The woman’s laugh was just as rough as her voice. “We’re all Odega’s down here. What’s your real name?”
Stone slid his tongue across the back of his teeth, eyes searching for an anchor in the dark. He had a real name once. A name that was not tied to smuggling. Not tied to any crimes. A name he was given by someone who loved him, even if that love was brief and eventually abandoned.
He could tell this woman his real name, she was a stranger, no one to him. But when he opened his mouth, the name would not come out. He clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t said his true name aloud in over a decade and for some reason it felt wrong to say it to anyone that wasn’ther.
Aesira.
Because even though she chose to stay, even though she was to be married to someone else, she still had a claim on him that he couldn’t explain. “Just Odega,” he said. “That’s all I am.”
That’s all I’ll ever be.
Just like Vic said.
"You'll never be more than this, Stone, and she'll never be yours."
His stomach soured. “And you?”
The woman tapped her boot again, rhythmic and calculated, against the stone floor. “Nevani,” she said. “But you can call me Nev.” He could hear, faintly, as she stood, something metallicbristling, like she was wearing armor. “So, Odega, how the fuck are we going to get out of here?”
Nev had eventually fallen asleep, the cell now eerily still without her anxious tapping and raspy voice.
Stone’s body ached, his mind still racing. He carefully moved, lying flat on the ground, one hand resting behind his head, the other placing slight pressure on his stomach. Even if he could sleep, he wasn’t sure he wanted to because every time he closed his eyes, he saw her, denying him. Telling him to go.
He’d never wanted much for his life. He wanted to be free from Vic, wanted to see that the cadre found a safe place to land, wanted to fly ships and feel the open air on his face, and now he wanted her. But he wanted her to want him too, which somehow was worse.
He attempted to roll onto his side, immediately regretting it as pain lanced up his middle. Something heavier than exhaustion settled over him, pushing him deeper into the hard floor. His eyes closed and even though the image of her face burned through him, his body relaxed.
“Wake up, Stone.”
He shot up, pain tearing through his abdomen. “Fuck.” He gripped his side, his lungs working. “Nev?” He pressed his ear tothe shared wall of their cell, but there was nothing on the other side. Without his glasses, he couldn’t see for shit, and the lack of moonlight orastradidn’t help, but through the darkness he thought he saw something shift in the corner. He held his breath, waiting for the voice to come again or for whatever it was to move again.
Nothing.
Maybe he was more exhausted than he thought. He sat back down, running a shaky hand through his hair when a swell of darkness caught in the corner of his eye.
Black pooled on the floor of the cell, like ink split in water, rising up the wall, splintering through the cracks in the stone like a spider web. The darkness spread over the wall, down onto the floor, inching its way until it curled around his boot. He sat, eyes wide, pain searing through all the places the men had beat him.
“Oh we know you.”Voices from every directionsank their teeth into him, pressing down on his chest until it felt like it was torn wide open. Baring his heart. His soul. His most vulnerable memories all flashing behind his eyes.
His parents.
His scars.
His–
The smoky darkness snaked up his body, settling into the seams of the scars on his arms, his neck, his face. “Stone, such a shame, to not be called by your true name.”
Epilogue
Kamari
After what felt like days in the dark, a few slivers of sun cut through the overhead planks. The ship Desmond had ushered them to was smaller than those in Vargah but Kamari hadn’t had a chance to see much of it since she was immediately stuffed into a tiny cabin.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” Desmond shook his head, a lock of dark hair falling into his face, burning a memory behind Kamari’s eyes. She could recall his hair falling similarly the first time they kissed. Recalled how it felt to push it back and run her fingers down his face.
In so many ways, he looked the same as when she saw him last. His dark hair, while longer than usual, still fell in waves, barely brushing the top of his shoulders. Hazel eyes, speckled with hintsof gold and green, framed around thick dark brows and lashes. The patterns that marked his bronze skin were displayed on his forearms where his shirt was pushed up.
So much of him was the same, and yet so much had changed.
