Page 66 of By the Flames of Her Fury

Iswam in my thoughts the rest of the evening and the next day as we made port at Twin Tides to regroup before sailing off after Mortep and the elusive lost kingdom.

Tomorrow was the spring equinox. Starke and Captain Rossa spoke with sailors on land about the weather conditions, then charted a course on the path of recent storm sightings in the Imarian Sea. If the kingdom of the eternal flame was going to make a sudden reappearance, we figured there would be signs, and we simply had to be sure we could find them.

I still didn’t know what to make of it all. The mysteries behind this Triad Realm were piling high, and it was difficult to piece it together. But what was most troubling wasn’t this strange, powerful kingdom and its inhabitants. It wasn’t even the dangerous guardian the Fates had supposedly placed over it. It was why Mortep wanted their power. Even though Vera and I had spent years under his hold, there was so little we truly knew about the man.

He knew everything about Vera and me. He had studied us, scrutinized us, dug into the depths of our minds. He could pick us apart weakness by weakness and predict any path we would take. That was what made him a formidable foe, perhaps even more so than Scarven.

We had to be careful. If we were really going to pursue this, we couldn’t give him anything more to use against us. Which was why I had to make sure we were a united front before he snuck in and manipulated things again.

I rapped my knuckles against the door. It opened to reveal Tessa with her bronze hand on her hip and Vera brushing her hair in the background. The inside of the cabin was small but organized, with a bed, a wooden chest in the corner, and a porthole overlooking the dark waters. A cot was set up for Tessa by Vera’s bed.

“Need something, Ev?” Tessa asked.

I cleared my throat. “Mind if I talk to her for a minute?”

She glanced back at Vera, who paused before nodding. Tessa patted my shoulder. “No funny business on my bed,” she said, then sauntered out of the room, leaving us alone.

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and held back a sigh.

“I guess she hasn’t changed at all,” Vera said, setting her hairbrush down. “How’s your arm?”

I glanced down at the sling. “Feels like I got hit by a cannon.”

Her cheek twitched in a half-smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The air was strained, full of too many things I wanted to say. The rush of the last day had faded, and now it felt like we were standing miles apart. An open chasm, stretched wide and ready to drag us both down.

I scratched my chin and took a breath. “I never thanked you for rescuing me.”

She didn’t look at me. Instead, she busied herself with straightening the sheets on her bed. “You know I couldn’t just let you die, Swift.”

“But you could leave me behind.”

The words dropped like a boulder between us. Her hands paused at the edge of the sheet, then curled, scrunching the fabric. “That’s not what happened.”

“Really?” I took a step forward, and she finally met my eyes. “Because I seem to remember waking up one morning and finding you gone.” Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the tiny note, tossing it to the bed and watching it flutter on top of the sheets. “Six words. That was all I got.”

Swift,

Please forgive me.

Your songbird

Her handwriting stared up at us, slightly faded from rubbing against my pocket for the last year. Her jaw ticked as she looked away. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Something. Anything.” Pressure mounted in my chest. She was closing herself off again. “Something that will make this make sense. I’ve spent the last year trying to figure out how to get you back. Trying to find⁠—”

“You shouldn’t have looked for me.” She whirled to face me, eyes bright. “I didn’t want to be found, Everett. That was the point.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get it. We talked about what life would be like outside of those cells. We talked about a future. That’s what I fought for, Vera, and we finally had it. We had everything we ever wanted.” I took her hand and trailed my fingers up her arm, watching goosebumps rise on her pale skin. “I finally had you.”

Touching her still made my chest ache. After years of wanting her, that desire would never dim. The fear that she’d be ripped from me always made it hard to breathe.

I squeezed her arm, and she let out a breath, her feet moving closer. The scent of smoky amber and rose washed over me, mixed with salt from the sea. Heat unfurled along my spine, my chest, my arms. My fingers fell to her wrist, where her pulse pounded as erratically as mine. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in, from running my nose along her temple and into her hair, breathing deeply as my heart thudded louder.

“Songbird,” I murmured, lips grazing the top of her ear.

“I didn’t,” she whispered. My brow pinched in confusion, and when she pulled back, that heat in my core quickly chilled. “I didn’t have everything I wanted.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes pained. “I wasn’t happy, and neither were you, Everett.”

My lips parted. “How can you think that?”