‘Hope is a fleeting thing,’ Ezer said. ‘It’s my own fault for thinking I could hold onto it as long as I did.’ She looked down at the ring on her thumb and added, ‘Sometimes, it’s easier to think about what I could have done to stop him from leaving. But in the end … fate had its way with him. And there is nothing I could have done to change that.’
They fell silent, but for the first time it was not an uncomfortable silence.
And with their backs turned to one another, they agreed to sink into neighboring pools.
The steam rolled between them. She was painfully aware of their discarded towels, the heat in her body that was not entirely from the water temperature. The sound of his sigh as he sank into the pool just behind her.
This is dangerous,Ezer thought to herself, as she leaned back and stared at the steam.Just like your dreams.
He was clearly still in love with Soraya.
Andshewas clearly a replacement, a project to fill the void of him missingher.
She suddenly felt the urge to fill the silence with something,anything.
‘Six chose me to be her Rider,’ Ezer blurted. ‘She chosemeto be the one to carry Kinlear to the Sawteeth.’
‘I know,’ he said, and she could sense the change in his voice. The anger boiling beneath the surface. ‘Kinlear told me.’ A pause, and he added, ‘You’re afraid.’
She huffed out a laugh. ‘Of course I’m afraid. I won’t do it. I can’t.’
He was the only one who truly understood why. He’d guessed her fear of heights long ago, but beyond that … it was more than the heights. It was the promise of dying – terribly – that came with it.
It was entering the Ehver and discovering that no one would be there waiting for her.
That love did not stretch beyond the grave, that her mother and father wouldn’t find her in the Ehver, and she wouldneverknow who she was.
She would die a stranger to herself.
The water trickled behind her as he shifted in his own pool. ‘Are you going to run?’
She’d considered it.
But for some reason … she couldn’t imagine walking away from Six.
‘Would you stop me?’
‘No,’ he said, and that surprised her. Some part of it pained her, deep in her gut. ‘I owe you a life debt still, remember?’
She smiled, her chest lightening. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘The life debt.’
‘You’re capable, Minder. I know you are. And I’m grateful.’
‘For what?’ Ezer breathed.
The steam was even thicker now. The heat, too strong.
And his voice had softened even more, so that it made her heart feel strange and heavy, and …
She turned, and he turned at the same time, and they locked eyes through the steam as he said, ‘Thank you for seeing me. For telling me that I am more than my pain. More than my mistakes. And for what it’s worth … I think you’d make a fine raphon Rider. I think you’d make it to the other side. And I think hell itself couldn’t hold you down from making it back.’
She smiled. And then he cleared his throat as the servant arrived again, saw them seated there with locked gazes and quickly turned right back around.
24
She left the bathing chambers with heaviness in her heart.
She couldn’t stop thinking of Arawn. Gods, she waswaytoo attracted to him. There was no denying that. But … it wasn’t simply because of what he looked like. It was how he’d spoken, how he’d shed the armor from himself, and shared his pain with her.
