by Jodi Meadows
Alone, I stood at the bow of the ship and watched Aaru watching me. He hadn’t moved except to shift out of the way of the crew.
Maybe I needed to go to him?
But as I took the first step, he jolted into motion, striding toward me with some unknowable purpose. He was determined; his movements, usually so cautious and measured, were strong and filled with resolve.
I braced myself with one hand on the rail, waiting for him to reach me. Counting heartbeats, and seagull cries, and steps he took.
My mind, tempestuous thing that it was, offered reason after reason for this sudden commitment in him:
1.He wanted to tell the others about his gift.
2.He didn’t want to tell the others about his gift.
3.On top of everything else, the imperial spy was too much and he was going to catch a ship back to Grace Community the moment we made port in Flamecrest.
4.Or maybe my connection with a Drakontos titanus was too much.
5.Or . . .
My chest ached. In spite of teaching Ilina and Hristo the quiet code, he’d never indicated that choosing to remain with us after Val fa Merce was anything more than a temporary stay. He’d postponed his return to his home because of me, yes, but because he thought he owed me for rescuing him from the Pit.
After our uncomfortable interaction in the hold, right before Crescent Prominence, maybe he’d changed his mind.
Then he stood before me, a soft bubble of silence around him. Around us. The noise of the ship and sea were softened, though not completely gone.
“Aaru.” I almost choked on his name. I didn’t want to lose him, but losing him felt inevitable.
His mouth made the shape of my name—Mira—but no sound came, and he cringed. He lowered his eyes, letting out a heavy breath. Frustrated. Or upset.
“What is it?” My words came out too airy, and maybe I didn’t want to know, but without his pencil and paper, I was the only person he could easily talk to.
My hand trembled as I offered it to him.
And though he could tap on the rail, he took my hand in both of his.
“Is something wrong?” The bubble of his silence caught and trapped my whisper between us.
Sunlight slipped across his face, its glow like honey against the perfect brown of his cheek and neck. And where the light caught his left eye, golden flecks illuminated inside the deep, dark brown. Like stars. I’d never noticed before.
He turned up my hand and tapped against my palm, earnest. ::I understand now. I think.::
I didn’t understand anything anymore.
::I assumed you wouldn’t hesitate because of where you’re from. I thought you would be able to tell.::
“Tell what?”
I needn’t have bothered to say anything, because now the words were spilling from his hands into mine, a deluge of thoughts and feelings, more than I could comprehend at once.
::You’re from Damina, and people talk about how free Daminans are with—:: He shook his head, and his fingernails scraped my palm like he could take back his unfinished thought. ::I thought what happened meant I misread. Meant you felt different. Meant no. But now I think you were trying to be respectful. Thoughtful. And you are. You always have been. I just didn’t realize what you were waiting for.::
So many words. From him. To me.
I didn’t dare say anything, because I suspected he was talking about my presumptuous behavior in the hold two days ago, but I wasn’t certain. He hadn’t offered much in the way of context.
But he didn’t continue. The space for my response hung heavy between us. His breath came in hard gasps, too, as though he’d said all those words aloud and hadn’t bothered to breathe.
My hand still rested between both of his, so I placed my words upward, into his expectant palm. ::What was I waiting for?::
He shifted his weight closer. ::For me to say yes.::
::Yes?::
He lifted both of his hands, letting his fingertips graze my jaw and throat. ::Yes.::
Everything inside me spun, and I couldn’t keep up with my own thoughts, let alone his. And now that he’d released my hand, it had nothing to do. Nowhere to go except my side or the rail, and neither of those felt right.
He tilted up my chin, and his gaze dropped to my mouth.
Only a moment.
Only a breath.
My heart thundered as the word formed silently on his lips: “Yes?”
I gasped, and both of my wayward hands decided for themselves where they wanted to be: on him. One stole away to rest on his shoulder, while the other explored his jaw and cheek and the back of his neck.
He leaned forward, as though I’d drawn him toward me, and his thumb brushed my lower lip.
Warmth fluttered through me.
::Yes?:: He’d taken hold of my waist.
This was him asking. And me asking. Forever asking and asking, orbiting each other with one answer strung between us.
“Yes,” I breathed.
I couldn’t tell who moved first. Me. Him. Maybe both of us.
His lips were warm, with just the right amount of softness and strength where they pressed against mine. He was as I’d imagined a thousand times: just right.
Yet, he didn’t proceed, like he wasn’t completely sure how.
So I showed him.
A tilt of my head. A shift of my body. And when I kissed him, he echoed my every movement with that sweet carefulness he’d always possessed. One kiss was an ask, and the next was an answer: his hand on my waist pressed the pattern of yes again and again.
And as his confidence grew and his kiss deepened, he altered his message. ::I love you.::
He loved me. Like I loved him.
A release. A bond. The knowledge of his love burned inside me like an inferno, fiercer than I’d expected. It sent my soul flying into the sky, blazing through the stars.
