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A scoff-like laugh fell over his lips.You’re not a gods-damned pet I’m trying to train.
‘But you’re angry! You—’
Of course I am, he interrupted, the sentence ending in a sharp swing at the world outside.At the bastards forcing you to make these decisions, who made you believe the best choice is always to forget yourself. I’m mildly annoyed with you at most, if you want to know.
‘Oh.’ The world seemed to be rearranging itself before my very eyes – as if suddenly I could see through his mask again, read the quick jumps of his mind again.Mildly annoyed. I could handle mildly annoyed. ‘But then … then there’s no problem, is there? Then we can figure out how to handle this for a few more days and …’
His scarred eyebrow shot up. It was all that told me the calm of his signs was a lie; his perfectly still posture towering over me didn’t betray his agitation in the slightest.A few more days?
‘Ten days at most,’ I mumbled, swallowing the ever-present sting of looming failure – how would we ever find Zera in that time? ‘That’s seven days to go. We should be able to handle that, if we actually talk it through this time.’
Yes, he signed, but somehow the gesture didn’t give the impression of agreement.And then there will be diplomatic missions and battles and endless waiting for war to happen. Armies aren’t known for their abundant privacy. So if you want to hide us from the rest of the world forever …He grimaced.That might be years of tiptoeing around.
This was a conversation we’d had before. ‘You’re saying you want to tell them.’
No.He sighed, rubbing his eyes.I’m saying you need to figure out at some point how much you’re willing to sacrifice for the fate of the world.
I stared at him.
My sacrifices for the fate of the world … Hours of sleep, hundreds of lies. Losses I’d accepted without hesitation, because how could I not, when thousands of lives hung in the balance? Hell, I’d once accepted a place in the Silent Death’s bed to get rid of the Mother. After that, how could Inotgo along with whatever small sacrifice the Alliance asked of me?
There is a limit, Creon helpfully added.The demands of the phoenixes go beyond that point, it seems.
‘Yes,’ I managed, ‘but …’
So where do years of secrecy fall on that scale? Is that really a price you’re happy to pay?
‘Don’t pretend it’s that easy!’ My voice cracked. ‘You know how much of this depends on me. If the rest of the world believes I’m some little fae whore—’
They’ll hate you forever and join the Mother’s side only to spite you, and all will be lost. Yes. You memorised the lesson perfectly.He scoffed.What do you want?
A laugh wrestled over my lips. ‘To save the gods-damned world.’
Not what I asked, he signed sharply. His wings had stiffened behind his shoulders.You know what you should want, you know what they expect you to do. Forget that. What is it you actually want?
I swallowed. ‘You.’
Clever. Try harder.
It took an effort not to punch him. What I wanted – Iknewwhat I wanted. I spent long hours in training halls for it, gave up my sleep for it, suffered the endless bickering of the Council with that simple goal in mind. Deal with the Mother. Do what no one else could do, and do it fast, so at long last this weight would be lifted off my shoulders and I could …
I could …
I could be free to follow my own damn wishes instead.
There was no taking back that thought now that it lay there, naked and vulnerable and yet sharp enough to make my breath hitch for an everlasting heartbeat.
A jumble of images washed over me, messy but disconcertingly clear, as if my mind had simply been waiting for its cue to set them free – the beach behind the pavilion, azure water frothing over the pearly white sand. Needle and thread between my fingers, the reassuring rustle of cloth in my hands. Honey cakes and sweet dates, sunlight filtering through stained glass windows, the smells of parchment and nearby sea.
And Creon.
Smiling.
For a moment, I no longer stood in a dusky prayer hall in Zera’s woods, hiding from my closest allies, looking for a goddess who may not want to be found. For a moment, I wasthere, in some world that might never even exist, a place where I woke to the smell of fresh bread and fell asleep to the sound of laughter.
But there was no trace of a smile on Creon’s lips when I looked up and found him watching me with those bottomless demon eyes, studying depths of me I wasn’t sure I dared face just yet. Something bitter brimmed in his gaze – something that told me he knew exactly what I was about to say.
‘It doesn’t even matter.’ The words fell from my lips with bitter, glass-edged certainty. ‘What are you suggesting – that we hand over the world to the Mother for eternity and run off into the sunset together?’
