might have a few more rough days as he expels the remaining venom.
Make sure he rests. No solids. Broth only.
And only boiled water. I’ll tell Malena so that she can ready things for him.
” Then she stood and gave us a solemn nod. “I will check on him again tomorrow.”
She barely waited for my thanks before turning and walking in the direction of her tent.
I sagged against Armand, nodding as I brushed damp locks of blond hair from his forehead.
Zephyr disappeared briefly and returned with Kwabena in tow, and fresh blankets. Between the three of us, we got Armand back into the tent and onto his cot, pale and wrung-out, but breathing steadily.
Once Armand was feeling better, the four of us gathered in the hall of the tent beneath the low, amber glow of the hanging lanterns. The air still held the scent of bitter herbs and acid, but I pushed it aside, flipping open Sircelen’s journal and laying it flat between us.
I walked them through it all. The riddles, the crossed-out words, and the final line that had unlocked it all.
“Kamar is the moon in the last riddle.”
The moment the words left my mouth, silence fell.
After a beat, from where he slumped in a folding chair, Armand gave a weak groan of approval. “I’m glad this whole . . .” He waved a hand around us, then his leg, then his whole body. “. . . experience wasn’t all in vain.”
Zephyr’s lips pursed. “You might be speaking too early.”
It was the first time he’d spoken in a while, and when our gazes met, I felt it again: the same heat, the same pull that had nearly dragged us across the line between alliance and a mess neither of us could afford.
I’d avoided his ever-watching stare like the plague since that almost-kiss, not out of shame or regret, but because I needed time.
Time to think. Time to breathe. To ask myself what it meant, that I’d reached for him before Armand.
That I’d wanted him to appreciate the worth of my discovery, more than anything.
I sat back, clapped the journal shut, and forced my voice to sound even. “When are we leaving, then?”
“Now.” My eyes did not stray from the papers scattered on the low table, yet I could feel the press of the captain’s gaze on my face like a furnace.
When I stood to gather my belongings, the shiver that ran down my spine had nothing to do with the cold bite of dawn.