He doesn’t draw his hand back, and hope breathes air into my lungs. I rise up on my elbow, tracing each white scar across his chest with the tip of my finger.
He lets me. When I rest my cheek over his heart, he lets me do that, too. I’m completely surrounded by him, and for the first time since I woke shackled in his carriage, my soul finds contentment.
My eyes have nearly drifted shut when he speaks.
“I gave you everything I had, Mayah,” he whispers hoarsely. “I have nothing left.”
I swallow thickly. “Then … then why are you here?”
He sighs, turning his face away as if wondering the same thing.
“I can’t seem to stay away.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “But I can never trust you again. When I close my eyes, I see you withhim. In his arms. On your knees, grief and rage swirling in your eyes. Forhim. When I thought you were mine.” He swallows hard. “I’ll keep being cruel to you. Pulling you close, then pushing you away. Like I did in the tent.” His voice cracks. “You deserve to be happy, Mayah. Just not with me.”
A tear drops onto his chest, then another.
Zev lets me weep against him until I have nothing left inside me. It’s a strange feeling to lose something, even as it's wrapped tightly around you.
Chapter Seventy-Six
“Mayah!”Zev’svoiceisurgent in my ear, his arms locked tight around me. There’s a low, violent rumbling.
The room trembles. The lantern on the dresser crashes to the floor and shatters.
Zev sits up and brings me along with him.
“Earthquake?” I clutch his bicep as another powerful rumble shakes the bed.
“Earthwielder.”
Zev rises smoothly despite the literal vibrating floor and yanks on a shirt before tossing me one to wear over my nightgown. He frantically rummages in the dresser before turning back to me. “Let’s go.”
Hands intertwined, we exit into the hallway. Torches rattle in their holders. Zev bangs on every door we pass. Sura’s door doesn’t open, and I unlace my hand from his and slam my fists against the door.
“Sura!” I shout. “Tumaas!”
The floor shakes violently beneath my bare feet.
“There’s no time,” Zev growls. He reaches for me, but the building rocks again, and I stagger to the floor.
Sura’s door flings open, revealing a wide-eyed and bare-chested Tumaas. Behind him is a tiny woman with disheveled chin-length blonde hair. Mona.
“Where is Sura?” Panic seeps into my voice.
“She said she was with you!”
Tides drown me. Surawaswith me—she’d planned to spend the night in my room. Where had she gone after leaving me with Zev?
“We need to go.Now,” Zev bites out. He reaches for me again when—
The building rattles, an earth-shatteringcrackfreezing the blood in my veins. I crash backwards. Tumaas topples onto me, crushing my lungs. Vaguely, Mona’s sharp yelp echoes through the din.
The floor splits open in a jagged chasm as giant roots erupt from the ground like massive snakes.
Wood shudders beneath me as it splinters. I can’t see Zev anymore.
The ghost of my name is on his lips, shouted again and again, growing fainter and fainter, through the rumbling around us.
Wooden beams groan and crack overhead.
