“The bruises and lacerations were easy enough, but the concussion took a bit more focus.” The gentle smile pulling at his lips falls. “I couldn’t do anything for the deeper ailments. Wounds like that—ones that have lived within you for nearly your whole life—often intertwine themselves with your core essence. You are who you are because of them. Your resilience. Your resourcefulness. Both were born from a refusal to surrender to your perceived weaknesses. And it would take a healer much more skilled than I to even think about treating themwithout fracturing your soul.”
“It’s okay.” I offer him a smile, though he can’t see it through the deep black tint of my helmet. “I think you’re the first person to talk about my condition in a way that makes me feel . . . whole.”
“Youarewhole.” Kalden grabs my hand, flipping it palm-side-up and rubbing a thumb along the slit in my glove. The motion sends a different kind of warmth flaring through my core.
“You can heal?” Someone chokes back a sob behind me, dousing the new fire within me like a bucket of cold water.
I turn around, surprised to see we’re now a mere two dozen feet from the ocean, which explains the whooshing white noise. Demi sits near the edge of the ebbing water, cradling a too-still Yvonne in her arms.
“Your friend is past the point of healing.” Kalden bows his head. “I’m sorry.”
I stare at Yvonne’s unmoving form and notice what I haven’t before. Unlike her prior puncture wounds, a gaping hole now runs clear through her chest. The jagged tips of her broken rib cage protrude through her torn leathers. Like the Sol ripped her heart straight out of her body instead of slowly draining her.
Her second chance at life, gone.
Demi hunches over, body heaving. Gem strides to her side in a wordless show of comfort.
My teeth grind together, and I wish I could go back and send out the surge of fire that first moment the Sols broke through the forest.
As if I’ve conjured one from memory, a guttural wail echoes across the sand, and my body goes rigid.
“Is that?—”
“Sounds like Joss needs a hand with the Pyre.” A man with bright blond hair and an even brighter smile walks around Kalden to kneelin front of me. “Glad to see you up and moving, little nova.”
Like Kalden, his irises are alight with a brilliant gold, as are the veins running along his half-naked body . . . or three-quarters naked, considering the sheerness of his pants.
As if he can sense me staring through my helmet at his semi-transparent bottoms, he shoots me a wink.
Cheeks heating, I ask, “‘Little nova’?”
The indecently dressed stranger’s smile turns lopsided. “A nova is a strong, rapid outburst of a new star. Or, technically, a star that already existed, but was too dim to really see before.”
He pats my legs, then rises.
Was that supposed to be a compliment, or is being likened to a dim star having an outburst some type of ambiguous insult? Whatever the case, this hardly feels like the time for brevity, and I’m not sure how the hell to respond.
Luckily, I don’t have to, because Kalden cuts in to tell him, “I’ll join you two in a minute.”
The blond man nods before jogging towards the other side of the dune.
I push myself to my feet, brushing off the sand from my backside, and nod to the stranger’s retreating form. “I take it you know him.”
Kalden’s features go blank, mask returning. “That’s Niles. He’s a friend.”
“Joss, too?”
He nods once.
My brows pull together. “You have friends who live up here? Aboveground?”
“I do,” he answers curtly.
“And they aren’t Sols?”
He goes quiet for several seconds. “We aren’t the monsters you’vebeen taught to fear.”
We. Notthey.
