“Charming? Delectably handsome?”
“Conceited.”
“You wound me.”
“You’ll survive.”
Will ducked his head, his lips warm as they pressed against the hinge of her jaw. “On the contrary, Aya love. I think you’ll be the death of me.”
That thread pulled taut again, and her mind sharpened for a breath—like a pulse of lightning that illuminated her surroundings.
Not right. This is not right.
But Will tightened his hold, and the breeze blew in from the harbor, and the sun was warm on her cheeks, and suddenly, Aya couldn’t be bothered to remember what she had just forgotten.
She was here, with Will pressed against her side, his arm a welcome weight that kept her tethered to bliss. She sank further into him, her thoughts going syrupy as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Will.”
“Hm?”
She ducked her head into the space between his shoulder and jaw, getting as close as she could. She let his warmth envelop her fully, his woodsmoke and spiced honey scentsettling over her senses until her heartbeat slowed into something calm.
Maybethisis what she had forgotten:
How warm he was. How his shoulders blanketed hers. How the press of his chest to her back made her feel safe. Whole. Fragile in a way she never was allowed to be.
“Are we in the Beyond?”
She wasn’t sure where the question came from, but it fell from her lips easily in the wake of the safety that surrounded her.
Will pulled back, just enough to meet her gaze. His gray eyes were bright, those flecks of green shining like stars. “Of course not,” he laughed.
She should be relieved, she thought. Though she wasn’t surewhy.
Why did she think she was dead?
Why did being alive send another pulse of dread through her?
What’s happening to me?
Will pressed a kiss to her head, letting his lips linger in her hair. This time, his touch was cold.
Not right. This is not right.
That dread thickened in her stomach, seeping through her insides and cementing itself there.
“You’re not dead, Aya love,” Will murmured, his grin bright and easy and strange as he peered down at her. “You don’t exist at all.”
19
Peaceful. That was how Josie had once described the Maraciana. Even with dread weighing heavily in her gut as she’d made the climb to Viviane’s dormitory, the sea breeze and the dawn sky and the quiet had been…peaceful.
There was no hint of that peace now.
Not as she stood on a small balcony of the Affinities Complex, the pitch black of night shielding her from view. Not that anyone could see this side of the Maraciana. The Affinities Complex followed the curve of the western cliffs, giving the building an unobstructed view of nothing but sea.
The Anath raged on beneath her, slamming into the cliffs below, nature’s own answer to the anger coursing through her. She wished she could harness the might of the ocean and send it crashing down on the Bellare. She would drown every last one of them.
