She should've protected her.
What if she's hurt?
Khione closed her eyes, zoning in on that bond that she always forced herself to ignore. She wasn't in any pain, thankfully, but her fear and anger washed over Khione like a bucket of cold water.
Her eyes popped open. "I sense her," she said, and took off running.
Chapter 20
Marzanna
Writhia, 5220
The Wastes
"Let go of me!" Marzanna yelled, twisting and turning, trying to get free as the Skifte dragged her back through the woods. It screeched at her in response, a loud, high-pitched sound that had her reaching to cover her ears.
She had just finished killing her look-alike Skifte by controlling a tree branch to wrap around its neck, decapitating it, when she was grabbed from behind. This Skifte looked like her as well, though, beneath its convincing appearance, the smell of death and decay seeped from its temporary skin.
As it pulled her, its nails digging painfully into her skin, she manipulated the grass and plants to grab its feet, trying to slow it down, but it was too strong and ripped through them.
It pulled her out of the trees, into a small clearing at the base of a huge rock formation, the ground covered in stones making it harder for her Gift to grab onto something.
She reached for her pouch, her hand coming up with a handful of acorns, but the Skifte wrenched her back, causing her to drop them.
Fear lanced through her causing her to let out a desperate shout. She felt Khione somewhere nearby, but she couldn't focus on the bond connecting them enough to use it in any way.
The sound of bodies crashing through the woods had her and the Skiftes' heads turning in the same direction, and Marzanna knew it was her friends. She could feel Khione with them, that murky sense of panic reaching weakly for her, as if through a wall.
A moment before they emerged from the trees, the Skifte holding her let her go. Marzanna could only stare as it fell to the ground.
"No, please, don't hurt me!" the Skifte cried as Khione and the others entered the clearing where they had stopped. It looked to them, its eyes, Marzanna's eyes, pleading. "Help me!"
Marzanna turned to her friends. "No, please, that isn't me! I'm me!"
The group looked back and forth between the two of them, their eyes unsure.
Marzanna looked to Khione, begging her Match with her eyes to see her. To know that she was the real Marzanna. To open that door to their bond just enough to feel it.
The Skifte took a step toward them, "You know it's me," the creature said sincerely, its eyes full of fear. If Marzanna wasn't, well, Marzanna, she would almost believe it.
They turned to Jo.
She frowned, looking between them. "I-it's hard to tell. Whatever it's doing, it's messing with the way the real Marzanna's thoughts are broadcasting. I think. . ." she trailed off, her eyes narrowing as they focused on Marzanna.
The group seemed to take Jo's narrowed eyes as suspicion, however, because they let the Skifte take another step closer.
Then, it took another step, and three things happened at once.
Westin's nostrils flared as he got wind of the Skifte's rotting scent and opened his mouth to warn everyone.
Khione put her arm out, blocking Seren from reaching for the Skifte.
"That's not her!" she shouted, a sharp icicle forming in her hand as the creature braced itself to leap at them.
And the Skifte leaned forward just a bit, its body hovering over the acorns Marzanna had dropped.
She focused on one, a sharp pain tugging in her gut. Below the Skifte, a thick column of wood shot up, piercing through it and carrying it into the air as a tree burst forth from the ground. The creature screamed as it was torn apart by the sprouting branches.
When it was done growing, a large oak sat in the middle of the clearing, ripped body parts hanging from its branches like rotten fruit.
It happened so quickly that Marzanna's friends barely had time to back up, Khione's shouted warning ending just as the final leaves uncurled.
Marzanna walked up to the base of the tree, picking up the remaining acorns that littered the ground around it and returning them to her pouch.
"Well, that was messy," she said.
As if to prove her point, half an arm fell from the tree, landing at her feet with a wet thump.
"Holy shit, Marzanna, that was so badass!" Noelani exclaimed, running up and throwing her arms around her in a tight embrace.
"It totally was," Jo said as she joined her sister, burying Marzanna in their embrace. "I've never seen your Gift work so fast before."
As the rest of the group came up to congratulate Marzanna on her heroics, Khione remained back, her eyes scanning and rescanning Marzanna as if making sure she was all there.
And this time, Marzanna felt it. The bond swirling open as Khione's emotions flooded in. The longing, the fear, the relief, the way Khione's gaze softened when she looked at her.
And then, once Khione was assured she was okay. . .
it shut. Marzanna's shoulders slumped.
Great , she thought, I guess the only way to see if Khione truly cares is to have a near-death experience.
Marzanna smoothed her features and fell into step beside her as the group started walking again after checking around for more Skiftes.
"How did you know it wasn't me?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light despite the emotions stirring in her mind as her body came down from its adrenaline high.
Khione kept her eyes on the ground, her hair dampening with the melting ice that had formed along the strands. She shrugged, something Marzanna had never seen her do.
"I know you," she whispered, barely loud enough for Marzanna to hear.
Marzanna's mouth opened but no words came out. She wanted to be happy, to feel secure in the knowledge that Khione knew her well enough to tell her apart from that thing. But with everything that had happened between them on the boat, she wasn't sure how to feel.
She reached out for their bond but found Khione's door firmly in place. Locked and bolted.
