“You were never my friend,” she said, chin trembling. “I realize that now. You let me believe you were because you pitied me.” Her mouth twisted. “Poor, ugly, mortal girl.”
That was too much.
He stepped toward her, remembering their last meeting as if it were yesterday. A moment ago. “Don’t say that.”
Tears trembled on her lashes. He swept them away before they spilled down her cheeks.
“I couldn’t come,” he said.
But how could he explain it? That seven years were like seven days to him? She wouldn’t understand.
Skye reached for him, gathering the shadows around him in her fist. “Take me with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Because I’m mortal.”
“Yes.”
“Then make me immortal.”
He stared at her. She didn’t know what she was asking. But he did. And the cost was unbearable.
“I can’t. You and I—”
But his words were lost in the softness of her mouth.
For a heartbeat, he remembered the berry she gave him all those yearsago. The way it made him ache for more.
Her kiss was crueler than that. Because this time what she offered, he knew he shouldn’t take.
But he did.
He devoured her, crushing her to him, needing all of her. When she cried out in pain, he realized he’d lost himself. Her kiss had awoken the god in him, and the god would destroy her.
Crow wrenched himself out of her grasp before that happened.
“Skye...” Even he could hear his now-human heart—the heart she’d given him—breaking in his words. “You and I can never be.”
Before she could stop him, he melted into shadow. Escaping her.
This time for good.
Fourteen
Safire wasn’t used to being confined to small spaces. The closet suffocated her. The ship itself was like a cage she couldn’t escape. How did Eris bear it, living aboard these things? Safire was used to running the hunting paths through the Rift with Asha. Used to prowling the palace or the city. Used to sparring with her soldats.
All her life, Safire had needed to move and keep herself strong—for her own survival.
Being confined like this was making her fray at the edges.
So, as Eris slept, Safire kept focused by doing sit-ups. As her upper body rose and fell, her muscles burning with the exertion, she devised a plan.
She might feel sorry for Eris, with her hands locked in those corrosive manacles, but the girl was a criminal. Just yesterday, she’d instructed Jemsin’s men to torture her for information. The moment Eris knew where the Namsara was, she would hunt Asha down and bring her to Jemsin. Safire couldn’t let that happen. The safest place for Eris to be was in the hands of theempress, who would decide what to do with her.
Kor was about to make this happen. It was in Safire’s best interest, therefore, to escape at the first opportunity, leaving Eris with the pirates.
But while her purposes might be temporarily aligned with Kor’s, Safire had seen the cruel look in his eyes. A cruelty he wouldn’t hesitate to dole out on Eris the next time he got her alone. Safire might want Eris locked away, but she didn’t want her hurt. And to escape was to leave her completely at Kor’s mercy.
