Chapter 35
The soft knock on the door feels like a first breath after being held underwater too long.
I’m staring at the Heartfiller from the Benevolent on the table beside my bed, where it has sat since I returned, when the insistent tap rips me out of my covers.
Meals don’t come with a knock. They have a key.
This is someone else. I stumble to the door on weak legs.
It’s quiet for a heartbeat, then the door shifts—just slightly—opening no more than a hand’s width.
“It’s me.” Caelus’s voice hits me like air in starved lungs. “Are you okay?” His voice sifts through the seam in the doorway. “The guards are coming back. I can’t stay.”
“No. I mean—yes, I don’t know. I’m not hurt.”
“I shouldn’t be here. I just…I needed to hear your voice.” I press a palm to the door, imagining it is him. The wood is cold beneath my skin. I close my eyes and lean into it, wishing it would soften, wishing it would vanish.
“No one’s told me anything,” I say. “It’s been three days. What’s happened?”
“No one else has been hurt.” His voice is a low rumble through the door. “My father ruled the deaths were in the spirit of the competition of the tournament. The investigation will end today. The Trial of Strength will start in the morning.”
I suck in a breath. I’ve never felt more weak.
I slide down until I’m crouched against the door, slightly ajar, forehead resting near the opening.
Caelus nudges the door open a bit wider.
Light slices the darkness in my room as the door opening widens a little more, just enough for our whispers to seep through. “Where have you been?”
“My father thinks I’ve declared a true-love match with you as a cover. He thinks I’m still scheming to destroy his tournament. If he sees me visiting with you outside the tournament, he may start to question if you’re in on it. Or if we’ve…if we’ve fallen in love.”
He’s still trying to protect me.
“I was worried…” I say softly. “I hoped…I just wasn’t sure if something happened to you after the reception.”
“I’m alright.” His fingers curl around the door, inching it open even wider, and my heart thuds.
I’m supposed to be locked in my room. We’re all supposed to be locked away.
His hand flexes, reaching for me. I can’t see his face.
I can’t see any of him but his reach toward me.
“The plan is still on. We are well positioned to make it to runner-up.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
I barely touch the tips of his fingers with mine. The sliver of contact sends a shiver through me. His fingers bend slightly, inviting mine to do the same. We braid them together.
“We need to break up Rhythe’s alliance,” I say.
I tell him about everything I overheard and saw during the dinner, about Kade and the Skyborn woman, about Rhythe and Ivy knowing each other before the tournament.
How Jace and Talia have no idea and are still doing his bidding, planning to get rid of Dorian, to get rid of me.
About Kade murdering Lira and Orrick and the Skyborn woman being in on it. And about my visit with his father.
When I finish, he doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “We have to focus on us,” he finally says, his gaze moving to the smoky Heartfiller by my bed. “Don’t trust a word my father says. He is the enemy, Axira.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
He glances at the Heartfiller again. “I hope you do.”
“I do.”
“We also can’t save everyone, Axira,” he says more gently. “If we can break apart Rhythe’s alliance, good. If we can’t, we have to focus on being as strong as we can tomorrow. We have to make it to the end.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I’ve started growing attachments, not along district lines but heart ones, if there is such a thing.
I don’t want Mae or Dorian hurt, and I am not convinced that Ivy is as diabolical as Rhythe.
Something about her silence feels timid, not threatening. I can’t put my finger on it.
“Haven’t enough innocent people been killed?” I ask. “How do we do nothing? How do we not care?”
“I didn’t say we couldn’t care. But if it comes down to your life or theirs, it will be you, Axira.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“The strength trial will be the hardest. I’ve seen mountain transports outside the gates. We’re going to be doing something in the Stonebound district. You won’t be in your element. But you should be stronger than you were before.”
I sit up tall against the door between us.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You’ve been off of Heartfillers for some time now. Your head should be clearer. And we…well, I don’t know. You might feel different, maybe, after our time in the tent.”
I recall him holding me, and I slip my hand deeper in his, swallowing as much of his fingers as I can with mine, wanting, wishing I could feel more of what we had in the tent right now.
“Those feelings…” He hesitates. “They can make you stronger. There’s power in strong connections.”
“You’re saying we have a strong connection?” It comes out like a question, but my heart squeezes like it’s a wish.
“We do. You know we do. Do you feel any different?”
Now that he mentions it, I did feel stronger before we left the arena. I have felt weak in other ways: unable to stop thinking of him, crying so much about so much death. But when I think of Caelus, when our hands are like this, I feel ready for whatever the next trial will bring.
“I think I do.” Maybe it’s foolish. Maybe I’m imagining it.
But he’s saying it’s real.
I stare at our hands tangled together, then slide my hand over the curve of his wrist and follow upward. He doesn’t pull away. I trace his strong arm and solid shoulder, imagining even this closeness can strengthen whatever power our connection gives us.
My fingers find his neck. I trace his jaw, the slight roughness where he hasn’t shaved, a shape that I’ve only seen but never touched.
He’s still and quiet, like he’s holding his breath.
My thumb brushes the hollow beneath his cheekbone, then higher, over the arch of his brow, down the bridge of his nose as if I could memorize him.
And then my fingers reach his mouth.
He exhales against my touch. His lips are soft, slightly parted. I let my thumb rest there, just for a moment—just long enough to feel the warmth of his breath, the realness of him. The patter in my chest picks up. His lips are full. Something about the feel of his mouth makes me ache.
“I wanted to remember,” I whisper. “In case you vanish again.”
“I won’t,” he says, his voice rough. “I would hold you if I could. To help with tomorrow, I mean.” He clears his throat.
“You can. For a moment.”
“I have to keep an eye out here.”
“A moment. Caelus. Please.” My words are a breath, a desperate plea. “If it could make us stronger. If it could help us be ready for whatever comes tomorrow. We have to.”