"It was pretty neat how I made that tree, right?" she asked, resolving to try and lighten the mood.
But Khione only scowled. "I should have realized sooner. I should have killed it, so you didn't have to."
Marzanna stopped in her tracks as anger swept through her. "I think I did a pretty good job on my own, Khione," she said, her voice betraying the hurt she felt.
Khione stopped as well, turning to face her. "I know that! You did great! It's just," she wrung her hands in frustration. "You shouldn't have to kill things like that. I know you hate hurting things. I should have stopped it-"
"Stop."
Khione stopped talking and met Marzanna's eyes.
Whatever she found there made her close her mouth tightly, waiting for Marzanna to continue.
"I don't know where you got the idea that I shouldn't have to do things," Marzanna said, trying to keep her voice level, "but you need to stop. Just stop all of it. If you don't want to be my Match, that's fine. I'll deal with it. But you need to stop acting like I'm the reason this isn't working because I’m trying, Khione. I'm trying so hard and all you do is push me away and act like it's because I'm too good for you or too delicate for this harsh, cold world, or whatever you're thinking. Yes, I'm a princess, and yes, I'm kind and I cry when animals cuddle sometimes, but that doesn't mean I'm some kind of pillar of purity. I killed that creature and I felt nothing because it was trying to hurt me and my friends. I killed that sea monster for the same reason. I'm tired of you acting like my kindness makes me untouchable and-and weak!"
Khione only watched her, her dark brown eyes getting larger with each word Marzanna spoke. Marzanna dimly felt her surprise through their bond, along with something else that was too faint to fully recognize.
Marzanna sighed. "I don't know why you've pushed me away after the night we met, and you don't have to tell me why. Keep me shut out, if that's
what you choose. I just want you to stop treating me like I'll break and start treating me the way you did the night we met. Like I'm a person."
A thousand thoughts seemed to war behind Khione's dark eyes. She looked lost and, for some reason, Marzanna remembered how young Khione was to be dealing with everything she'd had to do. Taking care of Asteria, running a kingdom, fighting a war. Coming to the Wastes. Other things Marzanna had heard in passing but had never known for certain. And she was no older than Marzanna. In fact, she was a dozen or so years younger.
For two women as young as they were, Marzanna was acutely aware of how much weighed on each of their shoulders. Of the fact that neither of them had ever really been able to act their age.
Khione opened her mouth to speak. "Marzanna, I-"
"What the hell are you doing?" Westin demanded. Marzanna turned to see him standing there, the rest of the group standing behind him, and she remembered that they'd stopped walking.
"We just had to walk ten minutes in the wrong direction because we realized you weren't behind us," he continued, a scowl on his face.
"We thought you had been taken again," Zahra said. Her face looked agitated, but there was genuine concern in her eyes.
"Sorry," Marzanna said, "it's my fault. I shouldn't have stopped.
To her surprise, Khione let her take the blame, keeping quiet while her dark gaze looked around. "We should come up with that password now," she said.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"How about this?" Seren asked. They watched as he placed his hand against his chest, patting twice, before gesturing outward, palm up.
"What does that mean?" Noelani asked, repeating the movements with surprisingly little error.
Seren demonstrated again. "It's a sign we use back in the tribe. It means 'I am us' or 'I am part of the whole.' It's our way of remembering the tribe comes first, and since the people make the tribe, the people come first."
Jo smiled, "I think that's perfect. It can remind us why we're here, what we're fighting for. To keep that vision from coming true. The people come first."
Leo grinned, "It's better than what I was going to propose."
Westin rolled his eyes, "It better not be the password from that brothel you took me to."
Leo's grin widened, "Airoldi, you know me too well."
"Brothel?" Noelani asked, looking back and forth between them. "When did you two go to a brothel?" "That's for us to know and you to find out,
Corvinus," Leo said as he turned and started walking again.
Noelani looked to Jo and mouthed the word,
"Brothel?"
Jo shrugged, mouthing back, "I don’t know!"
As they started walking again, Khione hung back with Marzanna.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. My issues are my issues. Is it too late to start over? As friends?"
Though Marzanna's heart threatened to shrivel at the word 'friends' she forced herself to smile. This is what I wanted, she told herself. "Sure, friends."
Chapter 21
Leo
Writhia, 5220
The Wastes
Leo leaned against a tree, the rough bark digging into his shoulder. The irritation wasn't a problem, though. It barely even registered in his brain as his thoughts swirled around, a hurricane of 'how's' and 'what-if's' that didn't seem intent on stopping as they ricocheted off the walls of his shield.
He couldn't make himself invisible because he had to save every ounce of strength to survive the Wastes.
They'd been there eight, maybe nine days now? It was hard to keep count and he wondered again how Westin hadn't gone insane from being there for months alone.
He wasn't used to the constant presence of others. He wanted quiet, needed some alone time to sort through everything that had happened.
The others, either sensing his need for privacy or having been tipped off by his leave-me-alone expression, had left him to brood against his tree, but he could feel Seph's keen eyes upon his back, though she was nowhere in sight.
She was his Match.
