Chapter 21
Strength comes in many forms, Ember. You undervalue your resilience.
— ALARIC SARE’S PAPERS FOR EMBERLINE ARKOVA
Time passed, and I stood in the rain, staring down at the last location I’d seen him. More trees cracked in the onslaught. More mud shifted down the face of the mountain. I don’t know how long I watched. Each time I moved to hike down to find him, another tree fell. What help would I be in this?
I wouldn’t even make it to him.
Raindrops battered my clothes. Soaking wet hair clung to my face. None of it mattered. My awareness of him had disappeared with the mudslide. At some point, Alysa came to stand beside me. Reid hadn’t returned, either. Even with the rain, it was evident that tears tracked down her face.
Eventually, she stood, uselessly wiping them away. “You should eat something.”
I glanced at her. “How can that be your response?”
Alysa gestured to the almost-reconstructed camp.
Fewer tents dotted this pass than had been set up in the foothills.
I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised. Hart and Reid had still been tearing down the remaining tents.
Alysa’s arm shook ever so slightly, her voice a little unsteadier than I was used to, but those were the only signs that she was affected. “I have a hundred people who need me.”
The fracture inside me, which I couldn’t find words to express, was reflected in her gaze.
“Every part of me wants to go, but I’d be no better off than him. And the Storm would be leaderless. I know that’s not what Reid wants.”
I bit my lip. Her words painted a picture of the weight and the honor of caring deeply for a group of people. “I can lead a search.”
She tipped her head back and stared at the sky. “With the downpour still in progress, I can’t recommend it. It’s not safe to descend and scale the mountain again now.”
Thunder rumbled, but I didn’t need the reminder to know she was right. I told myself the same thing a dozen times as I stood at the top of the pass.
“They’ll return,” she said.
I desperately wanted to believe her, but that knowing was gone. “How do you know?”
She shook her head. “I just do.”
Alysa was so sure. She had a confidence in Reid that I desperately wanted. For the first time, I realized my curse might be a blessing. I’d only ever ignored it. At every turn, I pretended I couldn’t feel what I inexplicably knew was Hart.
Maybe I needed to search it out. The curse might not be working as expected, but Eris had claimed that no one could have anticipated the other part of our connection. If that was true, maybe I could use that to find him. Maybe I could know he was alright.
I closed my eyes and searched for the awareness I often attempted to deny. It felt like reaching for a hand already offered to help me up. This wasn’t an awareness of his physical location, but as I focused on him, something sweet coated my tongue.
Harrow chose that moment to land on Alysa’s shoulder. He flapped his wings and dropped something into her waiting hand.
Her eyes widened momentarily, then snapped to mine. “They’re coming.” She held up a gold ring. “Not even Harrow could have gotten this from Reid’s finger if he didn’t offer it himself.”
“Hart, too?” I whispered. Was I talking to a bird?
The bird’s beak dipped, and the sweetness I’d sensed didn’t abate. It only strengthened. I chose to believe the bird understood me, and Hart would return.
A breath of relief whooshed from my lungs, but it left me feeling hollow.
I felt frozen on a precipice. The scream that had ripped from my throat—the fear, both mine and his, that had overtaken me when the mud and trees ripped him from view—they told a story I didn’t feel ready to acknowledge.
Like the taste of fresh berries in my mouth now.
Alysa wanted her husband’s safe return. There was a desperation in the tight lines of her body that she worked hard to cover.
What did I want? I’d said the words that showed my broken heart. He hadn’t seemed surprised. He’d known.
He’d apologized. Since leaving Kavios, he’d strove to treat me as a partner, someone to talk to, someone to process with, but I’d shut him down at every turn.
If Hart and I broke this curse, or if we freed him from the goddesses’ game … if we overtook the Blessed and made the kingdom safe for humans, where would that leave us? Maybe the question didn’t matter. The list of everything left to do was long.
I’d accepted Alysa’s—and Harrow’s—evidence as fact; Hart would return.
