Page 25 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

That look in her eyes flashed inside my head. The one she’d angled up at me when I’d said I didn’t need a cordae. Desperate and hopeful and worth more than a man like me could ever fucking give her. I couldn’t help it. I pulled my hand from hers.

Tore my eyes away.

Sent my focus into the deep tracks Cebrinne had left instead.

“Come on,” I muttered. Even that took effort. Even that felt less like a spoken sentence and more like it was wrung from my chest.

Her gaze lingered, boring into me. Waiting. Longing.

I’m with you, I tried to say.

But I couldn’t. Not here—not on this mountain. It knew. The mountain knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep.

Your life will run its course, while hers will continue on. And do not think she has not thought of it every day since she realized who she is.

The longer she stared, the more cavernous the betrayal of not meeting her eyes became. “Come on,” I said again. Another step, and my foot sliced deep into the sand. The heat engulfed my leg, burying me in liquid flame, wavy lines rising into the air as I tried to dig myself out.

“Don’t listen to it,” Maren called from the other side. A moment later, the unmistakable sound of sand tumbling met my ears, followed by a sharp hiss.

Failure, failure. Even now, when you know how to help her, you can’t.

Shut the fuck up, I snapped back at myself.

My own voice laughed at me.

So I ignored the fucker. I hated him anyway. I let him berate me. Sank into the words as much as I did the burn of the mountain, and did not care when or how they might brand themselves into my mind forever.

The top was in sight.

We’d taken turns in the lead, each of us falling back when the mountain became too much to bear. Cebrinne wrestled the hardest, though she often lagged behind, gathering her strength to scale the crumbling silver truth while waging war against it.

Finally, Maren reached the top. She’d long since shut everything out—including us—crawling over the dune like a snake slithering through the grass, her arms and legs skulking low. As soon as she’d crested, the hard iron in her muscles relaxed, as though reaching the top had left her boneless with relief. The curve of her shoulder hung over the edge as she lay there, so very still. Except for the black fringe of her lashes, blinking slowly into the vast stars above.

You hid his body, Maren said.

I paused, unsure if I’d heard her right. Leihani?

Yes? she sent back. Even through her mind, it sounded like a long exhale.

You lying, deceitful, coward of a man.

My fingers twitched. Maren rolled over, the silver ions in her hair catching light. Sparkling. You’re almost here. Keep coming.

I saved your life. Her voices overlapped, this one cracking in disbelief.

I saved yours, mine said. We’re square.

Maren pushed herself a bit higher. She’d gone limp at the top, but her energy seemed to return the longer she sat up there. It goes away as soon as you cross the top.

I nodded vacantly at her, my mind elsewhere. Lost under the backwaters of time, to a place living and fleshed with color, a beach with swaying palms and flooding sunshine.

You will behave, my voice mocked, caustic in my own ears. Fist clasping the searing sand, I couldn’t understand why the words twisted like a knife in my gut.

I told you that you were coming with me.

“Kye,” Maren called from only a short distance away.

Kye, a memory-version of her voice reverberated, thick with fear and pain and disbelief.