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Lark was close. He’d circled back around, like Draven had suggested.
But what if he hadn’t?
What if he was gone?
I paced the cave.
I couldn’t be alone. I’d spent four years alone, hiding behind a door. Lark had to be here. Why wasn’t he back? Panic clutched my heart.
Lark hadn’t survived everything—the poisoning, defying his brother—to die for me here. He couldn’t have. He was made for more. I knew it, I’d dreamed it. He was my Prince of Storms, playing his fiddle on the clifftop, defying the odds, defying worlds.He could not die here.
I stopped at the cave mouth and glowered at the ground where the beast now hid. Why had it chosen us? I flung a rock at it, then another.
“Lark?” I called into the night, then listened for his reply. A single call back, that was all I needed. Something to tell me he was safe.
No reply came. What if he’d died for me? Why did he have to be like this? So brilliantly infuriating? Running off to save us, like he’d swallowed the poison to save us, like he’d risked his life to tell Noemi the truth of Razak’s crowns. Why did he have to be the gods be damned hero?
Grit rained from the cave’s overhang. I gasped and stumbled back, expecting the worm or some other horrible beast to fall inside and finish me off.
Lark swung from the ledge and dropped to his feet in one lithe, slinky movement, then straightened, swept his knotted hair back, and grinned. “Did you miss me?”
I almost struck him—wanted to, clenched my hand to do it. He arched an eyebrow, still smiling. Damn him, damn them both! I shoved him in the chest, rocking him backwards. “Don’t ever do something so foolish again. Luring that thing away like that. You’re insane.”
He gave me an odd look, as though puzzled by my anger. “I am your fool, am I not?”
I turned away. This man… He drovemeinsane. I’d feared him dead, and he’d dropped back in without a care, making a joke?! Didn’t he know how much I— Didn’t he damn well know that if I lost him, all of this would be for nothing? He and Draven were the only things left in the shatterlands I cared about.
“Arin?”
I whirled and gasped. We stood face-to-face. He blinked, slow and lazy, like a cat. Caked in sand, with his hair messy and his eyes glassy, he was so wickedly handsome he stole my breath. I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t stand by and watch him throw his life away. “Stop being so careless! First the poison, the cut up your forearm, trying to do Dallin knows what, and now this? It’s almost as though youwantto die.”
His smile cracked and fell, and all his silly acts of bravado fell away with it, leaving just the man. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He turned away. “WhatwasI thinking, saving you? You don’t need me, you never did—”
“No, I’m sorry. Gods! It’s the desert, the heat, it’s everything. I’m sorry. Lark, I—” I reached for him, but he brushed me off.
“You’re right,” he repeated, waving a hand. “But please continue to yell some more. I’m sure it’s helping you vent your frustration. Why not strike me too? If you think it’ll help. Go on, you obviously want to.”
“No, god, no.” I shrank back, unable to trust myself not to say or do something to make this worse.
He dropped to the floor, drew his knees up, and rested his head back against the cave wall. “Draven escaped, I assume?”
“Yes, he’ll send someone for us.”
“‘Us’?Of course he will.” His odd smirk suggested sarcasm, but I couldn’t imagine why.
Lark terrified me, for reasons I didn’t understand. Anger was better than fear. But if I told him that, I’d have to explain why. He’d think me a fool for caring when he didn’t. He’d probably laugh at his weak Prince of Flowers. And he’d be right. I was weak. This was my fault. We were trapped in this forsaken cave in the middle of the desert because ofme.
He closed his eyes, so calm. I still wanted to grab him, rattle a reaction out of him, make him fight. When we argued, I knew where I stood.
“There is nothing we can do but wait,” he said, eyes still closed.
I couldn’t go to him, couldn’t speak. I’d say something terrible to spark a fire. So I stared at the desert, watched dusk’s early stars crawl across the sky, and waited until the heat in my veins fizzled out, leaving me shivering and guilt ridden.
Lark still had his eyes closed, but the occasional shift in his position suggested he struggled to sleep.
I dropped beside him and thought of another tunnel we’d shared, on a beach, far away, in the Court of Love. So much had changed since then. “You’re brave, you know.”
He snorted and kept his eyes closed. “How so?”
