Page 123 of The Heart Trials

“They have! You.”

Caelus paces in a circle. “You talk about Skyhaven as if I belong there. I don’t belong anywhere. Especially not there. I don’t buy their lies. I don’t enjoy their games. I don’t fit. Either way, the original plan is too risky. It’s dead. Done.”

“Giving up is the wrong decision.” I still him with a hand on his arm. His tortured gaze meets mine, and I can feel the weight of the world in his stare.

He runs his thumb down my jawline, and my skin feels like fire. His stare softens into something so kind it feels slippery and sharp. “I’m sorry, Axira. We’re not doing it anymore. It’s over.”

“It’s not over!” I throw the words at him, trembling, holding back all the things I wish I could say.

“It is!” His eyes are dark with frustration but rimmed with worry.

I shove him in the chest. “Why would you just back out? After everything? After Finn, and Orrick and Lira. So they died for nothing? It was all for nothing. Why!”

“Because I love you! That’s why, Axira! In a way that doesn’t make sense. If we keep playing this game, you will get killed! I am putting you on a ship off this island!”

I can’t move. He loves me. He loves me.

And I love him.

But if I say it aloud, if it’s heard and felt, I can’t snatch it back.

And our fragile hold on surviving all of this will shatter.

“Did you hear me?” he asks.

I blink, hard, forcing myself back to my senses. Caelus is right. If this tournament gets shut down because Rhythe and Ivy are discovered to be rebels, there won’t be any true-love magic to steal. I should go as soon as I can. There’s no point in waiting.

I swallow. Caelus brushes a stray strand of hair from my face, tucking it gently behind my ear. His fingers linger, tracing the line of my cheek, the curve of my jaw, the shape of my lips. Every place he touches burns in the best way.

I let my eyes shut, drinking in the feel of him. I try to memorize it—the warmth of his fingertips, the quiet reverence in his touch—as if I could tuck it away, hide it somewhere safe that doesn’t cost me. I hold myself there, trying to capture every feeling and thought that’s rushing through me. If I’m going to make it on a ship with Serafina, I will have to let him go, completely.

His lips graze my forehead. His fingers thread into my hair. “Love killed my mother, Axira,” he murmurs. “She loved the people of this country in a way that broke all the rules, and it got her killed. My Saltblood mother.”

I suck in a breath.

Saltblood. Caelus is half Saltblood.

“No. That’s impossible. The Beloved? She can’t be from—”

“She grew up in Anchor’s Alley, over by Brine End by that little repair shop.”

“Fisher’s Gate. They do sails and rope repairs for Ferdy.”

His brows dent.

“Someone from home.” I never met the Beloved, but everyone knows about her death.

“There used to be a statue of her in Commerce Quarter, but my father had it taken down for repairs. It never went back up. He named her the Beloved, but he didn’t actually love her. The irony is everyone else did. But they didn’t know about her lowborn blood.” He laughs softly. It’s bitter. “It’s one of the palace’s best-kept secrets. If the Skyborn knew, they wouldn’t love her or me. A half-breed Saltblood? They’d hear: rebel. They’d slaughter me.” He exhales like the weight of the world is on his breath.

“I can’t let you meet her fate,” he says.

His words are like a hot stone in my hand. I don’t know what to do with them. I have to let them go. His mother. His poor mother. The cost of love is always too high. I have to get on that ship.

We hold each other, but I already feel him slipping away. My heart is hardening, my mind planning. Focus on Serafina.

We pull apart.

“Alright, let’s get to the top,” I say. “And get me on a ship.”