Its branches bow under the weight of plump, green fruit being gathered and placed in baskets by a pair of Aeshlians shrouded in brown cloaks.
The woman tucks a drape of hair behind her thorny ear, her attention coming to rest on me.
I quickly look away.
Seeing them the other day rocked me to the core. I’d stumbled back to our nest in disbelief, suddenly exhausted, certain I was going to wake and realize it was all a dream. That I wouldn’t be forced to look into the eyes of the ones I’d failed and pretend that nothing happened.
So I did just that—for days.
Avoided.
This morning, Vicious took me by the hand and dragged me out the door, leading me down the too-familiar path to the oasis—extorting her unique power over my impulses. Perhaps knowing I’d fucking follow her anywhere.
‘Get apple!’
Clearing my throat, I stuff a loose shard of crystal in the pocket of my holey shorts that Vicious pulled from her ramshackle pile. ‘There. Treasure in my pocket. Now shut up about the apples,’ I grind out, gaze drifting to Vicious.
‘Precious little savage one. Mine.’
She’s cross-legged in a patch of tilled soil, dressed in her too-big shirt, her slender, sun-kissed legs covered in dirt. Her hair is a shock of white scribble, eyes like the burning horizon.
My insides ignite.
‘Yes.’ I swallow thickly. ‘Yours …’
Two children totter about, cast beneath her watchful eye. The smallest plays in the dirt, lustrous curls bouncing about her heart-shaped face while she piles soil into heaps she pats into different shapes. The other can’t be older than six, her hair longer, one side woven into braids adorned with crystal beads. She rips vegetables from the soil, inspecting each with a serious look as she dusts them off, piling them in a basket she could curl up inside.
She offers a carrot to Vicious, who frowns for a long moment before taking it.
Biting it.
Her face screws up, and she spits orange chunks into the soil, then wipes her tongue with the sleeve of her shirt to the bursting tune of the child’s laughter.
The faintest smile tilts my lips, disappearing when I feel the woman Aeshlian watching me again, filling my chest with a tidal wave of guilt.
Does she recognize me?
Hold me accountable?
I wouldn’t blame her if she did. If she shoved me against a spire and swore in my face, tears streaking down her cheeks.
This oasis … It used to be home forscoresof Aeshlians going about their daily tasks: hacking tools from chunks of crystal, tending crops, preparing vegetables to be baked in ovens dug into the soil. Children frolicking in the stream, picking wildflowers in the sun. Happy and carefree.
A pure existence now tainted.
A slashing memory strikes—of petrified screams bouncing between the spires. Of the sea air soured with the potent tang of blood that splashed the soil near the base of that supersized apple tree. A tree that appears to have gobbled up the offer like it was freely given, expanding from the unnatural punch of light it took from the Aeshlian blood.
My chin falls to my chest.
‘Get the apple!’
I groan.
Sensing movement to my left, my heart lurches, eyes widening when Anver sits beside me—arms draped across his bent knees, hands clasped together. A fur pelt accentuates his broad shoulders, his hair shorn on both sides, framing thorned ears, the rest twisted in a rope of beaded braids that fall down his spine.
He turns his head, exposing a scar slashed through his brow and eye that wasn’t there last time I saw him, his strong jawline and chiseled cheekbones softened by the fine elegance of his ethereal breed. “It’s been a long time, old friend.”
His gruff voice rolls like barreling waves thumping against my chest.
