Chapter 29 #2
I’m not sure what this is. But it feels different than I expected. Different than Kade’s kiss. More sure than the promise of a ship. Something like what Serafina and Miss Omon and I have, but not quite.
My mind screams—let go.
This is dangerous.
This will cost you.
But I hold on to him tighter, and he holds on to me, fingers tracing down my back.
Every place his fingertips brush sends a thrill all over my body, in places I’ve never felt.
Whatever this is, I’d like to hide it away to keep it somehow.
Because the moment I show it to the world, like everything that’s ever mattered to me—it’ll be gone.
Hours later, when I consider unwinding myself from Caelus, his breath is slow and featherlight against my shoulder.
He is fast asleep. The tent is warm and heavy with the musk of faint traces of the ocean.
I inhale once more, taking all of him in, still a bit unsure how we ended up this close.
It was just an embrace. And now it feels like an anchor is attached to something inside me.
“Axira,” he murmurs in his sleep, reaching out.
I shift just enough to see his face. The silvery white of his hair is light in the shadows, catching on the curve of his collarbone, the edge of his jaw.
His lashes rest like fresh frost on his cheeks.
The weight of the crown, the tournament, the magic his father is planning to harvest—none of it is here now.
Just him. The soft rise and fall of his breath tugs at something inside me I don’t have a name for.
I reach for his face, sliding my touch gently down the slopes of his cheek, over his eyelids, letting his lashes tickle my finger.
He murmurs my name again, and my fingers find his lips. They’re soft and so perfect. I love their shape, the way they move when they say my name. I’m closer to him somehow, my face hovering over his, wondering, imagining how different it would feel from Kade.
I get closer.
And the scent of him drowns me, ocean and something sharp—steel.
I want to press my mouth right on his. Just to feel his breath on my lips. Just to be sure this is real. But if I do that, I’m not sure I’ll ever leave this tent. And I have to leave.
Let go.
This is dangerous.
This will cost you.
The minute I get up and cold sweeps between our bodies, something inside me tremors.
And when I slip one hand under the flap of the tent, my chin tilts over my shoulder, as if drawn by an invisible thread.
My stomach twists, aching like a pulse under my skin.
I hate that I want to crawl back beside him, feel his chin resting on my head again, and breathe him in like he’s something I need.
I don’t.
I can’t.
I burn with a feeling that stokes my insides like embers. It feels like a promise. A wish that as good as it feels to be by him in this way, it will only get better if I stay.
What am I thinking? Caelus is the Skyborn prince.
And I am Saltblood. A Saltblood setting sail on a ship at the end of this death match.
I force my gaze away from him and try to leave again, gripping the tent folds tighter.
But my mind races with memories of my father’s kiss on my mother’s forehead—his death sentence—the pain in Miss Omon’s eyes when I left Dockers Row, the ways I’ve seen Skyborn behave when they’re enraptured with one another, pamphlet after pamphlet reminding us that we wear chastity chains and touching gloves to protect us from love’s voracious appetite to desire and consume.
A whisper tears through the recesses of my mind and seizes my heart.
Love?
Love.
If this is even a seed of being in love, it isn’t what I thought it was…
Suddenly this tent feels too small for two people.
I reach for the tent flap again, slipping outside.
Rhythe’s alliance is gathered around the firepit, staring longingly into the flames.
Ivy is between Talia and Lira, who are muttering to one another, probably plotting my death.
They have no idea what Rhythe and Ivy are secretly planning. Dorian and Mae are nowhere in sight.
I search through the fog and nearly crash into Kade. He’s holding an axe he must have brought from the Grainfolk district. I skid to a stop. He looks like hell. There is blood flaking along his hairline and on his linen robes. His knuckles are raw—split and swollen. He blinks at me for a second.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.
I step back.
“You did alright in the second trial, I see.”
“Where were—” But the rest of the words lodge in my throat as I recall Titus’s body. His throat wasn’t purple from poison like the others. His face was battered, explaining the angry scratches on Kade’s arms.
