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You still have time to be your own man, a good one, too.His words from days ago echoed.
He was already a good man.
I, on the other hand? I was about to leave my friend’s body in this wretched place.
Good men didn’t do that.
Slipping into the leather jacket, doing my best to avoid looking at Isiah again, I jerked my head into the abyss. “Let’s go, Kiara.” Before I physically wouldn’t be able to move.
She hesitated, looking between me and Isiah, a question poised on the tip of her tongue, but I didn’t wait for her to ask it. I couldn’t stay here another damned second.
Her footsteps sounded shortly after, hurrying to catch up to me as I all but ran into the fog. “Jude, wait. How are we going to find the others?” she asked once she’d reached me.
I gazed into the ice-blue beyond. Thank the gods the moon shone brighter in these parts, as we no longer had torches at the ready. Not that it would be a problem—those of us born into the darkness knew how to craft our own light, should we need it.
“We aren’t. We leave them.”
She stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean, ‘We leave them’?”
I didn’t meet her eyes. I was physically unable to. “We can’t find them in such conditions.” I motioned around to the fog. We could see but five feet in front of us.
“But we can’t just leave them!” she protested, knowing full well it was a useless argument. If we tried to retrace our steps, we would lose precious time and possibly our lives. Especially since we were no longer alone out here.
“We have to,” I asserted, taking a sharp inhale. A furrow formed between her eyes, and I could have sworn her irises turned a shade darker. “If there was another way, I would take it. All we can hope is that they found each other. When all this is done, then we can go back and find them.”
Her nostrils flared, and the shadows in her eyes grew stormy.
“We have a mission, Kiara. And if we do not succeed, then it will be more than just your friends you will lose.”
She straightened her shoulders, her chin raised defiantly. I could all but taste the rage and hurt rolling off of her in waves.
“There’s no time to argue with me,” I said, cutting her off before she could open her mouth. “If we don’t hurry and find the three pieces, then you won’t even be able to save yourself.”
I gave her my back, ending the conversation.
Kiara didn’t understand what was at stake.
Cirian might be a ruthless bastard, but he’d always been hellbent on us reaching the mysteriousXand securing the cure. The note he’d given me that day in his council chambers burned a hole in my jacket pocket.
Two sentences had been scribbled on it, two sentences that had had bile rising whenever I’d thought about them.
I should have tossed it into the fire right after I read the words, but something had stopped me. I had a feeling it was due to the girl who currently seethed at my back.
Hells, even if we succeeded, I’d lose her. She just didn’t know it yet.
…
We must have walked about an hour before we came upon a massive tree that had fallen across a dip in the land.
It provided just enough room for the two of us to huddle beneath its coarse trunk, though my head still grazed the top. At least it would provide some semblance of shelter, and we needed the sleep.
I settled as far from Kiara as possible. Her fury at persisting without the others continued to radiate off of her, but at the moment all I could think about was my fallen brother. Isiah’s face wouldn’t leave my thoughts, no matter how hard I pushed it away. I couldn’t erase him like I’d done all the other Knights who’d been brutally slain. What kind of person that made me, I wasn’t sure.
“He was a respectable man,” I found myself whispering, the words slipping out before I could take them back. Kiara perked up as my gravelly voice pierced the silence that had befallen us. “He was my first friend. And he deserved a far better death than that.”
I cleared my throat when she remained silent, fixing my features into stone and peering out into the thicket.
A moment later, she closed the distance I’d put between us and pressed her cheek against my leather-clad shoulder. We melded together, my heat seeping through her trousers and jacket. I dropped my head on top of hers, the act too easy.
