“Don’t.” The single word slices through my pathetic attempt at making light of the situation. Her gaze locks onto mine, and for a heartbeat, gold sparks in her eyes.
I drop the facade, sadness slumping my shoulders.
“I have to be ready to leave.” I let my socks fall out of my hand into my pack. “After the ceremony tonight, Akila will come to bring me home.”
“Home?”
“Yes, home.” I dig through the pack as if I’m looking for something, but really I just need something to do with my hands. “The Outer Lands. Creek Falls.”
Her breathing quickens. When I look up again, her nostrils are flared and her pupils have sharpened to narrow slits, every line of her body wound tight. She exhales hard through her nose, forcing her shoulders down.
“Don’t you think we should talk about this first?”
“What’s there to talk about?” I ask, resigned. I don’t want this to be more painful than it already is.
“Ethan.”
“When I first came here, all I wanted was to find out what happened to Thea. Now I know that she’s safe. She’s happy.”
My hand tightens around the pack’s worn leather strap.Don’t look at her.
“Then we happened, and my whole world changed. But Stasio and Xander sign the treaty tonight. I’ve kept my promise to serve as Truth Seer until the summit ends, but the Alpha King’s sanction for me to be here expires with that. Akila can slip me out during the afterparty, when nobody’s paying attention.”
She takes two steps closer, then stops, like she’s hit an invisible wall. The leather groans as her hands clutch her hips. “So you were just going to sneak out of here without saying anything to me?”
I finally turn to face her. She’s studying me the way she’d study the map of a battlefield, searching for every vantage point, except she’s biting her lower lip.
“We’re out of time, Rhiannon.” I hold her gaze. “This has always been the plan, and we don’t have another one. It’s the only way to keep us both safe.”
She flinches. A micro-movement — barely there — but I catch it. I catch the way her lips press together, the slight upward pull of her brow. Her gaze shifts from my pack to the doorway. For just a second, her control slips and it shows on her face.
My grip on the strap loosens. The words sounded wrong the second they left my mouth, but it’s too late now. I can’t take them back.
“That was before,” she says.
“Before?”
Her mouth opens, then clamps shut. Her gaze flits again to the sorted piles on the bed like they’re a snake in the grass.
Neither of us speaks, and I watch her wrestle with the silence.This woman who commands an entire guard, who threw herself in front of a blade for me, is struggling to find words. Just like I am.
“Before everything.” Her tone is sharp, but her voice splinters on the last syllable. “You agreed that we wouldn’t push each other away anymore. That we’d fight for what we have until there’s nothing left to fight for.”
The truth of her words spreads through me like a crack through glass.
She’s right.I said those words. I meant them, but. . .I guess I thought I would feel more effectual when it came time for us tofigure out our next move. Instead, once we’d returned from the temple, life at Kortan picked right back up at the same pace as before, and my final days as a permitted guest passed with me being laid up in an infirmary bed. Now, I’m a fugitive once again, my life and hers hanging in the balance.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what to do. I still don’t belong in Clarion.”
“Why would you say that?” Her tone softens. She closes the distance between us. “We took down Holdenbecauseof you. This Peace Treaty never would have—”
“I’m dead weight.” The pack jumps on the bed as I shove it away from me.
“What?”
I cross to the window, pressing my palms flat against the cool stone ledge. Below, the garden stretches out in midday light, the bright cheeriness mocking my mood.
“Do you know what plays on repeat every time I close my eyes?” I squeeze my eyes shut, digging my thumb and forefinger into the bridge of my nose like I’m physically pained by what’s burned into my memory.
