by Lori M. Lee
The corners of his lips tightened. Then something flashed across his face—frustration or pain. “You have to understand, it’s not always a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s . . .” He frowned as he searched for the right words. He rubbed his neck, his fingers passing over his tattoo. “There’s a darkness inside me. Like an ink spot, and the more I rub at it, the larger the stain becomes.”
His admission was discomfiting. I couldn’t hold on to my anger, so I let it go. I reached out, my fingers tracing his tattoo. His gaze flicked to mine.
“Does it scare you?” I asked—because that unknowable part of him scared me. How would he change if he gave in to that darkness?
His face softened at my touch. “Not usually.” His hand came up to toy with a dark strand of hair falling over my shoulder. “But it can surprise me sometimes. I don’t think it’s something I can wipe away. It feels fixed, like my powers. Or like this consuming need to protect you. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be protecting you from.”
He touched his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes and breathed in, trying to catch a hint of his scent. All I could smell was ash. He had a gray stain along his jaw, and the vibrant red of his tunic had gone dusky from the smoke, but he appeared as unaffected by the fire as Irra.
I licked my dry lips. “When you saw me for the first time in Kalla’s tower, you said you wanted to remember. Is that still true?”
He pulled back to look at me. For a long moment, he was silent. He seemed to be studying my face. Maybe he was trying to remember. Or maybe he was deciding whether I was worth remembering.
“I do,” he said with little conviction.
My heart gave a miserable twist that I desperately hoped didn’t show on my face. I didn’t want him to see how much his answer meant to me.
“I wish I could pick and choose which memories to recover,” he said. “But the bright spots in your past don’t happen without the dark ones, and it would be impossible to remember one thing without the other.”
“It would make things a lot less complicated, though,” I mumbled.
His dimple appeared as a sad smile flickered across his lips. “It would. It’s just that I wonder whether some things are better left unremembered.”
After what had just happened with his dad, I couldn’t argue.
Except for his eyes, everything about Avan’s face, sharp and beautiful, was the same. He seemed so much like my Avan that my heart ached with missing him.
Before I could think better of it, I lifted up on my toes and kissed him.
Memories crashed down on me, sweeping me under. We’d kissed only twice before now, but each one had been seared into my mind and my heart.
He whispered my name in surprise as his hands found the small of my back. Too many emotions clamored inside me, pressing behind my eyelids even as I kissed him harder. His palms slid over my hips, down the sides of my thighs. His mouth was hot, desperate, as if he was searching for something that only I could give. He gripped the backs of my thighs, jerking me closer. I gasped into his mouth. My head spun. My fingers clutched at his hair.
Wasn’t I supposed to be angry with him about something? I couldn’t string my thoughts together long enough to remember.
There was a loud cough behind me.
Avan and I sprang apart. My heart, which had been racing a moment ago, nearly stopped at the knowledge of who stood behind us. I slowly spun to face my brother.
Reev looked murderous, but I wasn’t sure if the victim of his wrath would be me or Avan.
“Um.” My mind was alarmingly blank. “We just got back.”
“I see,” Reev said evenly, at odds with the intensity of his scowl. At least he looked unharmed. He must have missed the attack completely.
Avan tried to straighten out his tunic with quick, surreptitious movements. I risked a glance at him and winced at his disheveled appearance. I probably didn’t look much better. My face burned.
“I should go,” Avan said. He brushed his fingers over my knuckles, gave Reev a polite bow, which Reev didn’t return, and left the throne room.
The silence that hung in the air after his departure felt stifling. With a hastily mumbled excuse, I patted down my hair and tried to walk past Reev.
“Kai.”
I flinched, and then looked at him with as much dignity as I could muster. “Yes?”
“Are you going to explain what that was about?” His voice was dangerously calm.
I straightened my shoulders. I wasn’t a little girl anymore who could be sent to bed early, even if my trembling knees had yet to realize that. “You really need an explanation?”
Reev’s gray eyes were like granite. “You can’t go around kissing—”
“I can kiss whoever I want,” I said, taking strength in my renewed anger. I wasn’t ashamed by what we’d been doing. I was only embarrassed that Reev had seen.
“You’re not old enough to unders—”
“I’m seventeen,” I protested. “Eighteen in a couple months. How old were you when you kissed a girl?”
The way his scowl wavered was answer enough.
“Besides, I understand what I’m doing. It’s not like I didn’t see enough of it by the docks.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and don’t you dare start thinking about doing that with him.”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “Of course not. But even if I was, it’s none of your business.”
“Avan isn’t safe,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “None of the Infinite are.”
The Infinite were the most powerful—and unpredictable—beings in the world. But I couldn’t help feeling defensive. “In case you forgot, Avan gave up his life to save mine.”
“I could never forget. But that was the old Avan. That”—he gestured at the doors through which Avan had left—“isn’t him. He’s one of them now. Mason told me about what happened to the sentinels at the tower.” I shook my head, but Reev continued, his voice softer, pleading. “He isn’t safe, Kai.”
He reached for my hands. Physical contact was something else that had receded between us, and his touch was such a relief that my eyes blurred. I blinked away the tears.
