“You don’t know that,” I gritted out, opening my eyes to shift them to his tender ones when I felt his hand land on my shoulder in quiet comfort.
“I do, which is why I don’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else I care about,” he replied, wincing when he caught himself obviously saying too much. His hand slipped from my shoulder and fell with the weight of his pain.
“Anyone else?” I asked, instantly picking up on it.
“Let it go, Alex,” he said sadly, and despite letting it go being the last thing I wanted to do, the pain in his eyes told me it was the right thing to do.
“So that’s why you don’t want me to see him, you’re afraid it might take hold of me too?” I asked instead, getting to the root of his fears. He didn’t answer me, but his silence spoke volumes.
“Do you believe in fate?”
At this, his head snapped up as if my question had been tethered to an invisible cord.
“I want to,” he replied honestly.
“That’s not what I asked,” I reminded him, and he sighed.
“It’s hard to believe that the people you lose are just another marker left behind in Fate’s path. Seems a little unfair to those who aren’t ready to continue walking along it, knowing you are forced to leave them behind.”
I nodded, feeling his words burrow deep and stay there in a way there would be no digging them out again. Because he was right, it was unfair.
“When I thought I had lost my uncle, it was the day the Rift opened. I had never been so terrified in all my life. But without him to guide me, I was convinced I wouldn’t survive a single day, let alone the years that followed.”
“I know you can take care of yourself, Alex,” he stated as if this was what I was trying to get at, but he was mistaken.
I shook my head and told him, “Yeah, I can, but that was only because I learned how to survive. Because I refused to give up and let my uncle’s sacrifice be in vain.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that even though there is pain in loss, there can also be great strength. The strength it takes towantto survive, something most of us believe would crush us with the weight of it long before we saw the light guiding us back to the living,” Itold him, making him shake his head. I grabbed his large hand in mine before adding, “Being forced to walk that road is still a choice we make, and it takes courage to carry on, despite the fear, the sadness, the overwhelming heartbreak. There is meaning to this life, Aster, and right now, I know my destiny. Because this, right here, this is my crossroads, and I don’t want to take the safe passage, not when it only leads me further away from Atlas.”
His eyes widened slightly before he then pointed out what, at this point, was the obvious.
“You love him, don’t you?” I didn’t try to deny it. I didn’t want to.
So, without wasting a single second, I told him, “Yes. I love him. So, ask yourself, Aster, what wouldn’t you do for the person you loved, but more than anything, do you really think anything in your world, or mine, could stop you?”
In the end, my saying this was what really did it. What convinced him enough that he finally stopped fighting me on it. I knew that when he released one of his big, heavy sighs that expanded his chest out before his large shoulders dropped in defeat.
“Then I suggest we get going. You have an ex-boyfriend to interrogate, and I have a King to disobey.”
I couldn’t help but wink at him as I put the car into drive and said, “Attaboy!” Then I put my foot to the gas and turned the wheel. We were making our way down the main street before I thought to add, “Oh, and by the way, just so you know… Riley and I, well, we never actually got to the dating stage.”
“Good job too.”
I raised a brow in question and asked, “Yeah, why’s that?”
“Because when Atlas finds out what he did to you…”
“Your new boyfriend is going to kill him.”
The empty city passed us in streaks of concrete and glass. The sound of the engine was the only thing that filled the space between us now that Aster had given up trying to convince me not to do this. My hands were tight on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, my back a constant low ache that flared every time I shifted. It was a reminder that I was not yet fully healed, but more like held together by borrowed time and stubborn will.
Aster sat rigid beside me, his massive frame coiled with restraint, eyes fixed on the road ahead as if he was waiting for a miracle. Like, any minute, I would slam my foot on the brakes and confess that I couldn’t do this. Because while he had stopped trying to talk me out of my plan and given up on throwing logic in my path, that didn’t mean he was ready for me to walk blindly into danger. Not when I knew he had made a promise to his King to keep me safe. A vow to his friend that he would protect me.
“You realize,” he said finally, breaking the silence without looking at me, his voice quieter now but no less serious, “That once we step inside that place, there’s no pretending this is just about answers.”
“I know,” I replied, my gaze never leaving the road, because if I looked at him, I knew I would falter, and that was one luxury I couldn’t afford. “But answers are where it starts.”
