Page 121 of The Heart Trials

But when I open my eyes, he is holding Ivy by the arm, rushing her back into the forest.

40

Caelus.

When Rhythe and Ivy disappear into the trees, I jolt into motion, rushing back for the tent. The last I saw the prince, he and Kade were in a brawl with no clear winner. A deep, aching fatigue scrapes at my limbs. I stagger into the forest, the ground tilting beneath my feet, time unraveling at the edges. The antidotes. We have to get them before sunrise the day after tomorrow, and before we can start our descent. We’re running out of time. My limbs feel too heavy, too slow—like I’m dragging my bones through mud.

“Caelus?” I call out.

But there is no screech of metal. No cries. No movement. Just silence—thick, dead silence pressing in from all sides. My eyes strain in the darkness, searching wildly for Kade’s hulking shadow, for Talia’s thin frame, for anyone. Panic buzzes through me, setting my nerves alight.

The world sways. I stumble and throw out my arms to steady myself, and my fingers brush against canvas. The tent. I lean into it, then collapse to my knees and force out a breath. The weight of the last hour crashes down at once—every sprint, every blow, every choice. My body is raw and rattling. Scrapes burn across my arms and legs, blood drying against torn fabric.

I lower myself to the ground. It takes effort. Every part of me screams for stillness.

“Caelus?” I try again. My voice comes out like a scratch.

“Axira!” Caelus bursts from the shadows like wind through trees. He drops to his knees and gathers me into his arms with a strength that startles me, holding me like I am something precious. There’s just his heartbeat now, steady and real against my cheek. I bury my face beneath his chin. He’s still alive.

“Caelus.” His name escapes my lips like a breath. In the clear sky, the moon shines bright, illuminating his face, which is a ruin—battered, bloodied, his left eye swelling, lip split wide. Cuts score his jaw, his brow, his temple. His clothes hang in tatters, streaked with sweat and red. He doesn’t speak, just holds me tighter. And I let him. Just for another minute.

“I thought they took you…and—” The knot at his throat bobs. “You’re okay.”

“I thought Rhythe was going to kill me,” I say. “But he didn’t. Caelus, he could have shoved me off the edge, but he didn’t. Why?”

“I assumed my father sent him to kill me. But…” Caelus exhales. “There’s something else, Axira. Do you know about the Redwake?”

I blink, and I can still see Miss Omon’s haunted stare, the eerie way her gray eyes became hollow when she spoke of the rebellion. The children standing beside graves in those framed pictures in my room at the palace. Goose bumps race up my skin. “I’m Saltblood. I know the Redwake.”

“Ivy left her bag,” he says in a rush. “I went through it. I probably shouldn’t have. But look.”

The journal’s faded pink cover is tattered and peeling at the edges. It’s covered in dozens of tiny flowers—each one folded by hand from scraps of paper, some yellowed with age, others torn from old flyers, ration slips, and crinkled wrappers. In the center are the words Let It Bloom.

Caelus cracks open the dry pages to one with a folded edge. “Read this.”

I settle in beside him.

Sylvie,

Jackie wasn’t at the market today. No one has seen her. I’m trying not to panic, but people don’t just miss market days anymore—they disappear.

Old Lady Ruby was sewing bright-red ribbons again last night. She wouldn’t tell me why. She kept saying to stay quiet, threatening to make me hold my hand over my heart like I’m a little kid again. That scared me more than the ribbons. I took another filler. I can’t tell if it’s helping.

Brine End feels like it’s falling apart. Smoke from the Citadel reached us this morning. People say Grainfolk burned a permit office, Saltbloods tore down the Benevolent’s statue—no one knows what’s true, only that something big is happening.

The food carts haven’t come in forever. Mother says not to touch the fish; she thinks the guards poisoned the shore. I don’t know what to believe, but the water looks strange.

They’re calling for help with the children. I have to go.

Write soon,

Gloria

My hands are frozen. “This is a journal from a rebel family.” I swallow, hard, looking over the cover again, feeling the age of the pages. I was so young when the Redwake happened, fifteen years ago. Ivy doesn’t look older than me. “Her birth parents were killed in the rebellion.”

“If it’s not her mother’s, it’s from someone she knows well. How else could she get her hands on something so personal?”

“She brought it with her here, which is a risk. That tells me it’s important to her. Very important.” I still, trying to piece together an image in my mind of being one of those children in the photograph in my room, standing over graves dug for their parents.