For so long, I’d wanted this. His touch. His love. And now we stood together on the bow of the ship, wind rushing past us, water crashing around us, his mouth brushing across mine. His movements were soft. Delicate. As though I were a precious thing. As though he wanted to explore every piece of me, but had no desire to rush the experience. He was the most gentle person in all the world, and I loved him.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips. He tasted like sea salt and thunderstorms.
He drew back, just a breath, and touched his forehead to mine. His heart raced under my fingers, but he was smiling. ::That was . . .:: He didn’t finish, as though hoping I would supply him with my opinion first.
::Wonderful.:: I tapped the word against his jaw, around the curve where his neck met his shoulder, and down his collarbone. ::Wonderful, wonderful.::
::Never kissed before.:: His cheeks darkened. ::Wanted to do it right.::
No, he wouldn’t have. Not on Idris, where a kiss was a declaration of marriage. ::You were perfect.::
He kissed me again, a touch of his lips to mine. ::Need to practice.::
I liked the way he wasn’t in a hurry, the way he didn’t try to kiss me to pieces as though I were a strange land to be conquered. For him, this was not step one in his plan to take me to bed so that he could tell his friends he was the first.
::You didn’t have to wait so long,:: I said.
He took one measured step back, just enough that we could look at each other comfortably. My hands dropped into his, and he tapped into my palm again. ::That’s what I was trying to say before. On Idris, they say Daminans kiss whoever they like, whenever they like.::
Well, that wasn’t true, but maybe it seemed like that to outsiders.
::Sometimes I thought you might want to::—his gaze darted to my lips—::but you never did. Thought it must be me.::
::You couldn’t tell how I felt?::
::Decided you were being nice to the one who couldn’t speak. To the quiet Idrisi. I am the odd one in our group.::
“Oh.” I squeezed his hands, our every interaction flickering through my min
d. The assumptions I’d made. The assumptions he’d made. Like in the Pit, after he’d stopped me from exploding. I’d wanted to kiss him, but he’d glanced at the scar and I’d assumed he was disgusted; he’d seen my shift in demeanor as a rejection.
Time after time, I’d wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted to kiss me. But we’d both spent those moments making incorrect assumptions about propriety and culture and intention when we should have just talked.
And still, he stayed with me. Even after what seemed like rejection after rejection, he remained a steadfast friend, loving without expectation.
The same missed opportunities haunted his dark eyes. ::I don’t understand as much as I thought.::
“Me neither.” As the sun set behind the mountains of Damina, I stepped forward and lifted my face toward Aaru’s. “Yes?”
Dark and silence washed over us. His hands falling to my hips, he kissed me.
BUT EVEN THE most joyous of dragons could not fly forever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AFTER DINNER AND MY SHARE OF THE EVENING chores, I floated down to the infirmary, my heart still pounding with the kiss. Kisses. Aaru loved me.
But reality exerted its harsh gravity as I stepped into the room. The spy was still unconscious. Mysterious. Dangerous.
“Any change?” I sat on the corner of Gerel’s bed—she and Chenda were supposed to stay here again tonight—and motioned toward the imperial spy.
She shook her head. “He coughed a few times, and Kursha gave him something that smelled foul. She thinks he’ll wake up, but it’s impossible to tell when.”
Guilt gnawed at me once more. I couldn’t prevent panic attacks from happening any more than I could prevent the sun from rising. I knew it wasn’t actually my fault—if I kept telling myself that, I might actually believe it—but the fact was that if I hadn’t had a panic attack at that moment, Hush (probably) wouldn’t have attacked the black ship, and Gerel and Chenda would have reached us with their prisoner intact.
“Don’t let it eat you up.” Gerel leaned forward and squeezed my shoulder. “From what you said about your visit to Crescent Prominence, it sounds like you have enough to keep you up at night without adding this to it.”
I looked at her askance. “It’s not like you to be so comforting.”
“If you even hint about it to anyone, I’ll tell them about the time you almost broke your neck doing a handstand and then got lost in your own skirt.” She reclined onto her pillow again, ignoring the way my face burned. “So, how was it?”
“The handstand?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “No. I mean you and Aaru.”
The way she said it made my insides want to combust with embarrassment. “It was good,” I said at last. “It was perfect.”
“I’m glad. He seemed nervous.”
“How do you know?”
She smiled and produced a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “He asked for help.”
That seemed unlike him, but the paper was from his notebook, and filled with his careful handwriting.
Want to kiss her.
Not sure she wants to kiss me.
Followed by single words like please, I know, and thank you, and other fragments of his end of the conversation.
I traced the letters he’d written. “Why did he ask you?”
She shrugged. “Hristo and Ilina are your best friends. If he’d asked them, then you’d rejected him—”
He couldn’t be sure they’d treat him the same after, but Gerel treated everyone with equal disdain.
“Plus,” she said, “unless they’re really good at hiding it, those two aren’t romantically involved. He figured Chenda and I could interpret signals for him.”
“Did you?” I glanced at the paper again, and the words Are you sure?
“I’ve never seen two people who want to kiss so badly avoid it so hard.” She rolled her eyes and took the paper again, and folded it along the lines from before. “We gave him some advice. I guess he took it, because you seem pleased. We also offered a demonstration, but he ran away.”
Now that sounded like Aaru.
