Right?
The answer hung around my neck. I only needed to be brave enough to check.
I’d wrapped the pendant and tucked it away. The lights didn’t emanate through the layers of fabric. My fingers toyed with the outline of the necklace beneath my blouse.
“Go on, Chaos. We can check together.” His voice was warmer than the fire, and it set my insides aflame.
My body moved of its own accord, sitting up as he knelt beside me. “Hart.”
He left space between us, but I wanted none. I threw my arms around his neck, and with only a moment’s hesitation, his strong arms circled me.
“It’s alright. I’m here.” He stroked the back of my head slowly. I didn’t realize until he repeated his words that my body shook. His soothing movements were meant to calm, but all they seemed to do was ignite.
“I thought…”I thought I lost you. And I wasn’t prepared for that.
He nodded, and I could feel the movement against the side of my face. He wouldn’t make me say it—not now.
The strength of his hold calmed the raging turmoil inside me. We sat that way for so long the fire dimmed. “Let me grab some more logs,” I said, searching for a way to gracefully separate.
He watched me cast around for the few dry pieces of wood that the first wave of residents had brought wrapped in the tent tarps. This, too, had been an ingenious stroke of Alysa and Reid’s planning.
“Is Reid back?” I asked.
Hart nodded. “There were four of us, caught in the mudslide. One man, Peter, was injured. I think his leg is broken, but we carried him up. That’s what took us so long.”
“How did you avoid getting buried? The trees, the mud, it came right for you.”
His laugh was low, but I found nothing funny about it. “Yes, if I needed any more evidence that this was Themis’s action, I’d say that the movement of the mudslide was it.”
I couldn’t muster a response. It was one thing for Eris to warn us of Themis’s retaliation, another to experience it. And this wasn’t solely directed at me. It was targeted at weakening us, weakening our support system. The Storm had been our shelter outside of Kavios, and now they were unmoored.
“I don’t know if you really want to know this, but I promised I wouldn’t protect you from information again,” Hart said.
My lips flattened into a thin line. “Tell me.”
“As the mudslide overtook us, I had this moment where I wondered why I kept fighting Themis. All of this could have been avoided if I had only done what she asked. It was themost terrifying thought I’d ever had, but then I heard your scream—an echo from the mountaintop, that beacon calling me.”
The necklace felt heavier as he spoke. If he’d heard my scream, there was really no hiding the fear it articulated. I touched the pendant.
“I’ve never felt anything like it before. But whatever influence she exerted dissolved with that scream. I had to get back to you. We had more to do. I needed to learn what that scream meant. I got so … angry at Themis, and my choices, at everything that stood between me and what I wanted.”
Everything about his story felt terrifying. He described a goddess influencing her Champion’s mind. Yet, when I met his gaze, he didn’t seem focused on that aspect of his story. Instead, his intense focus dared me to ask the question his last sentence provoked. I found myself desperate for the answer. “What did you want?”
Tiny flecks of gold in his green eyes seemed to dance in the early morning light, and the corner of his lip curled into that smirk I never knew what to do with. “You, Chaos. Always you.”
My mouth was dry. Words no longer formed on my tongue.
Hart didn’t seem bothered as he continued. “Reid was beside me. He wore his ring. He had anger stored. He channeled strength and dug us free.”
I couldn’t imagine it. The mudslide had grown to its largest size at the base of the mountain. He had to have crawled through feet of mud. “I couldn’t … feel you. I didn’t feel our separation with the curse.”
“I suspect…” He glanced at me. “That was part of Themis’s attempt to exert her influence over me in our separation. I can’t imagine where else thoughts of capitulating to her might have come from. With everything I’ve done, I’ve never wanted to give in to her.” He cleared his throat. “As I said in Linia, being with you seems to dull the throne’s influence—her influence. I think she saw a chance and took it.”
My body buzzed with sensation even as fear snaked through me with his words. Themis had tried to influence him directly? That was a very different approach from her continued attacks on me and our place of refuge.
“What about the others?” I asked, searching for a neutral question.
He held up hands still coated in drying mud. “We dug them all out.”
