“Stone.” She buried her face in his chest, like maybe if she held him close, held him tight, she could pretend her life wasn't falling apart.
“Please,” he whispered against her hair and that one single word threatened to unravel her entire being.
All the years of dedication and sweat and tears and blood, all to be destroyed by a single word. But not just a word. A word fromhim.
“Whatever they’ve asked you to do, you don’t have to do it. You know that right?” He cradled her face in his palms. “You can leave with me, with us, right now.” He kissed her and she melted into him, clung to his arms, to the dream that they could ever be free from who they really were. “Please come with me, Aesira."
It would be easy to love him, she thought. To leave Vargah and sail through the desert until they reached the promise of freedom in the Isles. It would be easy to forget the life she lived here because it was hardly a life at all.
Everything you touch turns to rot.
Dust churned in her head, an ache pulsing down to the roots of her teeth. "You need to go."
“Aesira," he said her name through a sigh. "We knowastrais real.” He took her hand and kissed the mark where theastraflower had burned her. “And they have chosen to ignore it and sacrifice someone anyway. They are serving a goddess who gets satisfaction from seeing one of her disciples slain for no reason. Either way, they are not who they say they are. They don’t deserve your loyalty and we cannot stay.”
He turned for the door, dragging her by the hand. She wanted to leave. To flee with him and the crew and Nora.
She wanted to stay. To keep him safe from her. To find Kamari.
She wanted both things and when she opened her mouth, her father’s voice came out. A soldier's voice. Rigid and authoritative and devoid of emotion, just as she was trained. “I’m not the person you think I am,” she said. “I'm not good. I make choices that hurt people. I can't hurt you too.”
Stone turned, facing her again. He cupped her face and held it firm. “You're not hearing me when I say that I want you to come with me, so hear this. You can tell me all the terrible things you’ve done,” he said. “Let every horrible thought and memory you have bleed out of you and I would still lap at your confessions like a dog deprived of water.” His lips were crushing as they met hers. “It won’t change how I see you or that I want you,” he said between kisses.
“That’s how it feels, Aesira. Like I’ve been deprived and you are the only thing that has offered me some semblance of life. If you're scared of hurting me, then leave with me and don't.”
Her heart cleaved in two, leaving an open chasm in her chest. Stone’s eyes pinned her in place. She savored the color of them. The shape of his nose. She memorized the bend right in the middle and the scar that ran down his face, somehow making him more beautiful.
Her body and mind were fighting through the injection, the medicine that dulled her spirit and instincts and she tried,tried, to remember that she was more than what her father made her to be. More than the Order made her to be.
More than an infection. A disease to those she loved.
“I’m sorry, Stone.” She dug her fingers into her hair, pulling at the roots. “I want to, but—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head before straightening his jacket, squaring his shoulders. “If your choice is to stay, there’s nothing else to say.” A muscle feathered in his jaw and then he was stepping toward the door. “We were just pretending anyway, right?” The pounding in her head was drowned out by the agonizing ache spreading through her chest, clenching up her throat.
Every step he took from her, the fog in her mind cleared a little more until he reached the door and it dissipated completely.
She could stay and search for Kamari. Could pretend to be the daughter her father needed her to be until it was just the right time to flay him open–flay themallopen.
Or she could leave.
She could leave and find Kamari a different way. Trust what Hanna saw.
Find the rebels.
Be with Stone.
When she laid it out in her mind, it was simple. An easy choice.
The line in the sand, just as Nora had drawn, and he was on the other side. “Stone, wait. I’m—”
When he turned from the door, it opened behind him and Lord Raffe stepped in. “Well,” Raffe said, smoothing his pristine silk shirt. “Am I interrupting something?”
Stone stepped aside, shaking his head. “I was just leaving.”
Raffe’s laugh cut through the room. “No you weren’t.” From beyond the door, another man stepped forward. Stone’s body stiffened, his shoulders tight.
“Well, well,” Vic said. “Look who it is.”
