Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
TATE
Two days later, I’m jogging up the stairs on my way back to my room when Daeva’s announcement nearly has me missing the next step.
“Solaris just landed,” she informs me.
“What?” I curse. She has the worst fucking timing in history.
Two more days, just two more days, and the flights would have been finalized.
Then there wouldn’t have been a thing Foley could have done to throw her in there.
I groan. But now that she’s here… Hope mixes with panic while I drink her in through Daeva’s eyes and change direction.
She looks different, harder somehow, much more the skyrider than her usual cheerful self.
She removes the harness from Solaris’s back when I reach the atrium. She spots me the moment I step through the door, and her expression falls—she is not here for me.
My approach doesn’t falter. I’m her centurion. She is my responsibility, even if she doesn’t want to be. I stop in front of her, both of us silent for a moment.
“How is everything?” I finally ask.
“Unchanged.”
She might as well have plunged a dagger into my chest. The pain is crippling. Despite her assurance, she is going to marry my brother.
“Good to know I can’t trust your word,” I say slowly.
“I’m no longer the naive girl I was,” she replies. Seems like Corin was right after all.
“How easily he changed your mind.” I shake my head. “Get back to Avina, Ara, go back to my brother. You don’t belong here.”
She shrugs and turns away, meticulously arranging Solaris’s harness on one of the benches along the wall. Her bags already rest next to it.
Her movements are efficient and unhurried. The tension in her shoulders is the only indication that we aren’t talking about something trivial like the weather.
Do I know her at all? Or did I just see what I wanted to?
“I’m still staying,” she says after a long pause. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get the stuff to my room and report back.”
“I’ll handle that.” Despite everything, having her walk into Foley’s office on her own makes my skin crawl, and Janus is in a meeting.
“I don’t need your help,” she says, but her actual message is loud and clear. I don’t want your help. I rake my fingers through my hair, take a deep breath, and count to ten.
“Ara—” I’m not even sure what I’m going to say, but she raises her hand.
“Not now, Tate, or better, not ever.” She exhales. “Let’s just pretend nothing ever happened between us, and I’m just another first year in your division.” She turns back to her things. “I sure as hell wish I had never met you.”
I flinch. “You’re not even going to let me explain?”
She turns back to me, fire in her eyes now.
“No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. It’s too late. I’ve already made my decision. There is no way back.”
Numbness spreads through me while her words lodge like splinters in my chest. Letting my guard down was a fucking mistake.
Her eyes wander up to the window of Janus’s office.
“I said I’ll handle that,” I repeat, my voice clipped, emotionless. “Get your stuff sorted, then go to class. You’ve missed enough already.” When she hesitates, I add, “Just do it.”
She huffs out a breath. “I’m supposed to hand over a letter—”
“I’ll take it.”
She rummages around, then pulls two letters out of her bag. I reach for them.
“Not that one.” She snatches one back, but I don’t miss the royal signet it bears.
I keep my mouth shut, not sure what I’ll say if I open it now. Instead, I watch her walk away in silence. There is no hesitation, not a hitch in her step, while my chest feels like someone removed every organ with a dull knife.
I’m a fucking idiot.
I try to shake it off and rise above it, convince myself that it’s for the best, but it’s about as easy to ignore as a fatal wound. I knock on the wooden door that bears Foley’s name.
“Come on in,” his muffled voice orders through the door.
Deputy Commander Foley continues writing when I enter. The quill hovers next to him, scribbling away while his gaze is fixed on the paper in question.
Aside from the permission to enter, he ignores me. I wait, not betraying my impatience, not buying into his power game, something I have far too much experience with.
The feather sweeps over the paper, the soft scratching the only sound in the room, a very efficient use for Foley’s telekinesis.
Despite my efforts not to think about Ara, she occupies my mind like it’s her home.
Her cinnamon scent, the feeling of her curled up against me.
The tickle of her hair on my skin when she’d lean over me for a kiss.
And then there is her wicked humor, her tendency to throw herself at life without hesitation, her smile.
“ This is a load of rukhshit,” Daeva complains. “ Why did you let her walk away?”
“ She made her choice,” I snap.
“ And you just give up?”
“ What do you want? Do you expect me to crawl and beg when she can’t even be bothered to listen? Don’t—”
“Then make her listen. Trap her in a room, bind her in chains…” Daeva’s suggestions go downhill from there.
“I don’t envy whoever chooses you as a mate one day,” I reply dryly. “ The connection to me nearly got her killed, my brother is after her because of me, and now you want me to chain her up?” The clearing of a throat pulls me out of our conversation.
“Thank you for your patience.”
I blink at Foley. I forgot for a moment that I stood in his office. He steeples his hands, watching me with a haughty expression. “What brings you here?”
“Ara Summer is back from Avina,” I say. “She brings a letter from the general, and I told her I would pass it on.” Foley looks at me, contemplating.
“Has our Phoenix rider already the power to let centurions do her bidding?” He sneers. “Seems like the general whisking her away to meet the king went to her head. That was to be expected.”
“I sent her to class. She’s missed enough already,” I state calmly, not rising to his bait.
“Since we are on topic, I was informed about some interesting … rumors . Riders were telling me that Summer was severely burned when she came out of the flames, that she collapsed, and that her Phoenix wouldn’t let anyone near her but you.” He tilts his head, his gaze unblinking.
I try to recall who saw Ara up close, but I honestly can’t remember since she had been my sole focus.
I should have shielded her better.
