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Chapter

Thirty-One

Liv

Rebeka’s wedding day was a turning point in my adulthood.

It was a small ceremony in town with her new husband’s family.

She asked me not to attend, then demanded that if I didn’t listen—because I never did—that I didn’t talk to her or her new family.

She knew I couldn’t hide how I really felt in front of others.

The Keepers were in attendance to watch the crowd who gathered to see the sad display of false affection.

When her husband leaned in to kiss her, her spine went stiffer than it usually was.

She didn’t love him. She was playing along because it was safe.

I had to bite my tongue from yelling out when he touched her.

But her fake smile told me that was how she wanted it.

She didn’t speak to me the entire day. Her husband looked my way a single time, lip curling as if I was a stain on Rebeka’s makeshift dress, given to her by his mother.

They walked right past me to their home, the one I had been kicked out of.

She had never even asked if I found a place to live.

I ran into the woods after, found a stick and beat it against a tree until my palms bled.

Then I screamed to the stars, promising I would never marry.

I would never let a man touch me that I didn’t love.

That had been before the true loneliness set in.

I t took me several long minutes to stretch my body enough to sit up. The magic drained me, taking a heavy toll on my body and giving me more reason to stifle it.

Ollo had saved me, and I was running out of fingers to count how many times the twins had put themselves in harm’s way with no way to defend themselves. They had their own motives to get me to their lands, but I had a suspicion those reasons weren’t why they put their necks on the line.

I think they were just good people.

Which destroyed my last wall of defence against becoming friends with the Guardians’ enemy.

Ollo had half dragged me to the spare cabins of the airship, and I slept until the next evening. Thankfully, my sleep had been dreamless.

The twins had taken over the front of the bridge.

Maev had found every useful tool on the ship and set them near the front windows.

The middle table had maps and books piled twice as high as before with reading materials on the Guardians’ missions, which Ollo studied to report back home.

They had brought clothing and food there for convenience, and when I asked why they moved everything, Maev had said, “ I don’t like walking the halls.

I don’t like being in their rooms. The Guardians are terrifying to us, so I am using as few rooms as possible .

” That night, we stripped three beds, dragged the mattresses to the bridge and made camp.

When I tried to sleep, I woke to dreams of him . Not the half-beast, but him. Perhaps he had always been in my dreams, and the fog had shielded me from it, only allowing me to see the terrifying place. Perhaps that was why I saw shadows when there weren’t any, even when awake.

Over the next two weeks, one of them would shake me awake before I started screaming. Someone was always awake, on the lookout for an airship ferrying the Guards.

During the daytime, we got to know each other, talking about our past—many times this led to the twins bickering.

Ollo grew bolder, not glancing away when I caught him looking at me over a book or tracking me across a room.

Maev ignored it and stayed at my side. She would do my hair in the morning to match hers, and we would talk about all the things she would show me in Rydavas.

I would sit by the front window, watching the river lands pass below, slowly turning to grasslands and then to rock and sand.

And I practiced my swords—never letting them touch.

I was glad I finally knew what they could do once powered with crystals, but I wouldn’t take the kind of power they released for granted. They were dangerous weapons.

One night, while dreaming of the caves below the Guardian city and a large black cave lizard, Maev hadn’t been quick enough to wake me.

My flames had woken her, creeping over to her mattress beside me.

I was losing the battle against the Ikhor.

It had a voice now, controlling, demanding the magic be used.

By suppressing it, I had only made it worse.

Maev and Ollo started sleeping on the opposite side of the room after that.

The books we were combing through stayed with them.

One sleepless night, I clutched my small photo of the Guards close.

I searched the photo for his character—the teasing humour, the serious moments when he remembered his path in life.

The darkness under his skin. His unwavering love for his family.

But the photo showed me only a still image.

I just saw those things because I knew him.

Had been falling in love with him.

