It’s only a moment that passes between us, alone in the emptiness of Lark’s room, holding this darkness together, but it makes me love him. I don’t know exactly what love is, but I believe it must feel very much like this. He won’t turn back now. He’s with me to the end of this night.
He stalks towards the window, peering outside carefully. He listens. “There’s still gunfire at the gates. I’m not taking you into a battle.”
“But if the General is in the throne room, we need to get to him. We need to—”
Athan returns to my side. “Not yet. I want to be sure the palace is settled, under our control. Those men in the streets…”
He doesn’t have to finish that. He said it earlier. They want my neck. A fragment of my own people, convinced we’re liars and murderers. Would they shoot open my chest as they did the guard’s? Or would these rough men simply put a rope round my neck?
It feels suddenly very alone here, all kinds of horrors beyond these walls, and in this room, I have only him.
Only us.
And in some mad way, that seems written in the stars.
I grip his neck, his familiar, safe warmth. “Kiss me. Properly, this time.”
He looks startled.
“Hurry!” I whisper desperately, willingly, and he does.
At last.
Those perfect lips on mine. Gentle and hungry. We both smell like smoke and woods, his hands touching me like he’ll never get the chance again—in my hair, along my neck, following the curve of my ribs beneath the Safire wool. I want more. I want everything, and I don’t even stop to think if I’m doing it right. None of it matters. Only his mouth moving with mine, gaining confidence.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers beneath my ear, his lips kissing me there, kissing my neck.
You have nothing to apologize for, I want to say, and I could cry at the regret aching behind his touch, like he knows it should be better than this, yet we’re here.
This is all we have.
Then his hand moves down my hip and I pull away. I’m afraid he’ll feel Cyar’s pistol in the pocket.
He accepts the retreat, bringing his warm hands back to my face. “Don’t ever forget this. Don’t ever forget what’s ours.”
I shake my head. I trace his lips with a finger. “I never could.”
We wait, and he whispers his mouth against mine once more, tasting, learning, and eventually the gunfire lessens, fading.
I don’t want to leave this moment. I don’t want to ever move again if it means a step away from him.
But we look at each other and know this is where we make our gamble. I turn to the desk to retrieve our evidence. I grasp for whatever of my mother is in me. I call upon the girl inside of me who refuses to wait for fate.
“Drop the photographs,” a voice growls softly, and I freeze.
Lark.
37
ATHAN
Father’s Southern man steps through the door, a dangerous look on his face, and I don’t think.
Not that I’ve done much of that tonight.
I swing my pistol at him and consider just pulling the trigger, no questions asked. I don’t care if he’s bought by Father. I don’t care if he’s on our side. My only thought now is for her. That’s it.
And I will shoot him.
“Get out of our way,” I order. “We’re going to the General.”
If he has any kind of sense, he’ll take the hint.
But he doesn’t, and his gaze shifts from me to Ali. “What are you doing?” he asks her, and the danger on his face transforms to something like betrayal.
She holds the photographs close. “Saving Etania.”
“With something that belongs to me, Cousin?”
“They don’t belong to you,” she says firmly. “They belong to the ones who were murdered.”
“And are you helping the children or yourself?” He strides to her side, and my brain is too busy processing the word cousin for me to realize what he’s doing. He snatches her to his chest, gun at her head. “Please, Lieutenant. Drop the weapon.”
“Lark, stop it,” she says, struggling against his grip. “You’re mad! This isn’t the Lieutenant’s fault!”
Lark looks faintly amused. “Isn’t it?”
“He’s helping me here, Lark. We’re going to make sure the world knows what happened in Beraya. We’re going to expose the General’s son for the criminal he is.”
I have to admit, she lies really well.
But Lark holds her tight. “I think, Cousin, you overestimate Safire promises. Now put the gun down, Lieutenant. I will shoot her. Blood or not, I’ll do it.”
“He’s bluffing,” Ali tells me fiercely.
But I know he isn’t. He’s with Father, and I have no choice. I set my pistol on the floor, hands raised. Then I kick it out of reach.
Lark nods, pushing Ali from him. He motions for the photographs. She’s about to protest, then sees Lark’s gun now on my head. An easy shot. Trapped as well, she surrenders them, and with it our one chance of ending this nightmare.
“You can go now,” I tell Lark. “You have what you want.”
“I’m not sure that I do,” he replies, gun still trained on me.
My hands are raised. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
He won’t. He can’t. If Father’s truly allied with the Nahir, shooting me would only put the whole thing in flames, and right now both sides have something the other wants. They give us victory—against Sinora, against the South. We give them freedom. Both get something greater than they’d secure on their own.
Lark fidgets on the gun, his eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t I shoot you? There are some who believe the General will save us in the South, but I think that’s a fool’s wish. I think we’ve been fed yet another lie from one who wants only to gain for himself. Just like every other Northerner who has come before.”
My hands falter slightly and raw fear crawls along my spine. This isn’t a dogfight. I can’t spin from one moment to the next. I can only stand here, staring into that hateful gaze and see all my father’s plans burning to nothing with one traitorous Southern gun pointed at my head. And I’m the one who’ll take the shot.
There’s nowhere to run, not anymore.
“You don’t want that,” I say. “You will regret it.”
“I won’t.” His finger fidgets to the trigger.
“Do not—”
He takes a step for me. “I don’t give a damn about you! Your kind always—”
A crack shatters the air.
It hits my ears, too close, obliterating all sound, and I expect pain. The scorching pain of a bullet in my stomach. Blistering darkness. But nothing happens. I open my eyes and find Lark twisting on the floor before me. Red spurts from his neck in little gasps.
I turn.
Ali’s beside me, a pistol clutched in her hands and still pointed at the air where Lark was standing.
What the hell?
She’s pale as her muddy gown, shaking, and I’m about to reach for her when she falls to her knees and scrambles on all fours for the one she just shot. She crouches over him, her hands hovering above his neck like she might try to staunch the blood herself. Her mouth makes tiny sounds. I realize she’s apologizing under her breath. Over and over and over, like a prayer.
Boots near in the adjacent room, a silhouette appearing in the doorway.
Havis stares at us.
He absorbs the scene, stunned—Ali on her knees with a pistol, Lark writhing and gurgling on the floor, me useless in the middle. Then his horrified face darkens and he shakes his head. “You’re going to start a goddamn war, girl!”
“I didn’t mean…,” she whispers, her hands trying to comfort Lark now, a futile effort.
The endless gurgling continues.
Havis pulls out his own sidearm. “I know, but you can’t take it back. If he speaks of this, we’re all dead, do you understand?”
She nods, more a knee-jerk reaction.
“Step away, Aurelia.”
She doesn’t move, and he glances at me. I reach for her hesitantly, drawing her up to her feet, and she reluctantly allows it.
Havis holds the pistol to Lark’s temple and fires. There’s a spray of blood and brain. Lark stills, a river of red around him, dark as oil in the night. I’ve been here before and I hate it. I hate how easy it is to extinguish life. How meaningless and cold.