Nose crinkling, I try to shake off the lingering warmth of his fingers. “Absolutely not. I don’t want to become a monster.”
“You don’t look like a monster to me.” Kalden dips his chin towards my hand. “Despite holding the power of the sun within your palm, you look very human.”
“Iamhuman,” I insist, stuffing a balled fist into my dress pocket, only to remember there are no pockets in the skintight pants of the provided uniform. “I don’t know how or why, but the mutation didn’t spread. When I woke earlier tonight, the light was completely gone.”
Kalden peers over my shoulder at the others, who continue to spar while none the wiser to our treasonous conversation, then drops his voice lower. “What if I told you there’s a way to harness the sun’s power without sacrificing your humanity?”
I scoff. “I’d say you’re a worse liar than I am.”
“It isn’t a lie,” Kalden says firmly. “You can either choose to arm yourself or continue playing dumb for the sake of upholding misguided disarmament, even if it means getting yourself killed.”
I shake my head. “It’s not possible. Sun exposure mutates us into Sols.”
“Then explain what happened to you earlier,” he challenges.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe it’s gone dormant?”
Kalden squints as if searching beneath my skin. “You’d sense it if that kind of power remained within you.”
“Okay, well, maybe I wasn’t exposed for long enough.” Though it’s only a hunch, it would go against everything I’ve been taught, but what other explanation is there for why I’m still me?
A single brow lifts as Kalden considers my words. “So, you admit there’s a threshold of exposure that would, theoretically, make it possible for someone to channel the power for limited bursts of time without experiencing permanent mutating effects?”
I chew on the inside of my bottom lip while searching for any hint of deceit.
He doesn’t cower or shift uncomfortably under the weight of my scrutiny. Instead, his shoulders pull back, proud and tall. The set of his jaw and upward tilt of his chin project a confidence that he believes what he says is true. But how can he be so sure of this theory?
Unless itisn’ta theory.
Unless he’s already tested it and has firsthand proof.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I ask, voice nearly inaudible over the pounding in my ears.
His head dips, but just barely.
My eyes unfocus as I consider how this could change everything. If he isn’t lying, and we can truly wield the sun without becoming what we fear, maybe the Sols will finally be the ones on the losingside of the Hunt’s death sentence.
And if he’s wrong . . .
I can’t let myself go down that path—not when this is my only feasible chance of getting myself, and hopefully Gem, through this alive.
I swallow, fighting to get the next words out, because if I speak them aloud, it means I’m really considering this. “And you’re sure I won’t become a Sol if I do this?”
Kalden nods, but it isn’t enough.
“Promise me I won’t turn into one of them.” I raise my hand between us once more, this time as a request.
A pulse promise is not to be taken lightly. Touching the pulse point on the thumb side of your wrist to another’s is a profound act reserved for vows not intended to be broken. I’ve only ever engaged in one once. With Gabe. On the night of our wedding, we both vowed that it would be forever. Little did I know that forever would end in twenty-four months.
Brows pressing downward, Kalden raises his wrist and crosses it against mine.
My mouth falls open as his heat singes away any lingering thoughts of my ex-husband.
Is his touch always like this?
Agonizingly warm? Invasive? Consuming?
Kalden rolls his tongue across the fullness of his bottom lip. The movement is swift—done in a blink—yet my breath hitches, eliciting the hint of a smile so brief, I’m almost convinced I imagined it.
