Page 111 of Stormbreaker

I feel small and insignificant when I stand under the sky like this. It stretches so far, and I again think of all those worlds that once existed. The countries and cities and billions of people who once crowded this planet. I wonder if it’ll ever be like that again.

“My home is comfortable,” Rook says, picking up the conversation from before like we never left it. “My parents are the best. My dad is my hero, and my brothers and sister are little pains in the ass, but I love them all.”

I wait, sensing he has more to say.

“But it hasn’t always been an easy life.” He waves a hand at the sky. “We’ve had to do what we must to survive.”

I sense something he can’t bring himself to say buried in that statement.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again. “I shouldn’t have assumed—”

He shakes his head. “I understand what you’re told about us, and why would you know any different?”

I sigh, yet again feeling like a complete ass. “You’re letting me—all of us—off too easily with that.”

He shoots me a dark look, softened by reflections of purple in the darkness of his pupils.

“We’re your enemy, Poet. Don’t forget that. My people would come into this city and take everything if they could. One day, they might.”

There’s no threat in his words, just a statement of fact. This is what we’ve always been told. I blink because that’s the first time he’s ever said my name, and I like how it sounds coming from his mouth.

But it also brings with it the reminder of who and what he is.

Of who we both are, and that we’re standing on opposite ends of a chasm.

Another flash in the distance draws both our attention.

“Who was Raine?” he asks, so softly I almost don’t hear it.

“How did—”

“That guy—he said something when you were arguing in the hall.”

“Knox.”

“Whatever,” Rook says. “I don’t give a shit what his name is. He’s a fucking asshole.”

I laugh because he really is.

“My older brother, Raine. He was a Breaker,” I say. “A group of Solitudes tried to sneak into the city via his Storm Tower, the Guard was overwhelmed, and . . . He was killed in the fight.”

I blow out a breath of a thousand shards stitched together. “I miss him every day.”

Rook is silent, and then he asks, “How old was he?”

“Twenty-two. Way too young.”

“I’m sorry,” he says after a minute. “There’s too much needless death in this place.”

My gaze jumps to his because this, too, is bordering on something he shouldn’t be giving voice to, especially now that he’s pledging to Aria.

He will be one of us soon.

But then I say, “Yeah. Maybe.”

Another bright flash draws us to the horizon as the storm moves closer, the clouds swelling and fighting for space. Glowing points of light grow larger, spreading out.

“It’s coming,” I whisper, and I feel him nod.