“Have you found it hard?” I ask, “Living down here and up there?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes. Especially when I’ve missed my sister. But once I was old enough, I learned how to come and go undetected.” He grins, brushes some dirt off the knee of his pants. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some really close calls getting caught.”
“Really?”
“Too many to count. Most of which my uncle and the Sindaco know nothing about.”
“You sound like me with Poppy.” I smile. “Sneaking out before morning bells, I’ve had some terrifying run-ins with Imperi soldiers that, had one thing gone wrong, could have been bad.”
“And you never told your grandfather.”
I sigh. “Never.” I take in the cave from this new vantage point where, from here on the ground, the gems seem to shimmer even more brightly against the ceiling and walls. “Thank you for this. It’s magical.” I meet his eyes and smile but he’s all serious. Not the usual Officer-Dorian serious, but a different kind. One I feel has something to do with me. One that reminds me of that moment after we escaped the Imperi soldiers through the river and we were huddled in the woods, so close, hearts racing from adrenaline and fear and his breath grazing my cheek.
“Here—” He faces me and reaches into his pocket. “A good luck charm.” Atop his palm is a round of glass. At first glance it doesn’t look like much, definitely not nearly as intricate as the other treasures he’s sculpted for me.
I take it from him and hold it up toward the light. Within the orb, which is flecked with oranges and yellows and pinks, reminding me of the sunset, is a bubble filled with water. Each time I flip it over, the water flows as small waves.
“You told me to keep busy yesterday by making something of glass. So, I did.” He flashes an impish grin. “It’s water from the Great Sea.”
“How’d you get it?” I ask, flipping it back and forth, mesmerized.
“There’s a path through the woods from the glass shop that leads to a small tide pool. I sneaked out and snagged it. Took several tries and more foul language than I’d care to admit to figure it out.” Dorian places his hand on my shoulder. “I wish there was some way to give you more of your grandfather, something more tangible to remember him by, but I figured, the sea…” His words trail off.
“He’s a part of it now,” I say.
Dorian nods, clearing his throat.
I bring the token to my heart. “It’s the most precious thing anyone’s ever given me.” With that thought, I’m hit behind the eyes with the memory of Nico’s necklace. It’s been sitting on the ledge in my cave. Neglected. All but abandoned. But as quickly as it came, I shake the image from my head. I don’t want to get caught up in that right now. I can’t.
Instead, I wrap my arms around Dorian’s neck, embracing him. His cheek against mine, my face buried in his chest, it’s like I’m surrounded by him and it’s everything right in this moment. His earthy, woodsy scent—something he bathes in. His warmth. His body—all strength and speed—the memory of him training instantly flickers behind my eyes.
I glance upward to find him looking down at me. Drawn together by some invisible force beyond our control, we’ve inched toward each other’s mouths.
I wait.
“Veda … I…,” he whispers, the heat of his words hitting my lips.
I listen.
“I know…” I nod and my forehead grazes his. “Me too…,” I say, moving in closer.
And the closer we get the stronger the pull until he’s there and I’m there and we’re kissing as if it’s what we were made to do. Like we should have been kissing all along.
Like we belong.
And it’s right.
“I’ve wanted this so long…,” Dorian whispers between kisses. “But I wasn’t sure … You’re hard to read sometimes…”
“I have … Really, I have … Just didn’t realize how much…” I begin explaining myself, but the pull is too strong, too far beyond my power to resist. I continue kissing him, his lips soft, so gentle, it’s all so very clear and not at all blurry.
Dorian laughs lightly at my response but keeps his lips to mine with a wonderful, continuous string of kisses.
I silently pray he never stops. That I can stay here under the glow of rose quartz, surrounded in all that’s right in the world.
But I know it’ll end too soon.
Everything good does.
CHAPTER 25
In the briefing earlier, the Sindaco warned us that from tomorrow morning it’s nonstop prepping for the attack. But tonight? Tonight, I lie on the mat in my cave, staring up at the mural of the Sun and moon at war, the star, symbol of the Lunalette, joining them in the middle.
Candlelight flickers across the painting, gleaming and reflecting like fire, popping like tiny explosions and destruction and war. The five points of the star are pulled by shadow, stretched between the two sides but also sharp as blades, cutting the Sun down the middle and shaving the moon into a perfect crescent. Just barely, the star holds together, yet so close to slicing in two itself.
Herself.
Myself.
I sit straight up.
Stare at that crescent moon and muse over how I’d thought it was winking down at me for good luck just before my mission. Winking, indeed. Smirking, more like. As if it knew something … I didn’t …
With the memory, several things cinch together for me. Moments and conversations from the past twenty-four hours come barreling back.
I stand, pull the handkerchief the little girl gave me off the shelf. Open it up and study the embroidered phases of the moon: new, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter.
Waxing. Crescent.
“Damn him,” I say under my breath. Back in the map room, the Sindaco had told me we attack in six days, yet in the briefing, the notes I took … I swear …
I dig into my pack, pull the folded scrap of paper out from the front pocket, and squint through the darkness. The words waxing crescent next to day of attack stare back at me.
He lied. Six days …
I was just up there, and the moon was nearly a perfect waxing crescent then. In six days it’ll be—I stare at the handkerchief again—at the first quarter or past.
He knew I’d try to fight, so he lied.
Of course he lied.
Which means Dorian lied too.
“I go to battle in six days … I’d say, a good distraction is in order…”
My chest fills with heat and my throat aches with anger and betrayal.
But, no.
Focus.
I have to get to the Upper ahead of the Night.
Warn Nico before we attack.
Then I’ll fight.
To hell with what the Sindaco or Dorian or anyone else thinks I should do.
Quickly, I throw what I think I’ll need together. Quiver with my atlatl and spears slung over my shoulder, blade in my belt, pack on my back, I’m ready.
But first, I have to be 100 percent sure.
Once I am, I’ll leave a little something behind for “my father.”
* * *