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He let out a vicious curse and stalked away. She wanted to scream at him for walking away from her, which made no sense. Wasn’t she trying to walk way from him?
Soren was leaning against a tree, pretending not to pay attention. It occurred to her how strange this was. Her and Roar fighting while Soren stood by, calm and quiet.
Roar returned. He appeared in front of her, his eyes gentle and pleading. She looked into them and couldn’t bear it.
“Aria, if I lose you too—”
“Don’t say another word, Roar. Don’t make me doubt. Don’t make me want to leave with you. ”
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “Then just say yes. Come with me. Don’t go back there. ”
She pushed her sleeves at her blurry eyes, hating how easily she felt like crying now. It was a reflex. Any small thing that reminded her of Perry brought the urge. She couldn’t let the tears go, but she felt them. She carried them with her everywhere she went. She imagined holding them there for the rest of her life. An ocean of tears, existing inside her.
“Aria . . . ,” Roar said.
She shook her head and backed away. “I can’t. ” She had promised Perry. She had to look after Talon. No matter the cost. “I have to go,” she said.
Then she raced back to Sable’s camp.
48
PEREGRINE
Is he breathing, Roar? Is he alive?”
“Shut up. I’m trying to listen to his heart. ”
Perry forced his eyes open. Through a bleary film, he saw Roar leaning over his chest. “Off. Get off me, Roar. ”
Perry’
s throat was so dry that the words were no more than rasps. All he could think about was water. He ached for it. Every fiber of his body demanded it. His head pounded. It hurt so badly he was afraid to move.
Roar’s head popped up and his eyes flew wide. “Ha!” he yelled. “Ha!” He shook Perry by the shoulders. “I knew it!” He leaped to his feet and shouted that he knew it, over and over, until he finally sprawled on the sand. “That was horrible. That was so horrible,” he said between pants.
Soren, who’d been watching Roar in silence, appeared over Perry. “Want some water?”
* * *
They gathered by a fire as the sun set, surrounded by foreign scents and sounds. Every breath was like hearing a new language—a process of recognizing soil and plant and animal scents, but also learning them as new. This land was green and young, and even as spent as he felt, his heart thudded with the desire to explore it.
After drinking enough water to make his stomach cramp, Perry learned that Roar and Soren had escaped from Sable’s camp two days ago. They’d been familiarizing themselves with the terrain, finding freshwater and food, while trying to devise a plan for taking Sable out. Then it was Perry’s turn to talk. He told them what had happened with Cinder on the Hover.
“That was the last time you saw him?” Roar said. “Before you blacked out?”
Perry considered that, remembering those final moments. Saying he blacked out didn’t feel right. He’d seen only white. But he nodded and said, “That was it. I didn’t see him after that. ”
Roar rubbed his jaw, giving a small shrug. “Maybe that’s how it should have been. I doubt you could have helped him. ”
“But I would have tried,” Perry said. “I’d have done all I could. ”
Soren poked at the fire with a stick. “From where I’m sitting, you did. ”
It was a decent thing to say. Perry nodded in thanks.
He leaned his back on the raft—the raft that had saved his life—and wove his fingers together on his stomach. He wanted to rush to Aria but he was too weak. He had to replenish the water his body desperately needed. Hour by hour, his muscle cramps and his headache faded and he felt more like himself.
He saw the scars on his hand, scars Cinder had given him, and his throat tightened. The feeling he had of incompletion—of wishing he could have done more, or differently, or better—wasn’t new. But he was tired of bashing his head against the past. He tried to do right—in every situation. Sometimes that wasn’t enough, but it was all he could do. The only thing he truly had power over. He was learning to accept that.
