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His shoulders dropped as his hands came to his sides, the envelope scrunched in one palm.
“You’re asking that I lie,” he said, just as stark as he had been in Wolfrest.
My stomach flipped over itself again, but I fought tooth and nail to keep the sensation off my face.
“People lie all the time.”
He shook his head. “Not about this. Not about something so fundamental to the continents’ peace, something ordained by the very gods I beseech every morning and worship with my life’s actions. You’re asking that I skirt Freia’s commandments for the sake of avoiding my personal pain.”
His pain?
“It would be Sloane’s pain,” I whispered. “She’s the one with the soul bond.”
I shivered at the words.
“No, it would not be just her pain.” The words were clipped and yet thrummed with power.
My breath caught.
“No one enters the Grand Rite lightly, Amethyst,” he said after a long moment. “We enter knowing our lives will be fundamentally changed, that if we select an omega chosen of Freia, a new future will be forged in the hope of keeping peace. To know that I have to surrender that nebulous future back to Freia is incredibly painful. To know it will likely spark a war when Sepra is held accountable for its despicable actions in allowing you and your sister to participate without consenting only intensifies that hurt. But it’s the proper thing, the honorable thing, to do.” He crumpled the envelope in a tight grip again. His eyes were liquid fire, churning as restlessly as the emotions sitting just under my sternum. “You’re asking that I tarnish my morality for selfish gains.”
War.
That was certainly worse than one person going to prison.
I twisted my hands into the heavy tunic but didn’t break his gaze.
“I know. And I understand it’s an awful thing for me to ask, that it makes me the serpent on your shoulder convincing you to eat the damn apple, but I can’t be a reason Sloane suffers. Not after spending the last twenty-one years doing the exact opposite.”
Was it ironic to use the story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit while sitting in a cathedral courtyard built in deference to a host of gods not included in the Hebrew bible? Absolutely. It almost brought a smile to face.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“If it were just you, would you be demanding this of me? Or is it only for your sister that you’re asking I make this choice?”
The truth bubbled on my tongue, flickering like a slow-building fire that mirrored my curiosity. I wanted to keep it there, locked away where it wouldn’t expose me even as the words clamored to get out, to be given life in this slumbering courtyard. The sounds of the city around us was an odd backdrop after so many days in the solitude of travel. It was different than Phoenix, and yet it soothed me anyway. I sucked in another ragged breath and traced one of the stones embedded in the finger bracelet.
“Yes, I’d still be pleading with you.”
Damn it all, it didn’t hurt in the slightest as the words dropped into the space between us like a stone into a lake. There wasn’t even that reactionary desire to claw out my throat in an act of self-preservation.
His entire body slackened in surprise, the envelope falling from his grip and landing at his feet.
As silence fell between us, thick enough a knife probably wouldn’t even be able to cut through it, the same unsettling sensation I’d felt in the forest seeped into my bones. It made me want to run out of this courtyard, never mind I had no idea how to get out of the basilica proper. Pain pulsed from the translation tattoo, too stabbing to keep from grimacing. I pressed my palm into it, the skin warm to the touch. His eyes dropped to the slashing lines behind my ear and then to one of the sculptures behind me. With a sigh, he brushed at his knee like he was flicking away a bug though there weren’t any I could see. Just like in the forest, the panic lessened and the unnerving feeling receded.
Before I could wrap my head around the change, he closed the distance between us, sinking into a crouch on the step below me until our eyes were level. Pine and wisteria surrounded us, and I breathed in the heady mixture, too raw to care that I was drawing comfort from him. A muscle feathered in his jaw, and his scars stretched to harsh white slashes as he frowned deeply.
“You truly do not wish to return to your Arizona?” The question was a rumble in my chest and over my skin. I shivered as it rushed down my spine.
“No.”
And, gods help me, it was the damn truth.
With pursed lips, he circled my wrist with his long fingers, the same as he’d done so many times at this point. A hug, Amaria had said, and yet since reaching the forest, it had felt like more than that between us. This time, though, it was only a polite touch between friends—a greeting and a goodbye. My throat closed, but I shoved the panic down, forced it into a box before anything in my face could give me away. He swallowed again, then his eyes fluttered closed.
“May Freia forgive me,” he whispered.
He grew still, as if someone were speaking to him and he wanted to ensure he captured every word. When his eyes opened, he traced my cheekbone, his thumb the only point of contact between us. Despite how much I didn’t want to expose any more vulnerability when it might just be thrown in my face, I leaned lightly into the touch. In a heartbeat, the wisteria in his scent dominated over the pine.