I can hear him breathing, thinking. I rest my hand on his chest where his heart works harder than mine.
The door shifts open another few inches, the wood groaning softly in protest. Light from the corridor cuts through the darkness in my room like a sliver of moonlight—and then Caelus’s face appears.
He’s more striking in the dim light than I remember—unnaturally beautiful in a way that almost hurts to look at.
His bruises are gone. His long white hair is not braided today.
It spills around his face in loose silken strands, catching the light like frost on glass.
Shadows cling to the edges of his features, but his eyes—goodness, his eyes—they cut through me like shards of glass, piercing and sharp, like the heart of a glacier.
They flicker down to me, holding something fragile and aching.
He pulls me up to standing, still connected by our hands.
Then those eyes soften. He leans forward.
Not fully into the room, not yet. But close enough that I feel the heat of him.
I step back, pulling him through the doorway into the privacy of my room.
He doesn’t resist as I guide him, one slow step, then another, eyes locked on mine, transfixed.
The door creaks softly behind him, then stills.
His hand doesn’t leave mine. Our fingers are still laced together, warm and trembling. The knot at his throat bobs.
“Axira,” he says. “You’re okay. It’s so good to see that you’re okay.” I watch the words come out of his mouth, unable to look away from the lips I just touched. How would they feel against mine? I think he might be shaking. Or maybe that’s me. “I shouldn’t be in here,” he murmurs.
I tighten my hold on him. But he is. He’s here.
And I feel more hopeful than I have in days.
It makes me feel more alive. He lifts his free hand and brushes a strand of hair from my cheek.
His touch is featherlight, so soft, and it kindles something inside me.
My skin tingles as if my body’s only just learning what it means to be touched without violence or command.
“You look…” His throat moves as he swallows. “I love the way you look right now.”
My skin is crusted and puffy from crying. There are no colorful pastes and brushed powders all over me. My cheeks flush. I look away. I look like me. Not like the me Syra, the Citadel, wants me to be. But, truly me. That’s who Caelus sees. That’s who Caelus likes.
He guides my gaze up, tipping my chin, and we lock eyes. “I can’t think of the words,” he goes on. “I’m just so glad you’re alright.” He tugs on my arm, pulling me against his chest, and I sink into his hold. His arms swallow me, his chin resting on my head. The hum of his heart calms mine.
I do feel stronger. I do.
I look up at him. His gaze dips to my mouth. “I want to kiss you,” he says.
My heart pounds. I’m a string, stretched taut, about to snap. “I want to kiss you too.”
“For strength.”
“Yes, tomorrow. The trial.”
He swallows, his gaze still on my mouth.
I can kiss him.
Just once. For strength, for power, for freedom.
It can mean nothing more than that.
He slims the distance between our mouths.
This is practical.
This will make me strong.
This is what I want.
The first touch of his lips is barely that—a breath, a question, the lightest pressure. My mouth parts instinctively. Not from knowledge, but from something deeper, want. I yearn to suffocate the space between us. To consume him completely.
He pulls back for a second, as if to ask if I’m okay, if I want to do this.
I open my eyes. “Don’t stop.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, slower. His hand rises to cradle my jaw and I press into it, leaning toward him like he’s the first solid thing I’ve touched in days.
I didn’t know a kiss could feel like this—not cheap, not forced, not painful, but reverent.
I didn’t know a connection with someone could radiate through me like sunlight through glass.
I didn’t know a kiss could feel like letting him touch my soul. Like his fingerprints will always be there.
I feel weightless and entirely anchored all at once. He comes up for air and breathes against my skin, and I wonder if it feels the same for him as it does for me. He looks at me, gaze burning with a care, a concern, a longing, a question that I cannot answer.
Do I love him?
Could I?
My ribs flutter like wings trapped in a cage. I hook my arms over his shoulders, pressing our bodies back together again, wanting more of him. All of him.
He kisses me again—harder this time. Like something inside him has come alive.
I gasp into his mouth, and he swallows the sound, pressing me back until my spine meets the wall.
A sound I’ve never heard escapes me. His hands find my waist, gripping like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
My hands are clumsy, roving for skin to touch.
His arms. His neck. I don’t want to let him go.
My fingers slide into his hair, tugging him closer, needing more.
He holds me so tight, he kisses me so deep, I am a part of him.
It’s overwhelming and somehow still not enough.
I lose track of time. Of breath. Of how my name sounds when he whispers it against my neck. I part my lips for him again, and he groans softly, a low rough sound that makes me tremble. His thumb brushes the hollow beneath my ribs.
Then—
He tears away.
Like he’s been burned. Like the wall that belongs between us has reasserted itself all at once.
He stumbles back a step, his breath ragged.
My hands are still suspended in the air where we stood.
I’m trembling, my lips are thick and swollen.
My body burns in a way it never has. But it’s my chest that aches most—to touch him, to hug him again.
He lingers, speechless, a heartbeat more, chest rising and falling fast. He peeks out in the hall, his brow slick with panic. “I need to go before we are caught and it ruins everything,” he says hoarsely.
“Right.” I straighten my disheveled clothes. “Thank you, for, uh—I, uhm, feel very ready for tomorrow.”
“Good. I do too.” He gazes off bashfully, and a smile tugs at my lips.
Then I scrub it off my face. What am I doing?
The walls wedged between us feel like they are threatening to fracture in on me.
Loving him will cost me a ship. Loving him means losing Serafina.
That’s not a thought I will even entertain.
“We can’t do that again,” I say.
“Why would we need to?”
“We won’t. The trial is tomorrow.”
“Agreed.” He turns to go.
I collapse onto my bed, torn between savoring the scent of him all over me or crying myself to sleep.