“She needs me,” I say firmly. “I must return.”
Jyn pauses her gathering and narrows her eyes at me. “Then you will do so on your own. I will not join you in that monster’s lair.”
“What do you know of the emperor?” I demand, fed up with her roundabout way of telling me things.
“What do I—” She stares at me as though I have stabbed her in the heart. Jyn throws her hands up with a frustrated huff. Something untamed ebbs across our bond, a feeling so heavy and ancient I feel it crushing down on my shoulders.
Then her expression hardens. “I can’t do this anymore, Sai.I cannot.All mortals die, and your mother is no exception. Either go to her, or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me.”
My jaw drops open, but no words come out to rebut her cruel ones. As I stand there in stunned silence, Jyn grabs her things and rushes out into the desert alone.
My head tells me to return home. I’ve been gone too long, and venturing any farther into the Western Wastelands could spell my end. It’s easy to die of starvation and thirst out here.
But my heart tells me to follow. I must know more: about Jyn, my Fated One, our fraying gray thread. All my life, I have wondered about her. Now that she’s within reach, how can I possibly let her go?
Choosing my heart, I set out after her beneath the unforgiving sun.
17
Ihave never fared well inthe heat. My pale skin burns far too easily, and my dark hair soaks up all the sun’s rays. I’ve thrown on my tunic, but the crow’s sharp claws have slashed through the fabric. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll wind up with awkward burn marks by night’s end.
We have been walking for hours, not a single other soul to be found in the arid wastelands. To make matters worse, the air is irritatingly dry and still, and it teams up with the blazing temperatures to bake my tender flesh from the outside in. We trudge on, nary a cloud in the sky as the sun beats angrily down on us.
“My lady,” I rasp. “Why do we not take to the air, as we did before?”
“Crows fly” is her simple, perplexing answer.
I swipe my forearm across my sweaty brow. “Right. Crows fly,” I echo, resigned and very dehydrated. “Of course.”
“He’ll be watching the skies,” Jyn goes on. “We’ll better outpace him on foot.”
“?‘Outpace’ implies an intentional direction. You have yet to tell me where we are headed.”
She doesn’t grace me with a reply.
Annoyance licks at the nape of my neck, the tension in my shoulders building to the point of cramping. I catch up to her brisk pace, ignoring the chafing of my thighs and the needles stabbing into my feet. The footprints we leave in the sand are a peculiar thing. Jyn’s are far heavier and deeper than my own, despite her smaller human stature. The wind wipes them away regardless, any evidence of our passing existence smoothing away with time.
“Jyn, you should rest,” I say. “We have been walking for hours.”
“The more distance we put between ourselves and that terror, the better,” she replies, keeping her eyes ahead.
She appears unaffected by the blazing heat, though something about her hunched shoulders and the hand she’s keeping cradled against her chest gives me pause. Upon closer inspection, I notice the piercing wound the crow inflicted on her.
“You’re still bleeding?” I ask, alarmed. I take her hand to inspect it. Without thinking I immediately rip part of my tunic to wrap it around her delicate palm. My clothes were ruined anyway, so it might as well serve a purpose. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
Jyn attempts to pull away, but I’ll have none of it. I hold her arm steady as I tend to her injury. “This is nothing. I’ve survived far worse,” she says.
I tie off the bandage with a sigh. I know how much stronger Jyn is than myself, and yet she doesn’t fight against what I do next: allow myself the indulgence of gently grazing my fingers over the curve of her wrist.
She looks surprised, but I can feel her thrill of delight through our connection. I have noticed that the more time I spend with her, the easier it is to tap into her thoughts and sensations. It’s only ever a fleeting glimpse, but that’s more than enough.
Right now, I know that she’s happy—happier than she has been in a very long time.
“Where are we going, my lady?” I ask softly, the distance between us closing.
“Somewhere far from that monster,” she whispers.
“You would be hard-pressed to find land the Emperor Róng hasn’t claimed for himself. Save for the Moonstar Isles and the Southern Kingdom, though the latter may well fall to the Imperial Army within a matter of moons.”