It also explained his determination. He’d just asked for help, and if he didn’t follow through with it, Gerel would tease him about it for the rest of his life.
I smiled. “I’m happy for you and Chenda, too.”
“Yes, well.” She hesitated, at a loss for words. Maybe Gerel wasn’t used to good things happening to her. “All right, go away, please. I’ll come get you if anything changes over there.” She motioned toward the spy as she handed me the paper.
I tucked it into my pocket. “Thank you.”
Just as I stepped into the passageway, though, the man began to cough. It was a violent, wracking sound, like something must be ripping apart inside him.
Gerel leaped off her bed and darted across the infirmary. Holding him down so that he didn’t throw himself off the bed, she glanced back at me. “Call for Kursha.”
I nodded and slipped into the corridor to ask a passing crewman to fetch the medic. Then, I was right back into the infirmary, watching the spy cough until it seemed like he might fall apart.
But finally he stopped long enough to breathe, and his eyes squinted open.
“Here we go.” Gerel helped him sit up on the bed. “You’re safe.”
Something in the man’s chest rattled as he bent over his knees, mindful of the bandages covering half his body—and the cuff fastening him to the bedpost. He swayed with the motion of the ship, unfocused gaze drifting through the infirmary. Then, he found me standing in the doorway and he looked at me. Sharply. Knifelike cleverness flashed behind the haze of injury.
“You’re Mira Minkoba. The one they call Hopebearer. Dragonhearted.” Smoke made his voice terrible—the scratch of bone on bone—and the words came out slowly. His accent was obvious: almost Daminan, but tilted toward a sneer. Still, he knew our language. He looked like us, with brown skin and curly hair and wide-set eyes. He would easily deceive people, in spite of the way he spoke. “I have been looking for you.”
I caught Gerel’s eye, wishing she knew the quiet code, wishing she and I had the sort of silent understanding I shared with Ilina and Hristo. Because I needed to know:
1.Was this the best time?
2.Was he going to die on us if I asked him questions right now?
3.Or did waiting risk him dying without ever sharing his secrets?
4.Why did we think he’d tell us the truth, anyway?
But Gerel couldn’t answer any of those questions, even if she could have read them in my eyes. This wasn’t something she could give me permission to do. Only I could decide whether I was going to put on the face of a leader, no matter how I felt inside. The fate of the Fallen Isles depended on someone doing the work.
I took a fortifying breath and one measured step toward the spy. “Who are you?”
He started to answer, but a wet, hacking cough came out instead. He brought his bandaged arm up to cover his mouth as he rocked forward; Gerel held him upright, and when he stopped coughing, she poured a glass of water and bade him drink.
“Thank you.” He took a faint sip. Coughed. Sipped again. Then she set the glass aside while he caught his breath, looking up at me again. “Please forgive me, Hopebearer. There was a fire on my ship. I seem to have inhaled smoke.”
Guilt needled me, but I shook it away. “Are you able to answer my questions, or would you like to rest? We’ve summoned the medic; she’ll be here any moment.”
He tilted his head, assessing and reassessing me. “Do I have a choice but to answer your questions?”
“You do.” I stepped forward again, softening my voice. “Clearly you’re our prisoner, but we aren’t monsters. You can decide whether you want to speak with me, and you can decide how you want to answer. I suggest honestly, but you’ll be treated the same regardless. With respect. With compassion.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I have been in your position b
efore,” I said. “I would not do to others what was done to me.”
One side of his mouth turned up. “I’d heard that about you. It’s nice to see that cruelty does not always beget cruelty.” He cleared his throat. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “Now, if possible. I know I don’t have long.”
Gerel flashed a worried frown my way as she gave the spy another sip of water.
“All right. Let’s start with something easy.” I met the spy’s gaze. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have a name.”
Hadn’t I just asked him to be honest?
“But my designation is Seven. You may call me that if you wish.”
“Seven, then.”
Behind me, the door crashed open and Kursha burst into the room. She paused long enough to take in our positions—Gerel looming over the spy, while I stood before him with my shoulders thrown back and my hands clasped—and shook her head. “You don’t waste time, do you?”
“I assure you, they’ve been nothing but cordial.” The spy followed Kursha’s progress as she gathered her supplies: bandages, medicine, and unidentifiable objects. “You must be the medic the Hopebearer spoke of.”
Kursha just scowled at him and went to work.
“Seven,” I said, and his attention snapped back. “Why have you been looking for me?”
“Because you’re the Hopebearer.” That half smile turned up again. “How fortunate that your friends decided to kidnap me and bring me straight to you.”
Gerel caught my eye and frowned. I didn’t like the idea of giving him exactly what he wanted, either, but that didn’t change what had happened. I moved on.
“You’re a spy for the Algotti Empire?”
He bowed his head in assent. “I serve our empress with every ability the gods have given me.”
“How many spies have come to the Fallen Isles?”
“Nine,” he said. “A holy number.”
Nine. It was hard enough to reconcile one imperial spy in the Fallen Isles, but nine? But if the Mira Treaty had truly sold us to the empire, then maybe it was a miracle there were only nine.
“Why did you come here?”