Leo should have known it all along. He'd always felt something for her, but he had thought she was just another pretty face. He was attracted to her. That was it. At least, that was what he had told himself. Just another conquest, a good sign, seeing as he hadn't had one since. . .
He mentally cursed to himself. Josephine Corvinus would never be "just another conquest."
The real question, the one he couldn't find the answer to, was how? How had he not known? It had been almost a year since they'd met. For Aloka's sake, they'd practically lived together. How had he never touched her before now?
I know I had to have touched her before, he thought to himself.
He thought back over their time together, his mind focusing on every touch, every brush of a shoulder or sweep of a hand. But every touch he remembered had been through clothing. Her always wearing those long-sleeved Ettrian-style dresses. Him always bumping her shoulder in camaraderie or grabbing her arm, her skin warm through the material of her dress.
Agares’ bloody bird, they never had touched, had they? At least not skin-on-skin.
Leo closed his eyes as he thought back, and his brain snagged on an image of her face. Her lips parted in a laugh as they both played dolls with Zoe, an effort at normalcy for the girl's sake. She was laughing at him, at something he had said. Something stupid, he was sure, but he could feel the lingering pride at making her smile, at bringing back some trace of the woman she had been at the ball before she'd been taken.
He lingered on that image, on her high cheekbones, on the eyes that seem to notice everything, even if she wasn't necessarily trying. The way her nose scrunched up a bit right before she laughed. Her lips. Her smile. Aloka, he had noticed everything. She was soft and shy and didn't always know how to include herself in the conversation, or at least she had been before the hell Azmodeous had put her through. She was kind, and smart, and actually cared about people.
And he was completely charmed.
Leo frowned. How had he never noticed how much he watched her? How he took in every detail, far more thoroughly than he usually did, even as a spy.
And he felt powerless. Something Leo hated to feel. She could destroy him.
She was a Murmur, the one Gift Leo absolutely detested.
He could never hate her, though. She was way too good for him.
She would talk and he would hang on her every word. Like a dog waiting for a bone. That's what he was. A dog. No, more like a bug. He was the equivalent of a bug beneath her shoe.
A smashed bug. Broken.
If only she'd known him before. Before Cerise.
Leo took a deep breath, his throat dry. Usually, a big dose of self-loathing did that to him.
The others were huddled around, eating small rations of what was left of their food. Westin and Noelani tried their hardest not to touch or stare at each other.
Khione and Marzanna talked and added forced laughter to the conversation trying not to let the others know how much they were pining for each other. As if it wasn't obvious.
"Hey, Kian," Zahra said.
Kian looked up, and she shoved an entire nutrition bar in her mouth. Zahra said something else around the mouthful of food that sounded a lot like, "Aren't I talented?"
Kian and Seren grinned.
"I love when you talk dirty to me," Kian said.
Leo studied them. So at ease with each other. Since he'd realized Jo was his Match, he hadn't been able to keep himself from observing them. Their casual touches. The way they snuck off at times and came back, an air of satisfaction surrounding the two of them. The absolute devotion in their eyes as they looked at each other.
He had tried to imagine that for himself.
Had found that it was a lot more difficult than it seemed.
He didn't see where Jo was, but he could feel her. In the tent. Had been able to feel her since the bond snapped into place. Her fear, her determination. Her confusio
n when he avoided her, unable to look at her without his stomach dropping as if he'd taken a leap off a cliff and now, he was falling.
Leo made it to the tent, and, as much as he wanted to avoid talking about the bond they shared, he knew he couldn't with the situation they were in.
He steeled himself before entering the tent, but when he went inside, his throat went even drier than it already was.
Jo was in the process of changing. She was on her knees due to the low ceiling, her back to him. Her bare back. The rest of her suit was down around her hips, hanging limply. Her wild, dark hair reaching to her waist, barely contained by its braid. Her Mark stretched and swooped across her back, the black ink stark against her pale skin. His eyes roved over her back. Taut muscles shifted under her skin, outlining the strength in her deceptively thin form. So she hadn't only been losing weight due to not eating as he'd assumed. It had been from training with the ghosts, learning to fight for herself because no one else would.
She turned to look over her shoulder as he entered, her blue eyes unsurprised to find him there. She had felt him coming, just as he'd felt her in there. They were connected now.
She didn't say anything. They just stared at one another. Pale eyes against dark eyes. A heated flush staining her cheeks.
Leo didn't even notice he was moving, but his knees were scooting him forward, closer to her.
He reached out, and gently ran his fingertip down her arm, and then back up to cup her cheek. Everywhere their skin touched was an electrical current. A high like Leo hadn't felt before.
He hadn't known it would feel like this. Like he was the sea and she was the moon, pushing and pulling him. A wave rising, striving to meet her. A tidal wave that he would gladly ride into the shore.
He had heard the stories, of course he had. What happened when two people were chosen for each other, either by the gods or biology, it didn't matter. He had never thought that was meant for him.
His parents hadn't been Matches by any means, his mother a Pocaean lady who bound herself to an Ettrian lord for the security he offered her after her parents died. They had gotten along. Maybe, back when he was just a child, they may have even loved each other in some way. But it was nothing like the tales he had heard.
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