Page 29 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

Chapter

Twenty-One

I climb out of his lap before my mind can even register it. His hands linger on me loosely, but he allows me the space I need to stand on regretful feet.

His brow furrows above his still darkened green eyes and the longing expression I was just lost in sobers, replaced with painful confusion.

“I’m sorry.” I stumble over his long legs, trying my best to make this less embarrassing than it already is. My panic may be unnecessary, but I knew what was going to happen if I stayed there for even a moment longer.

I avert my eyes like a fool as he adjusts the front of his pants. My cheeks flush hot from the realization I was not the only one of us affected.

“It’s fine, Calliape.” He scrubs both hands down his face, an attempt to adapt to the sudden change in the air.

“Are you . . . angry?” I ask, knowing how some men handle rejection. And even though I know he isn’t, I need to hear him say it.

“Of course not.” He reaches for me, sincerity written all over his face. “Never about that.”

“Well, I am sorry, August.” I can feel the water lining my eyes because I’m the one who is mad at myself. In another life, I would have kissed him, given in to what was building between us. But in this one, we cannot be. “I wish it were different. I wish I was different.”

It comes out sounding like a poor excuse but it’s true.

“I don’t.” He smiles just a little, making sure to meet my eyes, and First Mother damn me, I want to climb back in his lap and forget what I just said.

I take a few steps away because I don’t trust myself. “Thank you for the flying lesson.”

“My pleasure.” He busies himself with some of the controls the way he does when he is trying to act natural and his muscle memory takes over.

“Maybe after the conjunction, we can speak on such things once you have found what you are looking for out here. Or we can just pick up where we left off . . . with the lessons.”

Something about the way he phrases it twists my insides, the hopeful tone in his voice sending a bolt right to my heart.

“Maybe.” I worry my lip, unsure what else to say without making this worse. “I’m headed to the mess hall. Can I grab you anything?”

This is as upsetting as it is awkward.

“All set.” He shifts in his seat and focuses his attention on something on the command station.

I turn on my heels, and I want to sprint off to get my thoughts straight. But my body is met with such resistance that leaving the cockpit makes my pace slower than natural.

The urge to fold somewhere far away is like fern rash across my skin, itching and irritating. I try not to think about the look on his face when I said I couldn’t. My words so abrupt and clearly targeted at what is between us that he didn’t even need to ask for more information.

I didn’t say I don’t want to. I said I can’t.

To me, the difference is as clear as the air in each world, but I wonder if it is to him as well. I care about him more than most, possibly more than care. My attraction to him is becoming harder and harder to deny. I wanted to kiss him. I want to do more.

But I can’t.

I turn into the stark mess hall and approach the food dispensers like they have wronged me, huffing so hard my breath fogs the shiny metal of the one nearest.

I type in the code for tea and wait for it to brew.

I need to focus.

If I did not leave the spell book in the cockpit, I could be going over the chapter on binding like I desperately need to.

But going back up there so soon is not an option right now, not for a while.

Not until I can face him without thinking of how it felt being against him, the way his hips adjusted when I leaned in closer, the way his breathing pushed his chest against me with each inhale, and the smell of him.

Like the saffron spice Ruth uses for special occasions, mixed with the scent of leather and something masculinely sweet.

The machines pour the hot liquid into the mug, snapping me out of my brain’s rambling thoughts.

We need to focus on getting to the rock formation and finding that temple.

All of my energy should be spent figuring out exactly how I’m going to approach Omnesis before we arrive so I don’t get us both killed.

And then maybe after . . .

No, I can’t think of after either.

Because then I will have to tell the others the truth about the ritual, about what I did. My plan stands. After I fix this mistake, I’ll tell them and go back to Frith and do my best to forget any notions of destiny or greatness. It has only brought me misery and cost others greatly.

I was right to leave August before, and when I do for the last time, I will have to let him know why, because he deserves so much better and I cannot provide that to him.

I sip the too hot tea and pray it settles my stomach and fills the empty pit the reminders to myself have carved out. I pace, going over what I remember of the spell book until I can calm myself enough to retrieve it.

Outside the clear glass wall of the mess hall, I can see a round object placed on the tabletop used for removing items from the lockers on the wall behind it.

It’s not quite a corridor and not quite a room, one that connects the front and back of the ship and used so frequently, I would have noticed the object when I came up to the cockpit earlier.

I approach it as if it were a wild animal, but as I get closer, I realize it’s one of the drones. I pick up the heavy egg and study it.

How did it get up here?

The drones are still scanning. I glanced at the map before I fled the cockpit. Did another one malfunction and August left it behind? Why would he bring it up here though?

I turn it over and see some damage to the programming panel, scratches like a metal tool was used to pry it open.

That’s odd.

As I place it back down to go ask August, I notice a shadow in the threshold of the doorway.

My thoughts try to make sense of another person on board, rationalizing that Commander Wesley has changed his mind and joined our mission again.

But that’s not possible.

The mysterious figure is one of a broader man, his posture alert but swaying slightly, like a Frithian owl watching its next meal.

The danger does something strange to my vision, blurring in the corners with each shallow breath I can manage.

Dark armor I do not recognize shifts as they step into the room. Tubing runs along the edges of their chestplate, the color a dull, gritty black and nothing like the Viathan armor I am familiar with.

My body screams to fold away, but I’m too disorientated to think of a place to fold to. The man watches me as he slowly steps forward, as if I will pounce on him if he approaches too hastily. His mouth is covered with a rag, his brows knit together in a hard line.

He raises a gun from his hip slowly and steadily until it’s aimed at me.

