Gripping my axe handle, I patched the story together. A tale of betrayal and treason. It recounted every moment up to the night of the explosion, when I witnessed Rhys at the camp, and how he’d cornered me later in the enclave.
The deeper I waded, the quieter Aire’s breathing became. I sensed him absorbing the vicious truth.
That I had shared none of this until now. That I kept him in the dark.
When I finished, my gaze landed on a set of blackened pupils. Rage locked his jaw, and those eyes skewered through me.
Aire whirled, his back a wall of stone. Bracing his fists on his hips, he bowed his head, every second without a reply mincing me to pieces.
And then he murmured, “Why?”
It was the smallest, most agonizing sound I’d ever heard.
I had explained my motivation. That wasn’t his question.
Why hadn’t I told the clan? Why hadn’t I toldhim?
I moved toward Aire but froze when he tensed, detecting my approach. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t,” he snarled, whipping around to lash me with those cold, embittered pupils. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“If I had told you, that would have made you a target,” I implored. “It would have endangered anyone who knew. I refused to put you in harm’s way, to see you hurt.”
“Hurt!” Aire boomed, my defense ludicrous to him. “You dare to speak of concealing me from hurt! Confessing wouldn’t have harmed anyone! Your silence is what hurts me!”
“I was protecting you! And the clan!”
“You betrayed everyone who trusted you!” he roared, lashing one arm out to the side. “You betrayed Poet and Briar! You betrayed your queen! You betrayed Nicu! You betrayed—” he cut himself off, a defeated light piercing his eyes.
You betrayed me.
The accusation radiated from him. Not in fury. But in anguish.
Desolate, he stumbled backward while shaking his head. “Did you once regret misleading me? Was any of it real?”
It was. All of it.
His eyes glistened like coins. “Aspen,” he stressed in a hoarse timbre. “Was. It. Real?”
I stumbled his way. “Aire—”
He held up his hand, squashing my apology to a pulp. “Don’t say my name,” he ordered through his teeth. “Ever. Again.”
“Aire, please. It was real. Everywhere we’ve been, every second we spent together. All those times, I wanted to tell you. When we said goodbye, when you came home, when we set out for this place—”
“When you fucked me?” he asked with wounded malice.
“I wasn’t using you,” I cried. “Believe me—”
“Believe you,” the First Knight echoed in a hollow, humorless tone. “I don’t even fucking know you.”
Ever the trained knight, he steeled himself against whatever else I could say. Woodland shadows cut his face into sections, each one its own brutal shape.
I couldn’t reach him like this, as elusive as the sky. Something that had touched me briefly, swept me up in its arms, and then let me go.
Twisting, he stalked from the platform.
42
