Page 91 of The Heart Trials

I want to press my mouth right on his. Just to feel his breath on my lips. Just to be sure this is real. But if I do that, I’m not sure I’ll ever leave this tent. And I have to leave.

Let go.

This is dangerous.

This will cost you.

The minute I get up and cold sweeps between our bodies, something inside me tremors. And when I slip one hand under the flap of the tent, my chin tilts over my shoulder, as if drawn by an invisible thread. My stomach twists, aching like a pulse under my skin. I hate that I want to crawl back beside him, feel his chin resting on my head again, and breathe him in like he’s something I need.

I don’t.

I can’t.

I burn with a feeling that stokes my insides like embers. It feels like a promise. A wish that as good as it feels to be by him in this way, it will only get better if I stay.

What am I thinking? Caelus is the Skyborn prince.

And I am Saltblood. A Saltblood setting sail on a ship at the end of this death match.

I force my gaze away from him and try to leave again, gripping the tent folds tighter. But my mind races with memories of my father’s kiss on my mother’s forehead—his death sentence—the pain in Miss Omon’s eyes when I left Dockers Row, the ways I’ve seen Skyborn behave when they’re enraptured with one another, pamphlet after pamphlet reminding us that we wear chastity chains and touching gloves to protect us from love’s voracious appetite to desire and consume. A whisper tears through the recesses of my mind and seizes my heart.

Love?

Love.

If this is even a seed of being in love, it isn’t what I thought it was…

Suddenly this tent feels too small for two people. I reach for the tent flap again, slipping outside. Rhythe’s alliance is gathered around the firepit, staring longingly into the flames. Ivy is between Talia and Lira, who are muttering to one another, probably plotting my death. They have no idea what Rhythe and Ivy are secretly planning. Dorian and Mae are nowhere in sight.

I search through the fog and nearly crash into Kade. He’s holding an axe he must have brought from the Grainfolk district. I skid to a stop. He looks like hell. There is blood flaking along his hairline and on his linen robes. His knuckles are raw—split and swollen. He blinks at me for a second.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.

I step back.

“You did alright in the second trial, I see.”

“Where were—” But the rest of the words lodge in my throat as I recall Titus’s body. His throat wasn’t purple from poison like the others. His face was battered, explaining the angry scratches on Kade’s arms.

He killed him.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about us getting to know each other,” Kade says. “Was that some kind of bet you and the others had? Or—”

“No,” I manage to say, realizing how dangerous he is. It only makes me want to betray him more.

He shrugs in disbelief, rubbing his hands along his axe. “Well, it feels like you’re trying to play games with me. Which is disappointing because…” He jabs a thumb toward Lira in the distance. “She’s really messed up over all this. She can hardly talk. I don’t have time for that shit. But you…” He tosses the axe down and cleans off his face with his sleeve. “You’re smart. You seem strong enough. We could make it to the end.”

“So that you can get what you’re after?” I hedge.

He sets his hands at his hips. “And what is that?”

My jaw works, torn between swinging his own axe at him for being such a piece of garbage and wanting to make him believe I’m into him just to crush him later. But every threat dies on my tongue.

He speaks first. “Unless you’re dumb enough to believe a Skyborn would truly want a Saltblood, you have no one interested in committing to you, yet, besides me. They’re over there whispering about wanting you dead. You are all by yourself here, Axira. You need me.”

The air shifts at my back. “I don’t think she does,” a new voice says.

It’s Caelus—looming behind me as solid as a wall. I move into him without thinking, his presence pulling me to him like the moon does to the sea. Kade stares between us, and I still, savoring the subtle annoyance in his tight smile.