He laughed and snatched the book back. “We all need to find joy somehow.”
Her cheeks warmed from the torches, the anxious thoughts that kept her awake settling in the back of her mind as she and Stone sat comfortably together. “I just can’t wrap my head around whatDesmond wanted when he left. What he was thinking he’d do if he found Ravki.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly you’d betray anything, even yourself, just to get it?” Stone was still pressed close, the heat from his body spreading to hers. He rested his hands on his knees and her fingers drifted to them, tracing a scar on his knuckles.
“No,” she answered honestly. “To want is a vice, it only sets you up for disappointment. Just look at my sister.” She pulled her hand away and placed it safely in her lap.
Stone smiled. “I guess that’s fair. Even still, there are plenty of things I want, but I suppose I'm not naive enough to think I’ll get them.”
“Do you think my sister is naive for wanting us to find Desmond? For believing he’s still alive?”
Stone stretched his legs out, lining them with hers so they sat side by side. “No,” he said. “I just think she’s in love and people in love tend to do desperate things.”
“And you know this first hand? Or was it from one of your books?”
“Not me,” he said through a smile. “But them.” He gestured over his shoulder to where Birdie and Bee slept in the back corner of the cave. “I’ve watched them do enough careless, desperate things for each other, it’s easy to spot when I see it in someone else.”
A bright star shot across the night sky, leaving a trail of blazing dust in its wake. Kamari could find love in everything. Even when they were children and they’d found an injured bird, she refused to let Aesira put it out of its misery. She kept it alive, cared for it, named it, helped it. Aesira was a hammer and Kamari was a feather,soft and light and now she was pinned in a corner with very little room to escape.
“I don’t know of love,” she said, “but I know my sister is overflowing with it. She carries enough for the both of us.” She yawned, her body betraying her. “I should actually try to sleep.” She made to move but Stone caught her arm.
“Maybe you could lay down here,” he said, pushing his jacket toward her on the ground. “Let me read to you.”
Their eyes met through the firelight and a flurry swirled in her stomach. Before her mind had the time to go over why it was wrong, she found herself settling her head on his jacket, closing her eyes.
Stone cleared his throat, the spine of his book creaking open. “Every great story starts the same. With a time and a place and a hero or heroine desperate for change. This story is no different.” His voice poured over her, velvet smooth, as he continued reading and the more Stone spoke, the more ease Aesira felt in her muscles.
In her mind.
The soothing cadence of his voice settled over her like a blanket and the nightmare she’d been dreading was nowhere to be found. Her body melded into the ground, the scent of his flight jacket wrapping around her as it acted as a cushion under her.
Stone flipped a page, cleared his throat, before starting a new page when another crack sounded beyond the torches. Aesira’s eyes popped open.
“The wind again?” she asked before sitting up.
Stone closed the book and set it aside. “I don’t know.”
They both stood, Aesira drawing her sword, all thoughts of sleep abandoned. Blurry shapes of a few, naked trees and rocks but otherwise, she couldn’t see anything.
Another crack.
She raised her sword.
“I thought you said the Strix doesn't like the light.”
“It doesn’t,” Stone said.
“What is it?” Bee asked, joining her side.
“Quiet,” Stone whispered and took a step back from the wall of flames they’d barricaded themselves behind.
Another crack followed by a deep rumble that traveled through the soles of Aesira’s boots up to her teeth.
Aesira continued backward until her back hit the wall of the cave. Another rumble, another crack. “What is that?”
The four of them stood shoulder to shoulder, their breaths syncing together. One of the torches flickered to Aesira’s right, then another to her left. The low rumbling increased. It sounded just like–
“Holy shit, it’s raining!” Bee slapped her hands over her mouth.