As I stood in my spot overlooking the steep climb up to the mountain pass, I felt a bit like how I imagined a newborn foal did. My legs wobbled slightly, my stomach was a bit unsettled, and my gaze continually raked across the horizon.
No movement—yet.
But it would come.
Exhaustion overwhelmed me as the rain finally lightened.
More quickly than it had started, the downpour turned to a drizzle and stopped.
Alysa and I returned to camp. I mustered the strength to help with meal preparations, to ensure my parents were safe and secure, and to find somewhere on the not-quite-solid ground to sleep.
My parents offered me space in their tent, but there were too many others who needed shelter more.
The stew warmed my insides enough that I bedded down beside one of the fires.
Alysa ensured everyone ate and reassured those who were also missing family members or friends.
Her work was tireless and seemingly unrecognized.
As most found their own beds and the settlement quieted, I remembered the way my stomach had plummeted watching the mudslide. A chill crept over my spine again as I remembered the pure panic—the cold fear—that had overtaken me.
It had shocked even me. My fear for Hart had been bone deep, and brought with it an understanding I’d fought at every turn.
But I hadn’t told him. There was no way that counted for the trial.
Then again, Hart hadn’t precisely told me his fear that Eris would kill me before his gem glowed purple. I had observed it. That had been enough.
Something in me had shifted with my scream, with the disappearance of Hart from view.
Whether it was fear of losing him or fear of the unwanted knowledge of what Hart still meant to me, I couldn’t be sure.
He had to have tasted it, though. If his side of our connection was the same as mine, he had to know that my fear had been for him.
Right?
The answer hung around my neck. I only needed to be brave enough to check.
I’d wrapped the pendant and tucked it away. The lights didn’t emanate through the layers of fabric. My fingers toyed with the outline of the necklace beneath my blouse.
“Go on, Chaos. We can check together.” His voice was warmer than the fire, and it set my insides aflame.
My body moved of its own accord, sitting up as he knelt beside me. “Hart.”
He left space between us, but I wanted none. I threw my arms around his neck, and with only a moment’s hesitation, his strong arms circled me.
“It’s alright. I’m here.” He stroked the back of my head slowly. I didn’t realize until he repeated his words that my body shook. His soothing movements were meant to calm, but all they seemed to do was ignite.
“I thought…” I thought I lost you. And I wasn’t prepared for that.
He nodded, and I could feel the movement against the side of my face. He wouldn’t make me say it—not now.
The strength of his hold calmed the raging turmoil inside me. We sat that way for so long the fire dimmed. “Let me grab some more logs,” I said, searching for a way to gracefully separate.
He watched me cast around for the few dry pieces of wood that the first wave of residents had brought wrapped in the tent tarps. This, too, had been an ingenious stroke of Alysa and Reid’s planning.
“Is Reid back?” I asked.
Hart nodded. “There were four of us, caught in the mudslide. One man, Peter, was injured. I think his leg is broken, but we carried him up. That’s what took us so long.”
“How did you avoid getting buried? The trees, the mud, it came right for you.”
His laugh was low, but I found nothing funny about it. “Yes, if I needed any more evidence that this was Themis’s action, I’d say that the movement of the mudslide was it.”
I couldn’t muster a response. It was one thing for Eris to warn us of Themis’s retaliation, another to experience it. And this wasn’t solely directed at me. It was targeted at weakening us, weakening our support system. The Storm had been our shelter outside of Kavios, and now they were unmoored.
“I don’t know if you really want to know this, but I promised I wouldn’t protect you from information again,” Hart said.
My lips flattened into a thin line. “Tell me.”
“As the mudslide overtook us, I had this moment where I wondered why I kept fighting Themis. All of this could have been avoided if I had only done what she asked. It was the most terrifying thought I’d ever had, but then I heard your scream—an echo from the mountaintop, that beacon calling me.”
The necklace felt heavier as he spoke. If he’d heard my scream, there was really no hiding the fear it articulated. I touched the pendant.
