Page 89 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

And perhaps…perhaps, there was a kinship between her and the reckless warrior with the steel cut eyes. The armor only needed to be shed.

Emmeline dared a glance at him, studying the way the moonlight slid over the slight bump in the bridge of his nose, illuminating those lips that drove her crazy when they smirked at her and the sturdy shape of his jaw. His hooded eyes that hid so many secrets. And she found herself wanting to peel them apart. To peel him apart and learn what lived within.

Roremar’s gaze slid to hers, and there were a million questions she couldn’t translate in that stare. The grey shifted to a molten silver, begging to be forged into a blade. To be wielded.

By me, she thought, and heat gathered in her core at the want staring back at her.

Roremar’s throat bobbed as he held her gaze, and she tracked that motion. It tugged at her chest. His gaze dropped to her lips, and her own parted on a craving breath.

But before she could say anything, he asked, “Where’s your mother now?”

“She died many years ago.” Though the confession left her more vulnerable than stripping bare before him, the words rolled off her lips.

“I’m sorry.”

He blinked, silver eyes cooling. Heavy with sincerity and softness. His words from their first day in the Accords came back to her. My father always said so.

He knew her pain to some extent. Not the same horrors, but his own. What were they? She wanted desperately to know his ghosts.

“I am, too, Roremar.” An ache crawled through her chest at the words, slow and all-consuming. Their eyes were still locked in a deadly trance. “I miss her.”

His voice snaking around her, he whispered, “Tell the stars about her, Emmeline. And for each pain, tell them something good, too.”

That gentle tone continued to unwind something within her, pry apart her guard one coil at a time. She hadn’t expected the reckless warrior to contain such compassion. As if he was used to offering this sort of consolation.

So she did.

They sat on that balcony surrounded by nothing but silence and starlight, and Emmeline whispered memories of her mother to the sky.

And the entire time she spoke, Roremar listened.

“It’s cheaper, quicker, and safer than renting our own boat,” Roremar explained when Myrella met them, Nico, and Desmond at the docks early the next morning, prepared for the short trek to Alvan.

Emmeline had barely slept by the time she and Roremar made it back to Fated Ink for the night. They’d remained at the Academy, talking to the stars until well past curfew, but she couldn’t stay there. She was happy she took that moment to reclaim the space, though.

With Nico on the couch in Desmond’s basement, Roremar had slept on the chaise upstairs, but even with the steady hum of his breathing, she’d been restless.

“How is it quicker?” Emmeline challenged. “Larger ships travel slower. That’s a known fact, Reckless.” And this one was large. It looked equipped to house dozens of warriors plus all their belongings, trade goods, and Fates knew what else.

Roremar groaned, but she thought his lips twitched up at her combative tone. “Because we don’t have to deal with securing a place to dock overnight, loading and unloading, or any of that nonsense.”

She supposed that was true, even if the thought of this many Starsearchers witnessing their jaunt across the stretch of sea to Alvan made her uncomfortable.

The briny air wrapped tight to her skin and teased her hair as she boarded alongside Myrella—who pointedly avoided looking anywhere in Nico’s vicinity—and she longed to don the leathers she’d stuffed into her satchel at the last moment.

The navy cotton skirt that hung low on her hips and the top that knotted between her breasts were better for pretending this journey was casual, but there was a protection the leathers offered. A sense of sinking into the shadows—of becoming them—where as now, on the deck littered with Starsearchers in sailing leathers of various makes and colors, she and Myrella stood out. Her friend was in a yellow slip dress with a thin layer of shimmering material over the skirt, and the silver thread embroidered along Emmeline’s own kept trying to catch the light. So much for being inconspicuous.

Attempting discretion, Emmeline spent the entire short journey standing at the bow, watching their destination grow larger in the distance. And as the wooden hull parted the crisp azure Faelish Waters beneath them, a tangle of wild nerves gathered in her stomach.

Alvan would hold answers.

It had to.

She’d begged the stars for it last night.

Desmond approached the railing beside them, leaning forward on his elbows, eyes locked on the isle. Emmeline’s skin prickled at his proximity, hackles raised, but she kept her stare on the distance. On the shore, two large stone forms rose toward the sky.

“It’s Arenothos and Aevollon,” Desmond explained.