“You almost killed me,” he whispered hoarsely. “I hate you, Liv. I hate you.”
It was such a lie. It was as far from the truth as words could be. Here, among Sable’s people, it was all he could say.
“I know,” Liv said.
A sour-faced older woman by the bar cut her eyes at Aria. Suddenly everyone seemed to be watching and listening. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered.
“Liv, you need to leave,” Roar said quietly. “Right now. It’s too much of a risk for you to stay. He’ll know how you feel.”
Liv shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything. He knew the minute you showed up.”
Aria leaned toward them. “Let’s go,” she said, just as Sable’s guards burst through the door.
Aria and Roar were stripped of their knives and hauled back through the city streets. Seeing them treated like captives, Liv yelled and flew into a fury that fell just short of drawing her half-sword, but the guards didn’t relent. Sable’s orders, they told her.
Aria exchanged a worried look with Roar as they approached Sable’s looming fortress. Liv had said that Sable knew the truth of her feelings for Roar. She hadn’t seemed concerned. Their marriage was arranged; it had never been about love. But a hard pit of worry settled in Aria’s stomach.
They were taken past the great hall—now empty and silent—and through the winding corridors to the dining room with the bramble centerpiece and the rust-colored drapes. Sable sat at the table, talking with a man Aria recognized. He was bedraggled, spoons and trinkets hanging from his clothes. His teeth were few and crooked.
He looked vaguely familiar, like a figure she’d seen in a dream—or a nightmare. Then she remembered. She’d caught a glimpse of him during her Marking Ceremony. He was the gossip who’d been there the night she’d been poisoned.
A single thought blared inside her mind.
This man knew she was a Dweller.
When he saw them, Sable pushed back his chair and stood. He looked briefly at Liv and Roar, his expression even, almost disinterested, before turning to focus on her.
“Sorry to spoil your fun this afternoon, Aria,” he said as he walked toward her, “but Shade here has just shared some interesting facts about you. It seems I was right. You are unique.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs as he stopped in front of her. She couldn’t look away from his piercing blue eyes. When he spoke again, the cutting tone in his voice sent a chill up her spine. “Did you come here to steal what I know, Dweller?”
She saw only one possible move. One chance. She had to take it.
“No,” she said. “I’m here to offer you a deal.”
29
PEREGRINE
I hate this,” Kirra said.
Perry watched Kirra brush sand off her hands as he took a drink from his water skin. “You hate sand? I’ve never heard anyone say that.”
“You think it’s ridiculous.”
He shook his head. “No. More like impossible … like hating trees.”
Kirra smiled. “I’m indifferent toward trees.”
Along the dunes, their horses tugged at the sea grass.
They’d spent most of the day with Marron, assigning Kirra’s people to different tasks. Then Perry had shown Kirra his northern borders—he could use her people’s help on watch as well. Now they’d stopped for a quick rest along the coast before returning to the compound.
They needed to get back soon—a storm was building from the north—but he wanted just a few more minutes of not being Blood Lord.
Kirra had been easier to be around that morning. And with plenty of work to be done, she had a point about them getting along. He’d decided to give her a chance.
She leaned back on her elbows. “Where I come from, we have lakes. They’re quieter. Cleaner. And it’s easier to scent without all the salt in the air.”
It was the opposite for him. He preferred the way scents carried on moist ocean air. But then, that was what he’d always known. “Why did you leave?”
“We were forced out by another tribe when I was young. I grew up in the borderlands until we were brought in by the Horns. Sable’s been good to me. I’m his favorite for missions like this. I don’t complain. I’d rather be on the move than stuck in Rim.” She smiled. “Enough about me.” Her gaze fell to his hand. “I’ve been wondering how you got those scars.”
Perry flexed his fingers. “Burned it last year.”
“Looks like it was bad.”
“It was.” He didn’t want to talk about his hand. Cinder had torched it. Aria had bandaged it. Neither were things he wanted to share with Kirra. Quiet stretched out between them. Perry looked across the ocean, to where the Aether flashed deep on the horizon. Storms were constant now, out at sea.
“I didn’t know about the girl—the Dweller—when I first got here,” Kirra said after a while.
He resisted the urge to change the subject again. “So there’s something you hadn’t heard about me.”
She tipped her head to the side, mirroring him. “It sounds like I just missed her,” she said. “What if we’re the same person? Maybe I’m her in disguise.”
That surprised him. He laughed. “You’re not.”
“No? I bet I know you better than she did.”