Daeva helps me out by sending mental images down our bond, and it takes everything in me not to flinch. Her memories contain far more details than any human’s would even though Daeva was circling above us most of the time.
“Don’t you have anything to say to that?” Deputy Commander Foley inquires.
“I didn’t realize there had been a question,” I say coolly. “What would you like to know?”
“Is it true?”
“She did collapse off her Phoenix, but that was more exhaustion than injury, and she had some superficial burns, but nothing serious.” I gloss over the situation that nearly cost me my sanity back then.
“Why are there no records of her being healed for those burns?”
“I could easily deal with it, and she needed rest.” I shrug. “The healers were quite busy that day.”
He ponders my answer.
“How come we don’t have any records of Summer ever being treated in the healing quarters?”
“I’m only her division leader.” I never wished more for words to be lies than at that moment, the truth scraping over my skin. “She is one of many first years in my line of command. I don’t have all their medical history memorized.” Only hers. “Maybe she didn’t need treatment?” I offer.
He narrows his eyes.
“How is it her Phoenix let you close and no one else?” There is suspicion in his voice.
“I had convincing arguments,” I answer.
“Which were?”
“That he needed to let one of us check if she was fine and that I could help her because of my healing gift.”
He looks at me, waiting. Maybe hoping I’ll divulge more if he keeps quiet long enough, but that’s not going to happen.
Finally, he nods. “I’ll keep an eye on things. Please remind Summer to use the healing quarters like all other students.” He gives me a small smile. “We can’t have her thinking she gets preferential treatment.” Then he adds as an afterthought, “And scars look so ugly on a girl’s skin, don’t they?”
He dismisses me, but his gaze follows until I close the door.
I take a deep breath, releasing it slowly, and open my fists, flexing my fingers.
My arms are numb and my knuckles raw when Jared finds me in the weight room.
“Do I have to get used to this?” he asks.
“Would you prefer to help me dispose of a few bodies?”
“Maybe.” He grins at me. “If it solves this permanently.”
“She’s back.”
“Yes, Zephyr told me. I hazard a guess and say your conversation didn’t go well?”
I huff out a humorless laugh.
“She told me to forget anything ever happened between us. That she regrets ever meeting me.”
Jared winces. “I could talk to her,” he offers.
I shake my head. “She clearly isn’t the person I thought she was, when she doesn’t even let me explain.” And doesn’t bother to keep her word. I remember the man who hurt her because of me. “It’s better this way.”
“But…”
“No. This is over and done with.”
“I don’t think…”
“Jared,” I warn, and he falls silent. I head over to the weights, intent on exhausting myself until I’m too tired to think. Thankfully, we have patrols lined up, so we’ll be leaving in a few days. And maybe just maybe, Foley will let it go and not drag Ara into the flight games?
“I still think,” Jared starts again, and I round on him.
“I should have kept my distance from the start. So do me a favor and keep your talk about ‘letting people in’ to yourself from now on. It isn’t for me.
” The laugh that escapes me is sharp and without warmth.
“After everything we went through, she took my brother’s word over mine without even letting me explain, so just drop it.
” I turn back to the weights in front of me.
“Don’t you think that if she’d given me a chance, I would have tried everything? ”
“Would you?” he asks, but I stay silent.
“You know it’s okay to be happy, right?” He tries again, but instead of answering, I shut him out and work my body until I’m ready to drop. Maybe I’ll at least get some sleep tonight.
The following morning is too bright and sunny for my liking.
My whole body aches from last night’s training, and still, it’s nothing against the stubborn pain in my chest. If I didn’t know it to be incompatible with life, I’d consider asking someone gifted with petrification to turn my heart to stone. I bet Cassius would be happy to do it.
I’m on my way to the coop when all my hopes of keeping Ara out of the games are dashed.
“Kyronos.” Vega jogs up to me. I stop, waiting for him.
“I was ordered to pick her for my flight,” he says as soon as he reaches me. And I have a sense of foreboding.
“Who?” I ask, still hoping I’m wrong.
“When we fill up our flights for the flight games, I’m ordered to pick Summer for my flight.” Fuck. There goes my plan to keep her out of it. It took her one fucking night to throw all my plans out the window. It’s not her fault, but couldn’t she have stayed in Avina?
“But she isn’t in your division.”
“Because of her, they will open it up so we can choose from other divisions as well.”
I stare at Vega. I shouldn’t care. She doesn’t want my help, but…
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t agree with Foley, but I won’t go against his orders for her either. So how about you ensure I don’t have to?”
I knew it. I knew Foley would try something.
I give him a stiff nod. “Consider it done.”
“That’s what I thought. The way you jumped in to save her ass last time…”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you implying?” I ask, not even trying to hide the warning in my words.
“Nothing.” He shrugs. “Just saying, I can’t blame you either.” His grin carries too much meaning for my liking, but sadly, any reaction would only support his suspicions.
So I don’t say anything else while he walks away.
Maybe we haven’t been as cautious as we thought, and that means there are potentially more people who could try to get to me through her. I curse.
“Just warn her,” Daeva suggests, and I snort.
“We both know how good Ara is at heeding warnings…” I sigh. “No, the only way to keep her safe is to keep her close.”
Picking her for my flight means she’ll be around all the fucking time, but how else can I keep an eye on her? And what alternative is there? To let her die?
I curse again.
I can keep her close and keep my distance at the same time.
“Yeah, because you were so great at that last time,” Daeva comments, but I ignore her. Making Ara leave would be another option, but I don’t hold my breath. Talking to her will probably only make her dig in her heels even more. Stubborn woman.