I don’t want him to look at me differently. I don’t want the softness of his gaze to harden again.
Throughout it all, Arion doesn’t respond. However, he does pull me into his arms. He holds me, brushing gentle fingers through my hair when I mention how the sorcerer used to braid it too tight. Used to sit me on his lap and tear at my scalp in front of an audience of his own servants. Used to laugh and lick up my tears whenever they fell. Arion keeps holding me, even after I’m done. And then he apologizes, over and over again, as the silvered cord tangles around our chests and knots us together.
Together.
It’s a strange concept. I’m so used to being alone. But Arion is here, and he doesn’t flinch away from any of it. From any ofme. “I was weak,” I admit finally, leaning against his chest and counting the rhythmic beats of his heart. “He made me weak. He made mehatemyself. That’s the worst part—escaping and feeling like… like acoward. If I could have handled it, just taken it silently, I could have survived it.” My voice cracks with repressed pain. “Sometimes I think my misery was my own fault.”
He turns my cheek so I look at him. Unbridled fury lights up his gaze. “No. Zephyra—no.”
“It wasmydeal. My bargain. The consequences were my own to bear.”
“Fuck that. It’s bullshit, and you know it. Do you know how long the Warlock Trials lasted? Two years.Two.” He shakes his head as if he can’t quite comprehend it. “Eight fucking years. Zephyra, your survival was a gods-damned miracle.”
That same warmth—just warmth—suffuses my bones. My tail dries of all remaining salt water then. In an instant, my scales transform back into flesh. My tail splits into two golden legs. Arion glances at it, at me, with wide eyes, seemingly mesmerized. Which feels impossible. Maybe even more impossible than the dryads, than blowing up an isle, than giant squids and sky ships.
“I see your light too,” I manage breathlessly. “You’re not all bad.” His gaze slips back to mine, and heat flares through the cord. Too much. Too heady. “For a warlock,” I add quickly, before we can do anything we regret. We’ve not even had a chance to speak about ourintimacy. And I can’t bring myself to question it now. Not when he’sholding me, when I can count his heartbeats, when I finally—after nearly a decade—feelsafe.
“You’re not all bad either, mermaid.” He brushes a soft kiss along my temple, and my heart thunders erratically. He withdraws an inch. Allows me the space to slide away in hopes of clearing my head. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. My mind whirls, and not just because of the sorcerer.
“What do you want to do?” Arion asks.
I stare at him, dazed. “About which part? Traveling to my doom, or us—a mermaid and a warlock—becoming friends?”
A smirk curves his lips. Sunshine bright and devastating. My throat constricts at the sight. Goddess, he’s going to be the death of me.
“Traveling to your doom,” he says.
“Because being my friend comes so naturally to you?”
He rolls his eyes. “We aren’t friends, Zephyra, and you know that.”
Fuck.Lust ripples through the cord. Mine. His. It thickens the tension in the centimeters between us. I want nothing more than to crawl toward him, to kiss him, toburnwith him—but I ignore it. Ihaveto ignore it. Everything I hold dear is at stake now. My freedom. My secrets. Our lives. “Well, it seems like we have no choice, right? You need the heart, or we die. And the heart is… it’ssomewherearound the Sceleratus Trench. The magic evil skull all but confirmed it.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
I could lie to him. But I don’t. “No, I’m not. I just don’t see a way around it.”
He thinks for a moment, his expression darkening. A muscle works in his jaw as he grinds his teeth, and his hand curls into a fist at the small of my back. “What if you wait on the ship and we go without you? Amaya’s crew—her soldiers—are going to help us. She wants treasure and proof of the ruins.”
“And you trust her not to want the heart?”
“Of course not. But I won’t let her have it.”
He sounds so certain, so confident, that I have to laugh. “I don’twant to wait on the ship. I don’t trust anyone else either. It’s… strange that so many people have managed to find us.”
He nods in agreement. “You think that’s the sorcerer’s doing?”
“Partially. And maybe the cult’s too. We wouldn’t have such a large audience if we weren’t on the verge of a major discovery.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” he says.
“But it’s the only way.”
“It’s the only way,” he echoes.
A sickening flash of that adamant castle streaks through my mind’s eye, and I think I might puke again. But Arion takes my hand. He twines his fingers with mine. “Are you sure, Zephyra?”
Perhaps it does make me weak. Perhaps I am as irrevocably broken as I believe. Because I can’t stop myself from asking, “You’ll be with me? The whole time?”