Sometimes I wished that I could sink into the strength of his arms and hold on to the illusion that, as long as we were together, nothing could touch us. But that was a fantasy I’d constructed as an eight-year-old kid with no family and no past, clinging to the only person in the world who would have me. It was a fantasy that had lasted up until the moment Ninu had shattered it.
I couldn’t lean on Reev’s strength anymore. I had proved to myself that I could stand well enough on my own. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take comfort in his presence or his touch. He was still my brother.
I just wished I knew what he thought about us. His hands were warm around mine, but the rift between us was still there. I didn’t know how to reach across and pull him back.
I sighed. “Avan can’t help that his Infinite nature takes over sometimes. He’s trying, though. You of all people know what it’s like to have something in your head that you can’t control.”
“That’s not the same. Avan isn’t being controlled by the Infinite. He is one.”
Hearing him voice my own doubts made my resolve falter. Since first learning about the existence of the Infinite, I’d encountered five of them. They ranged from tolerable to downright sadistic. Istar, who had been allies with Ninu but left the city after I killed him, had introduced herself to me as Strife and taken particular joy in my discomfort. Like Ninu and now Avan, she had once been human long ago.
Thinking about what Avan could become unsettled me, but at least I knew what the end result might look like. And Avan wasn’t yet far gone.
“You do realize,” Reev said with measured words, “that you can’t be with him. You and I—we’re going to change, grow old, die, as any human should. Avan won’t.” His fin
gers tightened around mine, forcing me to listen. “He’ll remain ageless until long after we’re both gone, because he isn’t human. And no amount of reminiscing about who he once was will change that. Unless—” He released me, and I backed away into a pillar.
Reev rarely allowed his emotions to show on his face, but for once, they were plain to see. The wariness in his eyes, and the way his hands hovered in the space where I’d been standing, told me enough of what he was thinking. I shook my head.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t changed my mind about becoming Infinite,” I said. Was I tempted by the idea of immortality? By the promise of power I’d only glimpsed in Kronos? Perhaps. If Avan had been allowed to keep his memories, I might even have considered giving in to Kronos.
But after everything they’d done, after everything that had happened because of my Infinite side, it was impossible to want anything to do with them.
“It’s not about being with him. It’s about not giving up on the possibility that he might still remember what it means to be human,” I said. “I never gave up on you. Even after the terrible things Ninu made you do. Don’t you see? I can’t give up on him, either.”
After a long pause, during which I endured Reev’s assessing gaze, he said, “All right. I’ll try . . . I’ll try to understand.”
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with you kissing him.”
I gave him an exasperated look. “Reev—”
“You should go clean up.” His nose wrinkled as he surveyed the damage. Smoke stains streaked my hands, and I had to assume my face was no better. At least Avan hadn’t seemed to mind. How had he and Irra come out looking so untouched in comparison? They were in the lobby longer than I was. Were the Infinite fire-repellent?
Probably, I thought sourly.
I left Reev in the throne room and hurried to wash up.
My hand felt sticky and heavy. I fumbled with the blanket, kicking it off my overheated body. Daylight filtered through my room.
My pulse thudded in my ears. My breathing was loud in the silence. I stared up at the canopy drapes, my thoughts scattered. I tugged at the damp warmth of my nightshirt and rolled onto my side.
Reev’s sightless eyes greeted me.
My mouth opened, but a scream wouldn’t come. Reev lay on his back, head turned to the side, blood flecking his jaw. More blood saturated his tunic, darkest at the center of his chest where a wound gaped at me. I’d mistaken the sticky warmth of his blood for sweat.
I scrambled away, my body shaking. My palms slipped off the mattress. I tumbled backward. Something clattered to the floor beside me.
It was a knife. The blade was stained almost black. I’d been clutching it.
Terror released my voice. I screamed and screamed and—
“Kai!”
My eyelids flew open, my screams echoing in my ears. Someone was standing over me, but all I could see was Reev’s mutilated body.
“Kai, look at me.”
Mason. My hands clutched at the blankets. I gasped in air. My eyes focused on Mason.
“It’s okay,” he said, speaking low, soothing. His fingers skimmed over my temple, my cheek, settling beneath my jaw. His touch was firm but gentle, coaxing me into full awareness. “It was a dream.”
A dream. I gripped Mason’s forearms. Just another dream.
“I’m fine,” I said hoarsely. I sucked in a breath as my body sagged into the mattress, the tension gradually fading along with the nightmare.
“You sure?” Mason perched on my bed. Behind him, my door was wide open. He must have heard me screaming and rushed in. Probably broke the lock. Great.
I groaned and rolled onto my side to bury my face in my pillow. “I’m fine,” I repeated, my voice muffled.
It wasn’t always Reev in the nightmare. In the beginning, I’d dreamed that I was in Kalla’s tower, reliving that night with my bloodied hands gripping her knife as Ninu bled to death. Then my subconscious had gotten creative. Sometimes I was back in Avan’s shop, standing over Avan’s body, Kalla’s knife dripping onto the dusky tiles. Sometimes I was in the Labyrinth, straddling Reev’s waist as I plunged the knife into his chest. Once, I watched myself kill all of them: Reev, Avan, Mason, even Hina, the only other friend I’d made in Etu Gahl. I had dragged the blade across their necks, their arms, their stomachs, carving murals into their skin. After waking from that one, I had barely made it to the bathroom before my stomach heaved.
