Zane caught her arm, avoiding the sight of those awful crimson stains. “Stay. Please.”
She sank down beside him.
Wind whistled past, and the crisp fall breeze chased away the stench of burning flesh. A whiff of it lingered in the air, turning his stomach, but a second breeze gusted past and swept the last of the artificial odors away.
Like a drowning man resurfacing, Zane gasped in mouthfuls of air.
Kalie’s fingers curled around his.
Usually, when he wound up sitting beside her with nightmares of Lys still seared into his mind, the comfort of being near her could calm him. Even on nights that they didn’t talk much, it was good to not feel so alone.
But now, the warmth of her touch wasn’t enough to chase away the icy fear coiling around his heart. He breathed in her cherry perfume, tangled with the musty scent of cut grass and the fresh air surrounding them. He listened to the rhythm of her breathing. He memorized how soft her fingers felt against his calloused skin.
All of it, he committed to memory. He knew how quickly it could be gone. How quickly itwouldbe gone, when Carik came for her.
He was trembling, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Kalie’s thumb brushed across his knuckles, tracing circles into his skin. “My best friend died the day before you met me.”
Zane froze.
Her eyes were glassy, as if she was somewhere else entirely. Probably there.
He’d been an ass back then, hours after she’d lost her family. And he’d never considered, even all these weeks later, that she’d lost others when her fleet was destroyed. That she knew the pain he’d felt as he screamed over Lysa’s body.
“We had this stupid saying. ‘From crib to crypt.’ Because she was a cl—because she was—” Kalie’s brows creased. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I say it now. She was my clone.”
Zane’s jaw dropped. There were rumors that the scientists on Vak’shad had developed tech for cloning, but those were recent. He’d never heard anything about Kalie having a clone.
“Well, notclone, not really,” Kalie said, the words hesitant and halting. “She was a gemod double—genetically modified to match me, before either of us were born…”
Her throat bobbed, and she let out a shuddering breath.
“It’s a long story. Too long to get into. We grew up together, and she was my best friend. The only person who really knew me, the other half of my soul. I loved her. But she… a Soror Res is sworn to lay down their life for the royal family. And… the day of the attack…” Kalie’s eyelashes fluttered as she blinked away tears. “That’s why I don’t want anyone else to die for me. I can’t—can’t livewith that.”
Zane followed her gaze to the grass stains on his dirty outfit.
He looked away, but her eyes lingered on him.
She wouldn’t push if he stayed silent. It was one of the things he liked about her. She was willing to listen on the rare occasions that he talked about his squad—not Lys, never Lys—but she didn’t force him to talk. She didn’t try to solve his problems with booze and sex, either, like Mira had on Santursi. That had been fun, but it hadn’t changed anything. It’d only made it worse. Kalie, though… She was light and warmth like the sun god she was named for, and talking to her, even if it was painful, made the weight on his shoulders a little lighter.
Zane took a shaky breath.
“I’ve loved Lysa since we were six cycles old.” He ran the beads of her military tag through his fingers. “I used to dream that I’d get Avington back and make her my baroness. We’d escape to a world free of war. Just her and I. Happy.”
He let go of the beads. The softness on Kalie’s face made his vision blur.
“I never considered that she didn’t know. I mean, she gave me chances to tell her. But I never did. I was a stupid, arrogant fool, and when she told me she was engaged, I… I couldn’t believe it.” A hot wave of shame burned in his chest at the memory of shattering glass. “I would’ve found a way to live with it. But at the engagement party, I got wasted. I told her I loved her, and her fiancé and I fought.”
He hated himself for it, but a vindictive thrill burned in his veins at the memory of her fiancé’s smashed-up face.
The memory of Lysa’s fury sobered him.
“She refused to talk to me. A few weeks later, our squad was ambushed. I told them all to run, I’d hold them off, and…” Zane wiped his eyes. “I got shot. She came back for me.”
As Kalie traced gentle circles across his knuckles, he took a shuddering breath.
“They shot her. She died in my arms.”
