Emmy was going to be out of her freaking mind with worry. She was probably going to start asking a whole bunch of questions, until every damned living thing in the academy had been notified of my absence. There was no way that Yael was going to be able to persuade every single one of them to forget. That would require more power than it was really possible for a sol to possess. That would require the power of a god. I knew that there was nothing I could do right then to change the situation, but that didn’t stop me from losing my mind with worry. Damn those sols!
We walked for the better part of the sun-cycle, picking our way through forests and winding trails that dipped through the mountains. My feet started aching far too soon to complain aloud about it without embarrassing myself, and slowly, the ache began to travel up my legs. Coen was leading us, with Rome two steps behind him, me stuck in the middle, and the triplets bringing up the rear of our procession as they talked quietly amongst themselves.
“So … your mother …” I tossed the words over my shoulder, trying to speak through the ache in my ribs. “Is she still alive?”
“Is it normal for dwellers to ask each other that?” Siret shot back, sounding amused.
“Sorry.” I didn’t sound sorry at all, but that was because of the wheezing. “I just meant … there’s three of you … and two of them.” I paused, notching my hands on my knees and bending over to catch my breath. “And those two are like the size of monsters. How’d she live through all of that? Does she have some kind of fertility gift or something? Do you have another bunch of brothers tucked away? More Abcurses? A few unlucky sisters?”
“Beauty. Her gift is beauty,” Aros answered, ignoring my other questions.
“Oh. Cool.” Made total sense. Those boys had magical genetics. “But that doesn’t really explain the whole twin-triplet thing.”
“The whole twin-triplet thing?” Yael gave me a look that seemed to be part inquisition, part annoyance.
“Well it’s not really normal or common,” I hedged, starting to walk again as he loomed closer. “I mean … to have a set of twins and a set of triplets. That’s pretty rare.”
I could feel him behind me. Hovering. I’d obviously hit a touchy subject. Apparently, the twin-triplet thing wasn’t something they wanted to talk about. I stubbornly focussed my eyes on the ground ahead of me, pumping my little dweller legs as fast as they would go without actually breaking into a run. Because that would be obvious. It was much less obvious to power-walk as fast as possible, even if it made me certain that my legs were about to snap in half from over-exertion.
“We aren’t normal or common,” Yael finally muttered, his hands gripping my hips and lifting me from the ground midway through a power-stride.
He pulled me up and then tossed me behind him. I thought I was going to land on my ass and probably break a few things, but I only landed against a hard chest, arms easily plucking me from the air. Aros. I could actually smell him; that faint combination of something addictive and sweet, and a hint of burning. I realised after a moment that it was the smell of smoking sugar-plants. A very familiar smell to me, since the sugar-plants had been one of our main export goods back at home. I blinked up at him, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was just striding on, as though I hadn’t been tossed at him, and he hadn’t caught me. As though girls flying through the air at him happened every single sun-cycle.
It probably did.
“So how often do you guys sneak into Topia?” I directed the question to Aros, since he was now much closer to me than the others.
His golden eyes flicked down to me, switching between my eyes before moving over the rest of my face. “Every now and then. How often do you fall on your ass?”
“Every now and then.”
He shook his head, shifting me closer. One of his arms was hooked beneath my knees, the other banded across my back. He was cradling me like a baby. “You should be more careful.”
“Says the guy who sneaks into Topia.”
“You concerned about us, Rocks?” Siret turned his head, his eyebrows lifting, his teeth flashing.
“No.” I crossed my arms.
It was hard to look impassive and intimidating while being cradled like a baby, so I settled on pouting. Aros smirked, taking in my expression before lifting me up. The world around me dropped away as the gold in his eyes became more prominent, almost shifting with energy as his face loomed above mine. Very suddenly, and completely without warning, his lips were pressing against the very corner of my mouth. I was simply too shocked to react. The kiss was barely even a kiss, but my body didn’t seem to know that. The simple brush of his lips had sent spiralling heat all the way through me, locking down the air that should have been flooding in and out of my lungs. He pulled his head up, the smirk back in place, and continued walking.
Meanwhile, I was pretty sure that he had just reached into my chest and pulled out my poor little dweller heart. Now it was laying somewhere behind us. In the dirt. Beating pathetically.