“Are you all right?” she asks quietly.
No. No, I’m not.
“Do you—do you want a hug?”
I scoff bitterly without bothering to look up. She lost the right to offer me any comfort. “Why would I want that?” is my muffled response.
“You look like you could use a hug.”
I brace my elbows on my knees, leaning back to glare at her. “You forbade me from touching you, remember?”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s never stopped you before.”
I can do nothing but stare at her and swallow down my guilt.
“Look,” she says softly. “It’s been a lot for both of us. With your mother and the rebels and Sura and…” she trails off, grief flashing across her face. I know she’s remembering her father.
I don’t say anything. I lost the right to comfort her, too, after that night in the tent.
Mayah turns her face away. “Maybe I was the one who needed a hug,” she whispers, and the tears in her voice snap the restraint I’ve been struggling to hold onto. I grab her wrist before she can rise from the sofa and yank her into my lap. A surprised gasp breaks free, whispering through my hair as I bury my face in her neck.
My arms wrap around her waist, her thighs bracketing my hips, and for a fleeting, foolish moment, I let myself pretend she’s mine. That she was always mine. That everything was real.
One heartbreaking moment.
Then—“This doesn’t change anything.” I remind both myself and her.
“I know,” she whispers. Her nails rake pleasantly against my scalp. When she drags them down my neck to my shoulders, kneading the tension away, I suppress a groan. Despite my constant reminders to myself about her lies, my body relaxes against hers.
Like this is where I belong. In her arms.
She holds me tighter, and I can’t resist the need to skim my nose along her neck, inhaling her rosy scent. Her throat bobs, and it’s all I can do not to suck a bruise into her soft skin. Mark her as mine.
Because she isn’t. She never will be again.
“If I tell you to stay here while I talk to Tairna, would you listen?”
“No.”
Despite myself, my lips twitch. “What if I ask nicely?”
“I’d think about it longer. But I still wouldn’t listen.”
I pull away from her, a deep sigh escaping me. At least she’s being honest, for once.
“Let’s go.”
There are no guards stationed outside Tairna’s office, located one floor above us. My knock reverberates off the scratched wood, torchlight casting looming shadows on the walls.
“Come in,” Tairna’s muffled voice calls through the door. She doesn’t look surprised to see us. Her office is small and bereft of adornment—not unlike her old chambers in the palace. A large, battered table dominates the back half of the room, neat stacksof parchment set atop its scratched surface. Several mismatched chairs are tucked in around it.
A single painting leans against one wall: a field of red-gold lava, with Mother Valca rising above, its dark peak smoking with warning.
Or triumph.
In the sky above the volcano, a jagged lightning bolt cuts through the night-black paint.
My mouth goes dry. That lightning bolt isme—the white paint rises slightly from the canvas, as though someone added it long after the initial painting was completed.
