“I don’t need to know the exact words being said to know they aren’t true.”
“ButIdon’t know they aren’t true. You keep telling me to trust you, but I can’t. Not when you’re still plucking us off the island against our will.”
He lets out a sigh through his nose. “I hope one day you’ll understand.”
“I won’t understand why you’re rounding them up and turning them against everyone else. You’re taking away their chance?—”
“I didn’t take anything away from them. The island already did that. I don’t turn anyone against anyone, princess.” His voice is tinged with frustration, but he doesn’t raise it. “Have I once said anything to turn you against them? Have I tried to make you hate Dane? Despite everything being said about me?”
My mouth opens, but no words come out. He’s right. He hasn’t ever said or done anything besides acknowledge the Voyagers exist. He’s never coerced me to change my mind about anyone, or said anything about Dane, other than they don’t see eye to eye.
Have I been believing he is manipulating me, simply because I was told that is what Weston does? Was my reality tainted by my previous perceptions?
Every thing that has happened, that I thought was a manipulation, was only because my mind saw it as such.
And I saw it that way because Dane told me I should.
Now I don’t know who to trust, Dane or Weston.
But there’s one piece that I can’t write off, that I need to know the truth. If Weston wasn’t actually trying to take the waters for himself, stealing it from anyone deemed worthy, that means he came here for someone he wanted to heal, and he is trapped like the rest of us. But if he didn’t, then I know this entire conversation has been a game.
“Did you even come here for someone?”
Tension fills the small space between us as I wait for his answer. I turn and watch him intently, trying to find any clue or tell that he’s lying to my face.
When he does finally speak, his voice is thick with emotion.
“I did truly come here for someone. I came for a friend.”
He drops his gaze to the rail, then back out toward the mountain, looking anywhere but at me. His normally emotionless face has faltered, his lips curved down in a slight frown.
Is Weston sad?
The thought seems so foreign for this grumpy, overbearing captain.
“A woman friend?” My heart beats a little faster as I wait for confirmation.
“Technically, yes.”
“She must mean a lot to you if you are willing to sacrifice everything for her.”
“She does.” His throat bobs with a hard swallow and my heart sinks, but I choose to ignore it. Who Weston has waiting for him back home is none of my concern.
“How do you know she’s still waiting for you after all this time?” I ask.
“I just have a feeling.” He stays fixated on the waterfall, and I know he isn’t avoiding my eyes out of dishonesty. He doesn’t want me to see the emotion hiding behind them.
I think Weston is telling the truth.
What it must be like to have a love last this long, over time and space, through magic and uncertainty; to be so thoroughly connected to another person that you would know they are still alive.
I’d always hoped for a love like that, like the love in the stories I read, but that kind of love isn’t written for me. That kind of love doesn’t exist for a princess with a duty to her kingdom.
I swallow down the lump forming in my throat and look down at my boots, hoping he, too, doesn’t see the emotion in me.
“I hope you make it back to her,” I murmur.
We stand side by side for a while, neither of us moving, only staring out at the entrance to the mountain. I wait, anticipating the same question, but he never asks it. He’s never asked who I sought Dawnlin for, or if the island deemed me worthy.
