Page 97 of A Sweet Destruction

Esme nodded at me in agreement. “We at least have the advantage that they don’t know we know yet. Or at least we hope. I’m pretty sure that the kid who caught us believed us.”

“Remind me what excuse you used again?’ Soren just couldn’t resist stirring up a little shit, now could he?

“I told you,” I said, failing to hide the underlying threat in my tone. It was like the Bond had turned into a snarling demon that only had a taste for blood, specifically that of people who stepped an inch out of line with Esme. “We acted like we were sneaking off for a tryst or dalliance or whatever fucking romantic word you want to use to describe it.”

“Yeah, but how convincing were you?” Soren pressed. I was pretty sure Bellamy kicked him under the table.

“He believed us. Nothing untoward happened,” Esme said firmly, with such conviction even I doubted for a second that I’d dreamed the whole encounter. It wouldn’t be all that different from some dreams of nights past, to be honest.

“I’m happy to believe he did,” Bellamy cut in. “I’ll sleep better that way.” She did look slightly weary, but I knew better than to voice that concern. “What I want to know is whether Caspian and Muli are brokering for peace because they actually desire to or if they plan to use it to uncover more information.”

An idea sparked in my head. There was a part of me that hated myself for being able to come up with it in the first place. “Maybe they are trying a different path for drawing out information. Remember our first year out here? We had that string of kidnappings?”

“Don’t remind me,” Esme said, and she was deadly serious.

That was a horrible time, not only because it had been early days for us all, a bunch of teenagers tossed into a new planet. It had also been one of the more violent stretches of this war. Far too many letters sent home to families back on Vir, changing the course of their lives.

I had good reason back then to be scared. I still was.

“They were searching for answers,” I said. “Trying to get it directly out of Vir’s mouth.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. It was Soren who spoke. “If true, those who they captured wouldn’t have had much to offer.” It had been a string over lower-level Matches. Had they captured a set of paranimas, it might have been a different story. “They wouldn’t have known much beyond the sheer fact that the priestesses were required to extract the Mark and that the Mark allowed them to Cross. The process is otherwise kept pretty under wraps.”

Clearly, to prevent this exact circumstance from coming back to bite Vir in the ass.

Bellamy shook her head with a sigh, exchanging a brief look with Soren. His face fell into a hard line, before returning to a neutral expression.

“Is the ability to speak mind to mind a new symptom of the Bond?” I had to ask, if not to have something else to look forward to. Esme and I had gotten pretty good at silent communication over the years, but there was only so much you could say without words.

Bellamy shook her head, her mouth pulling into a haunted smile. “It’s just that…God, this is even more treasonous than what we’ve been doing…I don’t think we should share quite yet that Muli doesn’t have the ability to Cross.”

Suddenly, and image of Bellamy and Soren hanging for their treason against the Empire flashed into my mind. The press of Esme’s hands on either side of mine was the only thing that brought me back to reality.

“I think my father may take that as an undue motivation to increase our force. Might even try to turn his mind towards all out invasion,” Bellamy continued, shaking her head with disgust. “We can’t ignore that the Bridge exists, not now. We can’t leave Muli alone and hope that they haven’t discovered or will never discover how to Cross. Our best plan is to try to broker for peace now. Set up trade, political relations. Make it so that using force seems illogical.”

Esme reached across the table with her free hand and squeezed Bellamy’s. Something passed between them that set Bellamy’s posture a little looser.

My heart felt like someone was wringing it out like a dish towel. Esme was just so…good. I would tell her every single passing thought that entered my head from now until eternity—now matter how dopey and borderline obsessive—if it meant avoiding another period of miscommunication.

Well, rather, complete lack thereof. Never again.

“We will do our part to make this work. What we can do now is try to confirm our theory. If we can, then it may serve as leverage down the line. Negotiations start to go awry and we can offer to teach them how to extract the Marks,” Esme said, the voice of reason.

A thought passed through my mind and I bit out a curse.

“What?” Esme asked, her attention zeroing in on me with such force, everything except for her face blurred.

I didn’t try to hide my grimace as I said, “We need to consider what Carson may have shared.”

“We need to consider removing his head from his body.” The second Bellamy said it, she clasped her hands over her mouth with wide, horrified eyes.

Surely, it would be inappropriate to laugh.

Soren heeded no such warning, immediately falling into hysterics.

Bellamy’s shocked expression only grew. “That was awful. I’m so sorry, I don’t know where that—”

The rest of her apology was promptly cut off by Soren grabbing her face and planting a loud kiss right on her mouth. It was short, no more than a second or two, and when he pulled away, he continued laughing. All while smiling like a cat who’d just found the cream.