“I don’t think so, Kirra.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Really? Let’s see.... You worry about your people, and it’s a deep worry, more than the responsibility of wearing the chain. Like taking care of other people is something you need to do. If I had to guess, I’d say protection and safety are things you never knew yourself.”
Perry forced himself not to break eye contact with her. He couldn’t blame her for knowing what she did. She was like him. It was the way they took in people. Down to the core of their emotions. Down to their deepest truths.
“You have a strong bond with Marron and Reef,” she continued, “but your relationship with one is harder on you than the other.”
True again. Marron was a mentor, and a peer. But sometimes Reef seemed more like a father—a connection that had never felt easy.
“Then there’s Cinder,” she said. “You’re not rendered to him, as far as I can tell, but there’s something powerful between you.” She paused, waiting for him to comment, and continued when he didn’t. “What’s really interesting is your temper around women. You’re obviously—”
Perry gave a choked laugh. “All right, that’s enough. You can stop now. What about you, Kirra?”
“What about me?” She sounded calm, but a vibrant green scent reached him, shimmering with anxiety.
“For two days you’ve been trying to draw me in, but today you’re not.”
“I’d still try to draw you in if I thought I stood a chance.” She said it plainly, no apology. “Anyway, I’m sorry about what you’re going through.”
He knew he was being baited, but he couldn’t help himself. “What I’m going through?”
She shrugged. “Being betrayed by your best friend.”
Perry stared at her. She thought Aria and Roar were together? He shook his head. “No. You heard wrong. They’re just friends, Kirra. They both had to go north.”
“Oh … I guess I just assumed, since they’re both Auds, and they left without telling you. Sorry. Forget I said anything.” She looked up at the sky. “That’s looking bad.” She stood, brushing off sand from her hands. “Come on. We should head out.”
As they rode back to the compound, Perry couldn’t block out the images.
Roar lifting Aria into a hug that first day, at his house.
Roar standing at the top of the beach, joking after Perry had been kissing Aria. That was killing me too, Per.
A joke. It had to have been a joke.
Aria and Roar singing in the cookhouse the night of the Aether storm. Singing perfectly, like they’d done it a thousand times before.
Perry shook his head. He knew how Aria felt toward him—and how she felt toward Roar. When they were together, he scented the difference.
Kirra had done this to him on purpose. She’d planted the idea to throw him into doubt, but Aria hadn’t betrayed him. She wouldn’t do that, and neither would Roar. That wasn’t why she had left.
He didn’t want to think about the real reason why. He’d pushed it back, where he’d kept the thought for weeks, but it wouldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t let him go.
Aria had left because she’d been poisoned. She had left because there—in his home, right under his nose—she’d almost been killed. She had left because he’d promised to protect her, and he hadn’t. That was why.
Because he’d failed her.
30
ARIA
It’s called a Smarteye,” Aria said, holding the device in her trembling hands. She sat at the dining table with Sable, a steady rain pattering outside on the stone balcony. Night was falling, and she heard the Snake River, swollen with rainwater, rushing far below.
“I’ve heard of them,” Sable said.
Aria remembered the look in his eyes from the last time they’d sat at that table. He’d snatched her wrist then. He’d hurt her with no hesitation.
Liv sat in silence beside him, her face emotionless. At the far end of the room, Roar looked calm, leaning against the wall, but his gaze moved from Sable to the guards by the door, calculating and intense.
Aria swallowed, her throat tight and dry. “I’ll contact Consul Hess now.”
She’d never felt more self-conscious as she applied the device. Even the guards by the door stared at her. At least Sable had sent the scraggly gossipmonger away.
When she fractioned, she appeared in Hess’s office again. He stood by the wall of windows behind his desk. Like before, she saw the even levels of the Panop and felt the same twist of homesickness.
“Yes?” he said impatiently.
“I’m here with Sable.”
“I know where you are,” Hess said, his irritation plain.
“I mean he’s here,” she said. “Sable is in front of me right now.”
Hess came around his desk, suddenly focused. Alert. She continued. “He knows where the Still Blue is, but he needs transportation. He says he’s open to a trade.”
Aria heard herself speaking, the sound of her own voice oddly far away. In the real, she felt the wooden back of the chair pressed against her spine, the sensation dull and distant. She was in Sable’s dining room and Hess’s office, but everything felt unreal. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Sable offered to negotiate?”
Aria shook her head. “No. It was my idea. I took a guess at what he needed, and I know what we have.” She’d seen the hangar lined with Hovercraft months ago in Reverie, the day she’d been left on the outside. “I followed a hunch,” she said. “I had to—and I was right.”
Hess watched her for a long moment, eyes narrowing. “Transport to where and for how many?”