“For all of this. For coming to the delta. For falling from the sky into your life. For—” My voice cracks. “For getting you killed.”
His laugh is soft, unexpected. “Zara. You didn’t shoot yourself down. You didn’t force me to save you. You didn’t make me choose the bond over my people. I did all of that. My choices. My consequences.”
“But I?—”
“You came in peace. You tried to help. You offered integration when we were dying of isolation.” He shifts, and I feel him moving us toward what must be the center of the cell. Away from the walls. Into open water. “If anything, I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect you. Couldn’t stop Caspian. Couldn’t give you the chance to negotiate the peace you came here to build.”
The water is at my chest now. Rising faster. Or maybe it just feels faster because there’s less room left. Less air. Less time.
“Tell me something.” I cling to him as the cold seeps into my bones. “Tell me something about your life before. Before me. Before all of this.”
“Why?”
“Because if we’re going to die, I want to know you. Really know you. Not just the Sentinel, not just the man shaped by duty. You. Who were you when no one was watching?”
He’s quiet for so long I think he won’t answer. Then: “I used to sing.”
“What?”
“In the deep places. Where no one could hear. Deep Runner songs—old ones, from before the isolation. My mother taught me before she died.” His voice carries a wistfulness I’ve never heard before. “Mira would beg me to sing for her. She said my voice carried through water like light through crystal. I haven’t sung since she died. Felt wrong, somehow. Like joy was something I didn’t deserve anymore.”
The image of him singing in the dark depths makes my chest ache. “What did you sing about?”
“Everything. The old songs tell stories—creation myths, historic battles, love poems. There’s one about the first Deep Runner who fell in love with a Sky-dweller. It ends in tragedy, of course. They always do.”
“Always?”
“Integration was never easy. The old songs remember that. Remember the cost of reaching across boundaries.” He pauses. “I used to think the moral was that love between different peoples was doomed. Now I wonder if the moral was just that the best things are always hard-won.”
The water reaches my shoulders. I have to tilt my head back to keep my chin above the surface. Torin shifts, pulling me against him as he begins to tread water effortlessly. His legs move in strong, steady kicks that keep us both afloat.
“Your turn,” he says. “Tell me something. Who were you before duty and diplomacy shaped you?”
I think about the question. Try to remember a version of myself that existed before I was always performing, always proving, always trying to be worthy of the Stormwright name.
“I was wild,” I finally say. “When I was young—before Kael became a hero, before I learned to control everything—I was wild. I’d fly in storms just to feel the lightning. Race other fledglings until their parents complained. I once flew so high I couldn’t see the ground, just to know what it felt like to be completely lost in the sky.”
“What changed?”
“Kael.” The admission hurts. “He was always the good one. The responsible one. The one who followed rules and exceeded expectations. And then he became a legend. And I—” I swallow hard. “I learned that wild girls don’t get respect. They get dismissed. So I buried that part of myself. Became the diplomat. The safe one. The one who could be trusted not to embarrass the family.”
“I liked the wild version.” His voice is soft. “The one who blasted hunters with untamed lightning. The one who decided to fly solo into enemy territory on a reckless peace mission. That Zara—she’s who I fell in love with.”
The words hit me like lightning. He’s never said it before. Not directly. Not like that.
“You love me?” My voice barely works.
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubt. “I love you. The wild and the controlled. The diplomat and the storm. All of you. I love all of you.”
The water reaches my chin. Torin’s hands find my waist, lifting me higher, keeping my head above water even as his own dips below the surface. He comes up a moment later, water streaming from his hair.
“We’re running out of room,” I observe. Remarkably calm, considering. Maybe shock. Maybe acceptance. Maybe just the relief of finally hearing him say he loves me before we die.
“Not yet.” He adjusts his hold, treading harder. “We still have time.”
“Torin.” I cup his face with my bound hands, wishing I could see him. Wishing the last thing I saw wasn’t darkness. “I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