“Kai?”
I wiped my hands against my pillow, as if I could still feel the sticky warmth of Reev’s blood between my fingers. Then I rubbed my face and sat up. I offered Mason a sheepish smile, but inside, I was mortified.
“Sorry you had to see that.”
“Does that happen often?”
“No,” I lied. He didn’t look like he believed me, but I wasn’t going to talk about it. “What are you doing in here?” I looked around. It was still early, the light from the window suggesting just after dawn.
He seemed reluctant to change the subject, but he must have realized my discomfort, because he stood. “I was coming to wake you. A messenger arrived at the city gates.”
“Messenger?” Maybe I wasn’t fully awake, because I couldn’t process what he was saying. Where could a messenger possibly have come from?
“Claims she’s from a country up north. Looks like we’re not alone after all.”
CHAPTER 7
MASON WAITED OUT in the hall as I splashed water over my face and tied my tousled hair back into a ponytail. A million questions raced through my mind as I dressed.
How had they known we were here when we’d never found signs that anyone else had survived Rebirth? Why were they making contact now? And how the drek could someone without a scout have gotten through the Outlands without being eaten by gargoyles? Mason had said the messenger arrived on a horse. A horse. I couldn’t wait to see that.
As soon as I pulled on a simple tunic, I threw open my door, and we headed down.
Mason explained that the Watchmen had escorted the messenger into the city as far as the palace gates. From there, a sentinel had taken her to a waiting room in the guest quarters of the west wing. It was sheer luck that Mason had been heading out for his morning training when the sentinels brought her in.
We were practically running through the halls, startling the servants as we tore past. I was breathless with excitement.
In no time at all, we’d reached the door to the waiting room. We took a moment to compose ourselves, and then pushed inside. I’d never had reason to be in this section of the palace, so I quickly took stock of the room. It was elegantly furnished with a settee, an armchair, and several upholstered wooden chairs, all of which were empty except for one.
Sitting there, looking self-conscious, was a girl. At least, I was pretty sure she was a girl. She was covered head to boots in a crust of dirt. Her hair was shorter than Mason’s, and her heavy riding cloak hid everything from her neck to her knees. Beneath the dirt and dust, her hair might have been brown. Her lips were cracked, and her cheeks and the tip of her nose were red from the heat of the Outlands. Who knew how long she’d been out there?
She sat at the very edge of the seat, as if trying to touch as little of the pale gold upholstery as possible.
The sentinel who’d escorted her stood nearby, watching her with a puzzled sort of look, like he couldn’t believe the girl was really here. I could understand. This was crazy.
At our entrance, the girl jumped to her feet. Her hands appeared from beneath her cloak as she wrung them together at her waist.
I addressed the sentinel: “Find Master Hathney and have him arrange for a room and a meal. And bring her some water.”
The sentinel hurried away to find the steward.
The girl stared at me with wide brown eyes. I put out my hand, and she rushed forward to shake it. She bowed her head low over our joined hands. Dust from her hair sprinkled down over my knuckles.
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“Welcome to Ninurta,” I said, and then felt immediately awkward, but I didn’t know how else to receive her. “I’m Kai. And this is Mason.”
She beamed. Beneath the outer corner of her left eye was a blue tattoo about the size of a pebble. It looked like an eight-point star with the four longer arms pointing north, south, east, and west.
“I’m Yara. It’s such a relief to have at last arrived,” she said, sounding surprisingly energetic for someone who must have spent quite some time on her journey, judging by the collection of dirt. “I wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction or if I’d find a city here at all.” She dropped my hand and rubbed her palms together, releasing another shower of dust. She grimaced.
“Where do you come from?” Mason asked.
“Lanathrill, north of the Yellow Wastes.”
“Yellow Wastes?”
“The Outlands,” I said. The dirt coating Yara’s brow crinkled.
With no outside contact of any kind since Rebirth, it made sense that we would have different names for places. The archived maps in the records hall showed much less desert land prior to Rebirth, and an area that the history texts claimed had contained more wildlife. The Outlands hadn’t been big enough to need a name back then.
The door to the waiting room opened. Kalla and Miraya entered, followed by a servant bearing a tray with a flagon of water and a cup. The servant set the tray down on a table against the wall, beside the mantel. No fire had been lit in the hearth, but the room was warm enough with the thick burgundy rug and heavy tapestries to chase away the chill of stone.
At the sight of Kalla, Yara’s eyes went impossibly wide. She bent at the waist, her dirt-encrusted cloak falling in stiff layers around her.
“The Pale Lady,” Yara uttered breathily. When she straightened, her face shone with reverence. “I never expected to be honored with meeting you.”
“How do you know her?” I asked. Yara lowered her gaze. The back of my neck prickled.
Rather than offer an answer, Kalla swept aside the shimmery satin train of her gown and sat with sinuous grace. Miraya sat beside her on the settee, her shrewd eyes taking in every detail of Yara’s appearance.