“I’ve never felt anything like it before. But whatever influence she exerted dissolved with that scream. I had to get back to you. We had more to do. I needed to learn what that scream meant. I got so … angry at Themis, and my choices, at everything that stood between me and what I wanted.”
Everything about his story felt terrifying.
He described a goddess influencing her Champion’s mind.
Yet, when I met his gaze, he didn’t seem focused on that aspect of his story.
Instead, his intense focus dared me to ask the question his last sentence provoked.
I found myself desperate for the answer. “What did you want?”
Tiny flecks of gold in his green eyes seemed to dance in the early morning light, and the corner of his lip curled into that smirk I never knew what to do with. “You, Chaos. Always you.”
My mouth was dry. Words no longer formed on my tongue.
Hart didn’t seem bothered as he continued. “Reid was beside me. He wore his ring. He had anger stored. He channeled strength and dug us free.”
I couldn’t imagine it. The mudslide had grown to its largest size at the base of the mountain. He had to have crawled through feet of mud. “I couldn’t … feel you. I didn’t feel our separation with the curse.”
“I suspect…” He glanced at me. “That was part of Themis’s attempt to exert her influence over me in our separation.
I can’t imagine where else thoughts of capitulating to her might have come from.
With everything I’ve done, I’ve never wanted to give in to her.
” He cleared his throat. “As I said in Linia, being with you seems to dull the throne’s influence—her influence. I think she saw a chance and took it.”
My body buzzed with sensation even as fear snaked through me with his words. Themis had tried to influence him directly? That was a very different approach from her continued attacks on me and our place of refuge.
“What about the others?” I asked, searching for a neutral question.
He held up hands still coated in drying mud. “We dug them all out.”
His determination had always been a driving force. And what was this? His determination to return to me? Those piercing green eyes saw too much, I was sure, but he didn’t make me unspool the tangled threads inside.
Instead, his gaze dropped to where the adamas pendant lay beneath my blouse. “Let’s see it, Chaos.”
I couldn’t glance up at him as I pulled the pendant free and unwrapped it. The purple glow was unavoidable. He’d heard my scream. He’d heard and known my fear before I could acknowledge it for what it was. That seemed enough for the magic. I wasn’t sure at this point if it was enough for me.
My hands itched to wrap around him, to pull him down atop me and get lost in his heat and the reassurance I knew his body could provide. But there was too much left unknown between us. We’d agreed to the trials, but what next? What did he want?
He said he wants you.
My mind still said that those were just pretty words, even if my heart raced with that idea. He was the son of a king. He led the Feared. As this entire event had just shown, he was still Themis’s Champion. All of that was unavoidable.
Hart had been raised to be like Alysa and Reid, to go to lengths I couldn’t imagine for those he led. He would be a good leader for the city if we could free him from Themis’s summons. He knew how to put people first. I wasn’t sure he followed my train of thought as I blurted my next question.
“Will you take the throne if we free you from Themis’s obligation?” He studied me, his brow raised, like he wasn’t quite sure how to answer, so I continued. “You were raised for it. The city will need stability.”
His hand ran through his hair, tugging at the roots in what might have been frustration.
“We need to decide what we want to do together. I’m not making a decision without you.
I agree that we’ve made progress.” He gestured to the pendant.
“If we can keep this up, then unseating my father is next, but that won’t be easy.
We need to know if the Storm stands with us, and we need to meet with the Feared. ”
I nodded, ideas already spiraling on every thread he mentioned.
If Hart and I had our own adamas, the fear we could wield would be hard to counter.
It would give us the edge we needed against the Blessed.
First, we needed to finish these trials, and I couldn’t help but notice that Hart had avoided my comment about freeing him from Themis.
“We need to figure this out.” I pointed at the dragon’s eye.
“Get some rest, Chaos. We’ve got more work with the other three gems before we can conquer the seventh stone.”
I clutched the adamas in my hand and mentally played through the missing pieces. We had anger, sadness, and fear. The knots in my stomach tightened as I realized what he’d said. The emotions we had to conquer left me feeling sick: envy, joy, and lust.