“I’d have punched you in the nose and then turned you in.”
He laughs. “Exactly. Sure, trust has to be given to be received. But … it also has to be earned. Even with your closest allies. Though I have a feeling you get that.”
I open my mouth to argue, but stop myself to really dissect his words. He must be referring to Nico. And even though Nico is my closest friend, I do keep secrets from him and, I’m sure, he keeps them from me. And what is trust anyway? Is it being able to expose all your fears and disappointments and desires to someone else? Or is it in trusting those things will be kept safe with that person if you do? And maybe it’s not so much about the secrets. Maybe it’s all about knowing you can tell another person anything. Knowing that you can be vulnerable and safe. Trusting—without doubt or fear.
I glance across the space at Dorian and he stares back. It’s going to take a lot more than him letting me through secret doors to earn my trust. But it’s a good start.
Finally, I answer. “I do get it, but trust goes both ways.”
Dorian steps closer, gingerly takes my hand in his. After all we’ve shared here, so many layers beneath Bellona, the warmth of his skin against mine is everything. It’s grounding and calming and exciting all at once.
It’s as if we’re suddenly realizing we’ve known each other all along. The way we relate, how closely we understand each other, it’s like we’ve been reunited.
Like I didn’t know I’d been missing him until now.
I place my other hand on top of Dorian’s, lace my fingers between his, which sends my stomach reeling.
He takes a quick breath in as if he feels it too. “I promise you I will do all I can to earn your trust. Because, Veda, if you don’t trust me … trust us”—he searches the room as if referring to the Night past and present—“this will all have been for nothing.”
* * *
“THANKS FOR TONIGHT,” I say when we reach my cave, stop outside the arched doorway.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he says.
“You were following me!”
“Details…” He flashes a crooked grin, waving my comment off with a flourish of his hand.
I’m about to enter the cave, but pause, one question plaguing me since my meeting with the Sindaco. “Dorian?”
“Yes, Veda?”
“If it’s not the Night who’s abducting the Basso and it’s really the Imperi…” I pause, collecting my thoughts, unsure if I really want to hear the answer. “What are the Imperi doing with all of them?”
Dorian’s face falls and he only shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I don’t want to know, but I must. “Please tell me.” My voice strains around the words. I’m worried it’s what I’m thinking. What I’ve feared.
He gives a slight nod, eyes somber. “We’ve found evidence they were Offered. Privately.”
Heat turns my gut, warmth rises up my throat. Even though I assumed it, hearing the words sends me into a panic. I don’t want to know what specific evidence they’ve found, but I can’t help asking, “Even the children?”
Dorian shakes his head. “There’s no way of knowing. Our hope is that some are being kept alive somewhere. But many”—he pauses to swallow—“have been killed.”
“Sacrificed, the High Regent would say.”
“Exactly. Somehow, he’s justifying it, if even to his soldiers.”
I think of all those names, photos of the missing. A flame lights deep in my chest thinking of my sweet Poppy still stuck up on that island. “How could they?” My voice shakes with emotion. Sadness and pure, seething rage. “It’s not right.”
Dorian steps closer, takes my hands in his. “If there are any alive, we will free them.”
I nod, but I’m not confident. I’ve seen what the Imperi are capable of and, now, what the Night truly is. I can’t begin to imagine a world where the Night can win this fight. It’s a death wish.
“I know that look.” Dorian breaks into my thoughts, and I’m instantly aware my face is tight with worry, my shoulders slumped. “It’s a long shot. We’re outnumbered and outweaponed. But with you”—he gazes over my shoulder and into the cave at the mural—“the hope you bring coupled with the fire we all have to defeat the Imperi … It won’t be easy, but I know we’ll defeat them.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT I lie on my mat, images of the memorial room—my mother’s name written in stone above the orange flicker of a flame—swimming around my mind, and I try with all I have to tap into some memory of my parents. I don’t have any photos to reflect on; Poppy always said the few he had were long destroyed. Was that a lie too? All I ever had of my parents was a maybe-map and a pink crystal.
There’s no telling if even those are authentic. Had Poppy just picked some scraps off the ground and placed them on my altar to give me a sense of real memories? That my parents had left these mementos behind for me when really they were someone else’s trash?
Everything I thought I’d known, each memory I’d imagined based on Poppy’s stories or that map and stone, I’d wholeheartedly believed.
And maybe some of it was true. The few things Poppy told me about my mother must have been; she was his daughter.
But the rest?
Or maybe he only lied about their deaths.
I close my eyes and conjure an image of my mother. Her hair is a few shades lighter than mine, but the same fiery amber. She wears a black Night uniform and wields an atlatl, busting into one of the Imperi’s secondary army training facilities and freeing the Basso who then join the fight.
I breathe deeply, sinking more heavily into my pillow. It might not be steeped in truth, this story I’ve spun, but I’ll hold the image of my mother dear. As hope. Motivation. Sun help me, I can’t even believe I’m thinking it …
Yet, there it is. A tiny light, a flicker of the notion that maybe, possibly, I’m going to do this.
Follow in my mother’s footsteps as a member of the Night.
What better way to honor her, to honor the life that was taken from us? The bond we’ll never know. I’ll never know.
What better way to honor her sacrifice than to fight the very people who took it from her?
And what better way to honor my future, the future of all Basso, than to stand up for what we deserve? For what’s right?
I glance at the mural, the jagged pointed star that’s supposed to symbolize me, and with the weight of a hundred boulders my chest grows heavy, doubt crushing all that hope I’d just built up.
How quickly possibility can be reduced to dust.
The truth is louder than the daydream: I’m not my mother.
I’m not so sure I’ve got it in me to be a member of the Night, much less their sacred Lunalette. Their symbol. Whatever that means.
Fighting, I get.
Freeing any Basso held captive? That I understand.
But being nothing more than a symbol? A good luck charm? Someone meant to motivate and inspire and do it all from belowground?
I don’t think so.
The mere thought of such a responsibility throws me into an internal cyclone of pure doubt, icy fear.