Page 74 of The Heart Trials

“We’ve got until noon to meet at the tea shop. That gives us the whole morning.” The storm in his eyes shifts—lit now with something bright and wild. He crumples the paper in his fist. “I’ve got something more exciting in mind.”

23

“Come on,” Caelus says, his hand finding mine with deliberate ease. “Before anyone sees us sneaking off. Skyhaven has a face it shows the world, but I want you to see its heart.”

Our gazes catch like a secret as I slip my hand in his, and he leads me away from the Heartstage, out of the Arts Quarter. Elegant facades line the streets as we exit—masked galleries, towering performance halls. Everywhere we turn is art. Dancers float across crystal-floored studios under the watchful eyes of mentors. Painters sweep bold strokes across stone walls, some depicting the Benevolent in battle, others re-creating the Skyborn crest in dizzying, intricate patterns.

Caelus moves fast, tugging me down the avenue. Excitement rises in me like a wave. A smile bites at my lips as we rush past the marble arches and glistening studios, leaving their curated beauty behind.

The scents of perfumed blooms and sweet smoke start to fade, and I am relieved to be away from it as we tumble into the Commerce Quarter. We rush past shop windows shimmering with fabrics, glittering Authorized Scents vials on velvet trays, and statues arranged so their shoulders brush or their foreheads are bowed together as if mid-confession. Vendors’ voices trail us like silk ribbons. The streets gleam underfoot, polished too clean, too bright.

But it’s the Matched Quarter that slows my steps. Here everything feels made for closeness. The buildings even lean inward. Soft music hums from inside pleasure parlors, and fountains shaped like cupped hands bubble at every corner—sweet, floral, spiced with something heavy and unfamiliar. It coils through my senses like smoke. Before I can stop it, my skin begins to prickle. There’s a new Scent hanging in the air on the next corner. And the corner after that, one building on the other. My head pulses with pressure as we cross the next street—like too many feelings are being pushed into a space meant to hold far fewer.

My breath catches. My pulse stutters. I’ve smelled Scents before, but so many intense feelings all at once are hitting me differently. The air feels warmer against my neck, softer on my wrists. I’m suddenly aware of the way my clothes brush my skin and the feel of Caelus’s soft hand in mine, pulling me along.

It’s not real. I know what the Scents do. But knowing doesn’t stop the heat from rising up my throat, or the flicker of want that sparks low in my stomach like a match catching flame. Like the Scents can bypass the mind and speak straight to the body. I try to focus on walking, but even that feels complicated. Like every step leaves a trail of longing I don’t understand.

“Faster? Can we walk faster?” I need to get out of here.

Caelus picks up the pace, seemingly unaffected, much more used to these Scents than I am. We pass couples tangled around each other in little alcoves, some touching fingers, some staring into each other’s eyes. A pair of lovers play in each other’s long hair, pausing for kissing. Other faces are pressed together so close for so long I can’t see where one person ends and the other begins. How much of this love on display is manufactured by the Benevolent? How much of any of this is real? How much is designed to make them worship the Benevolent more, to believe his lies until they become everything Skyborn are. I think of Syra.

Once we reach the outer limits of the Quarter, the overwhelming fragrance dies down. Caelus finally slows as we approach a narrow alleyway between two shops. He wedges himself in first, pulling me along until we reach a rusted compatibility chamber. He gives the back wall a firm push, and it juts open to a cracked stairwell.

The world that opens up at the bottom smells like earth and smoke, gritty and alive. It’s an entire underground village, stretching farther than I can see. Unrestrained laughter bounces off uneven stone walls that glow softly like scrap Heartfillers. There are no polished steel corridors or mirrors down here. Mismatched lanterns hang from the ceiling, each with its own age and story. I touch one, then another.

“Welcome to the Hollow,” he says.

“What is this place?”

“Technically it’s the inside of a volcano.”

“You know what I mean.” But before he can answer, music skitters through the air, high-pitched and erratic, a melody of tunes impossible to follow with pattern or form. People start moving in rhythm, contorting their bodies, howling and laughing.

“Do you dance?” Caelus asks, and everything in me goes rigid. I’ve never been asked to dance. I’ve seen people do it a few times: once after someone died and another time when Nichol and the others were being silly, moving to the music they called it, when we were out fishing by the stream. Mae seems to know a bit more about it. She braved it at elimination.

Caelus moves his body like the music is water and he’s at the mercy of its motion.

“Try it.” He inches us closer to the dancing crowd.

“I can’t.”

“Axira.” He claps a few times with everyone else. Then, plants his hands on his hips, doing some kind of fancy move with his feet. “Let yourself feel it.”

I don’t feel anything but dread. Caelus dances around me, clapping every time he meets my eyes.

Badda, bum, badda, bum bum bum.

He stops his foot and claps some more. His hair is wild. He doesn’t look like the Prince of Ethyria. He doesn’t look like a Skyborn at all. He looks like something unrecognizable. Something too daring to reach for.

Badda, bum, badda, bum bum bum.

He folds one hand behind his back doing the footwork again. With the other he reaches for me.

“Uh.”

Badda, bum, badda, bum bum bum.

“Axira, the Saltblood, scared of a little dance?” He stares at me, and I realize I don’t know what he’s thinking, or why we’re doing all this…None of it has to do with our mission to steal the magic at the Ascension Ceremony, but Caelus just grins as if dancing with me is the only point.