I step back again, closing my eyes and willing myself to picture the cockpit. Not August’s ship, not Frith. Any room on this ship that is not here.

My back bumps into a hard corner and my attention snaps to the intruder again, locked in on me and edging forward across the space between us.

Then another figure standing in the room catches both of our focus.

The man’s eyes flare with rage just as the loud ringing of August’s gun firing sounds, sending several angry blue streaks into the man’s abdomen, chest, and face.

He crashes to the metal floor as if he were dropped from the sky, lifeless and crumpled onto his own weapon he never had a chance to use.

August stands with his weapons held out, his jaw hard set until he is sure the man is no more. He looks deadly, not like the warm, charming August I just left in the cockpit. This version is all Viathan ruthlessness.

I press my back to the wall. The shock of seeing a stranger stalking toward me only for him to be taken down moments later in such a brutal way is paralyzing.

And then a soothing hand cups my face, August’s frantic eyes searching and terrified. “Are you harmed?”

I shake my head, holding on his wrist and gulping down each exhale to catch my breath. “The drone,” I manage to force out.

He glances over his shoulder, and every muscle goes rigid against me, his blown-out pupils scaring me, like he has seen something far worse than the intruder. “Fold us to the cockpit now!”

“What’s wrong? What is it?” I panic.

“Now!” His scream echoes against the metal wall behind me.

I wince, tucking my shoulders up, leaning into his palm cupping my cheek, and fold us roughly into the cockpit.

We sway forward at the hard arrival, but he is already running toward the control panel before I can find my balance.

A door I did not know existed seals us in the front of the ship, whooshing closed and briefly buzzing with a mechanical lock.

“There are likely others onboard,” August says.

I can’t help but sway again, his words sending a sudden flood of panic into my system. “How do you know?”

“The drone, they used it to find us. You did not bump into the cargo ramp. They hacked in. We need to get into the air.” He flips through the controls fast, the engine roaring to life, groaning at his impatience.

I run to my seat and strap in because he is not going to wait.

He lifts the ascension bar, and we rise from the ground with a pulling resistance that feels like pressure placed on my shoulders.

“If there are a few on the ship, I can flush them out, but if we stay, who knows how many more will come,” he calls out.

The ship rises into the sky and travels horizontally across the landscape. August presses a few more controls and gets up out of his seat, leaving it to fly on its own. He opens a weapons locker and straps a few of the guns to his armor.

A loud bang comes from somewhere on board, and this time I’m certain it is not normal ship noises.

August does not react other than quickening his pace and programming something into the side panel of the wall. “If they breached the cargo hull, they will breach the cockpit soon.”

“I can fold us,” I offer, undoing my buckles.

“No.” He takes my hand, dragging me across the cockpit. “If you fold us out of this, we have no ship or supplies. We will be stranded in the birthlands and the mission will be over. The only safe place is out of the birthlands, and you don’t want to give up now, do you?”

I stammer over my words, the pressure of having to give him an answer over the terrible banging noises slow my processing down so much that he shakes my shoulder to speak.

“We have to make it to the temple. We can’t go back to the Estate yet.”

“Then you have to trust me.” He places the spell book against my chest and pulls me by the palm to a seam in the wall where he taps another screen with purpose.

“August?”

“You need to get into the escape pod. I will clear the ship, but I can’t do that unless I know you’re safe.” He sounds so calm, but he’s not making sense. “It will take you to safety. Press the yellow button when you land and stay inside until you hear from me.”

“No, I’m not leaving! I can hide on the ship while you fight!”

“We don’t have time to argue!” He slams the side of his fist onto the panel on the wall. “Please, this is the only way I know you will be safe.”

The wall behind me opens up and he pushes me inside a tiny closet, but the walls are glass and there is a compact communication panel and screens like a tiny ship.

A crashing sound comes from the locked door of the cockpit, and we both glance in the direction of the chaos coming from the other side, the intruders now trying to break the metal seam of the door to get in.

“Eyes on me, I need you to promise you will not fold back to me. I will find you, Calliape, as soon as I kill every one of these First Son bastards.”

Panicked, I look for the button and realize I truly am in a tiny ship, right down to the straps waiting to be tightened across my body. It’s not much bigger than one of the onboard lavatories.

“Promise me!” he shouts, flipping a switch on one of his guns then pausing to look at me.

“I promise.” A whimper escapes me, the reality of being separated striking like a cold slap.

He presses a button on the outside of the little room he has forced me in, blocking the entrance. A glass panel slides shut and closes me off from the rest of the cockpit.

A sense of dread fills me up all the way to the ringing in my ears, and I slam my fist into the partition. “Wait.”

He steps back and takes a calming exhale, bracing himself for the fight about to spill into the room.

The buttons flash around me, coming to life and preparing for something, a whirling sound increasing like the pressure is building.

A stiff voice cautions me to buckle, beeping and flashing red. I obey and watch out the windows as August cracks his neck, turning it from one side to the next and then adjusting himself into a deadly stance, aiming his weapon at the door of the cockpit and waiting.

He glances over at me, his throat bobbing as if he wants to speak, his calm expression turning into something else.

A countdown begins in my pod.

“Callia.” He pauses, his expression trying to convey so much, brow furrowing, bright green eyes piercing through me and lined with water. “Callia, I love you.”

The door to the cockpit blows open in a flashing explosion.

He shoots from guns held in both his hands into the smoke as my pod descends into the floor of the ship.

Figures walk into view, coming forward in a cloud of violence and blue, streaking light.

I scream for August, hitting the glass so hard I drop the spell book and it falls to the floor.

Everything around me is a blur as the countdown reaches its end and the pressure gives way, freeing my pod into the open sky of the birthlands.