It occurred to me I had known him for less time than I had been running as the Ikhor. He’d been dead for longer than he was in my life. Wiping away tears, I got up and walked to the control panel where Ollo sat reading. I decided it might be best that I didn’t bother sleeping tonight.

It surprised me how unfazed I was at being alone with Ollo.

When I first met the Guards, I was terrified to be alone in a room with a man.

So many unwanted layers of myself had shed off, and I didn’t miss them.

But these past weeks with him taught me that Ollo was respectable and caring.

I was curious to meet his father and see the kind of man that raised him.

I had never known a father figure and had nothing to compare a good one to.

Ollo leaned back in a chair, resting his legs on a second chair in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles. He held a book in his lap, his hair pulled back behind his head. The moon cast a dreamlike glow over his pale blue skin. He fit in the night as well as he did the day.

“You look like a Guardian.” I stopped at the pile of books at his side.

“Please don’t say that.” He looked up at me through his lashes. “That’s hardly a compliment.”

My chest tightened. His ethereal beauty was captivating, and his calm demeanour was welcoming. He could have been mean or had some major flaw, and the fact that he didn’t was irritating. It meant my imagination was free to roam. Though any time it did, his face swam in my thoughts.

“Can I see?” He held out his hand for the photo I gripped at my side.

I passed it to him, curious about what he would say. He surprised me by laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“What’s funny is the differences in what we see. Your fingerprints cover this photo completely, and the edges are frayed from how often you hold it.”

“And that’s funny?”

“What’s funny is when I study this, I see my enemy—people I have hated and feared my whole life. I see killers, murderers and symbols of the Council. What’s funny is the perspective.”

“Perspective?”

“Yes. Humanity is an interesting thing when you consider perspective. One single photo can make you weep while it makes me scared.”

“They scare you? Even now, Nuo, Kazhi and Bas scare you?”

“Yes. When we saw them in Danuli, I don’t think I have ever been more afraid.

” He pulled out a chair and patted it. I sat next to him, and he held the photo so I could look at it, too.

“I have flown ships high into the sky at speeds others have never experienced. That’s when I learned about perspective.

We are so small and insignificant compared to the vastness of Arde, but from above, you can see what we do to level the earth below.

I gained a new understanding of perspective in Danuli when I saw the Guards.

I realized that I would rather soar high in the clouds, risking falling from the sky, than face one man in black clothing.

I’ve been called a risk-taker by many. But I would not risk standing in their path. ”

Ollo eyed the photo, memorizing their faces. “And yet they loved you, and I am growing to like you too, so how many degrees of separation does it take for the hate to disappear? Because for myself, even one degree doesn’t do it.”

“You still hate them, even after all I’ve told of them.”

He gave me a hard look, a sad look. “Yes. I do. And I’m sorry if that hurts your memory of him. But too often were crimes committed in my home that were done by the Guardians. Maybe not the Guards you know, but can you say if they landed on our shores, they wouldn’t have killed my people?”

I considered the answer. “No, I can’t. But they would have stopped to notice your people weren’t like the scarred ones. They stopped to give me a chance when they thought I was a stranger in their lands.”

“Or was that because the Shadow Guard saw something he wanted?”

My back stiffened, immediately defensive. “I don’t know. But I knew they had love and honour. Maybe they would’ve hesitated.”

Ollo held up his hands. “I don’t mean to offend. I’m only telling you what I think. I don’t blame the man for wanting you, Saviour. Any man would. And I would much rather you didn’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“The Ikhor look. You’re all emotion right now. And I have been on the icy end of your emotions before.”

I sunk into my chair. “I wish I could be like you.”

Ollo tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“You are exactly what I want to be like—brave, talented, smart and kind. You say what you want. You do what you want. And you’re in control of yourself.”

“Why do you not see yourself that way?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m too angry inside. I could have been like you, but my old home … they took some of the good parts away.” I stared at my photo in his hands.

“I met him once, you know,” Ollo said.