I was about to tell her my goodbyes, and ignore the dread tightening in my chest of leaving her anywhere alone, but then she pressed her lips to my chest again, her tongue darting out, and the heat went straight to my groin.
“I thought you could hardly walk.”
All she did was glance up at me with heated, innocent eyes. The look sunk its little claws in my chest.
I groaned, grabbing the back of her neck, and kissing her hard. I could feel the awareness in the back of my eyes, a heat running through me at the idea that, no matter what I had made her say earlier, she wasn’t mine.
Frustration and rage burned through my veins, and I tried to force the feeling down before she noticed.
The church bell rang once.
I had mere hours, and I was going to take advantage of each one.
I held the sheet around me as I stood on the terrace, watching hundreds of paper lanterns rising into the air across the horizon. Over the dark ocean water and across this city of heat and stone.
My heart warmed when familiar arms wrapped around my shoulders, the warmth of his body at my back. I wondered if I made a terrible mistake being here with Weston. If just like the Shadows, I wouldn’t be able to make my way back—not from the dark, but from him. Though if that well had shown me the truth, then there was no other option.
“Weston,” I started, “your . . . brother.”
“What about him?” His rough voice ghosted down my back, and goose bumps overtook my arms.
I cleared my throat. “His scars. What happened to him?”
“My father.”
“He beat him?” I asked, aghast.
“Roldan always searched for our father’s approval. And so, he was an easy target and took the brunt of his anger.”
“That’s horrible.”
I felt him lift a shoulder, and I suddenly felt this heavy remorse for my murderer’s childhood, for my captor’s childhood. Especially for the fact that his indifference meant he didn’t know anything different.
“And you?” I asked hesitantly. “What did he do to you?”
“After fifteen? Not much.”
“That’s because you were stronger than him,” I said, remembering how Maxim said that Weston got his strength with age.
“You been reading up on me, Princess?”
A small tug pulled at my heart. “Maybe. What about before fifteen?”
Silence.
“He’s dead, Calamity. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
My stomach dipped, and I suddenly wanted to wrap my arms around him and protect him from the world. A strange feeling worked its way into my chest.
I pressed my palm to his, languishing in the difference as I threaded my fingers through his own.
I loved how rough his hands were. How much bigger they were than mine. How they felt against my skin. How I’d seen them snap necks, and yet how gentle they could be.
I loved the way he smelled like leather and man, how warm his skin was, and how completely safe I felt in his presence. I loved all of it. And right now, I didn’t care that I shouldn’t.
I swallowed thickly as I worked up the nerve to ask him something. A few lanterns floated right above our heads, and I glanced up into the night sky.
“Weston . . . do you think the seal’s unnatural? That humans forced it on the land, and it only does Alyria and its people harm?”