Ember nodded, still standing where I left her. The three of them stood silent, staring at one another, ancient sentinels, awash with power. As I made my way to the stairs, I heard the click of Ember’s heels, and the hissed question. “Where the fuck did you get that sword, Vela?”
This was a conversation I wanted nothing to do with. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed. I still had an informant to talk to. If I was going to make good on my pledge to Serafine DuVal, I should start immediately. There was no turning back now. We had swords to steal.
CHAPTER 26
EMBER
Ares disappeared down the stairs.I wondered if he knew how serious the pledge he’d made to Serafine was. It was his to make, and I did not begrudge him the chance to make amends, but the danger of it all worried me far more than I liked to admit. Fucking Ares Necroline. A pain in my ass to the last.
My lips burned with the brand of his kiss, of the touch that saved him from the plinth. His ignorance was evident in the fact that he’d trusted Rhiannon so implicitly. That he’d given the plinth a part of him without knowing what it might ask for in return.
Rhiannon and I would have words later for this. Now I had to deal with Max and that sword. She guided Sera, who moved well, but slowly, past me, towards her own door. I touched Max’s arm. “Before you go, I need to know where you got that, and why you thought it was all right not to tell me you had it.”
Sera shook her head, as though she were disappointed. She looked too tired for this. “Let her go on,” I bit out. “They know she’s coming, and she doesn’t need you to get through the portal.”
Max opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hand. “I have given you nearly twenty years, Vela. I have respected yourdevotion to Sera. I have been more than kind. You will stay and report out.”
Sera pushed Max gently from supporting her. “She’s right, and you know it.”
I touched her arm lightly. “I am happy to see you looking so well.”
She bowed her head. So she was still angry with me, despite that ethereal calm that came over her. I deserved that. She had to wait too long for this, and I could own that. “I made many mistakes, Sera. But I must ask before you go through. Do you also have your sword?”
I knew the answer. If she had, she would be healed already. She wouldn’t need to go home. “No,” she whispered. “Please. Find it for me.”
“We will,” I promised, before pressing a kiss of my own to her pale cheek. “Go get well.”
As she moved slowly towards her door, I turned back to Max. It was an effort, but I kept every bit of fury and resentment I held deep within me. If I wanted things to go my way, I could not show my feelings. “Report out.”
Max glared at me.
“Please, Max.”
Her jaw tightened. “On one condition.”
I sighed. “You can give it, but I do not have to accept it. You owe me your report, regardless.”
Still, she glared. Max and I had never been close. It was a bit of a surprise when she’d been assigned to my cohort, as she’d always been closer with the Aradios Maere. But the key had always been Sera. They’d been friends since they were children. Best friends—and until I understood more about Max, at one time I’d wondered if they would be more.
Finally, Max sighed. “When she’s well, I want a trade to Aradios. Out of your unit, away from this hole.”
My head tilted to the side. “Why?”
Her eyes fell as the rosiness in her cheeks deepened. “I’m not doing her any good. I make everything worse for her…”
A hollow in my chest that I tried desperately to ignore ached in response to her words. The loneliness in her statement. That they could spend an eternity together, but it would never be enough. They could love one another to the greatest of their capacity, and it would still be wrong for both of them. My heart broke to think of it.
Max stared at her sword. “I can’t give her what she needs… I can’t love her the way she wants me to. And she?—”
Max practically choked on the words she could not speak. There was nothing in the world that would make her speak ill of Sera, not even the fact that Sera would always want things from Max that Max couldn’t give her.
It was easy to be angry with them when they were gone. When they were not so real, so whole, so complicated. All my resentment washed away. If I’d ever fantasized about punishing the two of them, that made no sense now. All I wanted was peace, for all of us.
I pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Max.” She looked up at me, her lovely brown eyes full of pain as she finally made eye contact with me. “You shouldn’t have to change for anyone—and Sera wouldn’t want that, would she?”
Tears welled in the other Maere’s eyes. She shook her head. “She’s told me a thousand times she understands that I am not built the way she is—that she doesn’t expect me to fuck her, or love her the way she loves me.” The words spilled out of her along with her tears. “But she won’t move on either. I love her more than anyone… but it hurts me too.”
I drew Max to me, letting her sob against my shoulder. She might want to leave us—mightneedto leave us—but we had spent lifetimes together. Eons. I would miss her. But this wasn’t about me.