He killed him.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about us getting to know each other,” Kade says. “Was that some kind of bet you and the others had? Or—”
“No,” I manage to say, realizing how dangerous he is. It only makes me want to betray him more.
He shrugs in disbelief, rubbing his hands along his axe.
“Well, it feels like you’re trying to play games with me.
Which is disappointing because…” He jabs a thumb toward Lira in the distance.
“She’s really messed up over all this. She can hardly talk.
I don’t have time for that shit. But you…
” He tosses the axe down and cleans off his face with his sleeve.
“You’re smart. You seem strong enough. We could make it to the end. ”
“So that you can get what you’re after?” I hedge.
He sets his hands at his hips. “And what is that?”
My jaw works, torn between swinging his own axe at him for being such a piece of garbage and wanting to make him believe I’m into him just to crush him later. But every threat dies on my tongue.
He speaks first. “Unless you’re dumb enough to believe a Skyborn would truly want a Saltblood, you have no one interested in committing to you, yet, besides me. They’re over there whispering about wanting you dead. You are all by yourself here, Axira. You need me.”
The air shifts at my back. “I don’t think she does,” a new voice says.
It’s Caelus—looming behind me as solid as a wall. I move into him without thinking, his presence pulling me to him like the moon does to the sea. Kade stares between us, and I still, savoring the subtle annoyance in his tight smile.
“Opening your heart to a Skyborn?” he says. “Risky.”
I’m not opening my heart to anyone, I want to scream. What I feel when Caelus is near me, close to me, holding me, isn’t an opening. It’s an inferno threatening to burn away everything I am.
Maybe that is risky.
Kade picks up his axe, then he tips his head to us. “Watch your backs.”
The minute he’s gone, I put some distance between Caelus and myself, at a loss for words at how jumbled my thoughts are when he is nearby.
I try to think of something to say to explain how I’m feeling, but as he rigidly watches Kade walk away, all I can think about is letting our fingers dance around one another again.
The arena doors burst open with a loud screech.
An army of Mercyenforcers march inside. “Caelus Altair,” one shouts. “Prince Caelus Altair.”
“I am here,” he says, distancing himself from me.
A guard reaches for him. “You are being brought in for questioning.”
Caelus grabs his wrist and twists it until it cracks. “What exactly am I being accused of?”
“We will discuss that in the palace,” he groans. “Sir.”
“If my father wants me, he can come get me himself.”
“You’re coming with us!” A different pair of guards launches for Caelus, jabbing stingers at him.
The poker that impaled Finn is on the ground a few paces away and I consider kicking it to him, but he dodges both their advances before I can, wrangling one’s neck into his arm and knocking the other down.
Kade watches, unreadable. I don’t move, unsure if I should show myself fully as Caelus’s ally here in front of everyone.
“Tell me what I’m being accused of,” he demands of the guard in his grip.
“Scheming with someone to fix the tournament,” the guard wheezes.
Caelus pales, and for a flicker of a moment, his tortured blue gaze almost darts in my direction. But he releases the guard.
The guard straightens his clothes. “At least come in with some dignity and integrity.”
“You’re right,” Caelus says. He offers his hands, sulking in a facade of shame. “I confess, I’ve been trying to create a certain outcome, one that favors me. But check your facts. I work alone. I wouldn’t trust any of these imbeciles to help me.”
I’m rigid. They know he’s scheming. And he’s going to take the fall, for me.
They lead him away. “Please, let my father know I didn’t deny it when accused,” he says. My chest tightens with the urge to say something to stop this, but another part of me is desperate to hide in the lie he just gave.
Ivy’s coiled curtain of black hair shades most of her face, but her silvery eyes fix on me.
“What is it, huh?” I ask her. I know about your secret love affair, I want to say. She glances at Talia and the others, then back to me, and I swear her mouth parts. But Lira pulls her back into conversation with Talia as Caelus disappears through the arena doors.
He’s gone, and I said nothing. I’ve done nothing.
“Gather up your things,” a guard says. “You’ll be returning to your rooms to rest up for the final trial. Dress nicely. Dinner is in the palace tonight.”