“I want to.”
His voice sounds so far from the confident prince I met all that time ago. He’s not the man who commands a ship or the boy born to command an empire. He is both and neither. He is something that exists in the in-between, where only I can see. A slip in the world where he is trapped.
The thought lights something inside of me. I steal my gaze from the stars and turn to him, my cheek damp on the snow-soaked blanket. Elian is so much like the waters he plunders. Still and peaceful on the surface, but beneath there is madness.
“What if I were to tell you a secret?” I ask.
Elian turns to me, and suddenly just looking at him hurts. A dangerous longing wells, and I dare myself to tell him over and over in my mind. Reveal the truth and see if humans are as capable of forgiveness as they are of vengeance.
“What if you were?”
“It would change how you saw me.”
Elian shrugs. “Then don’t tell me.”
I roll my eyes. “What if you need to know?”
“People don’t tell secrets because someone needs to know them. They do it because they need someone to tell.”
I swallow. My heart feels loud enough to hear. “I’ll ask you something instead, then.”
“To keep a secret?”
“To keep a favor.”
Elian nods, and I forget that we’re murderers and enemies and when my identity is revealed, he might very well try to kill me. I don’t think of Yukiko claiming him like a prize she doesn’t know the value of. And I don’t think of the Sea Queen or the notion of betrayal. I think of my human heart, suddenly beating so fast – too fast – and the crease between Elian’s eyebrows as he waits for my answer.
“Are you ever going to kiss me?”
Slowly, Elian says, “That’s not a favor.”
His hand moves from beside mine, and I feel a sudden absence. And then it’s on my cheek, cupping my face, thumb stroking my lip. It feels like the worst thing I’ve ever done and the best thing I could ever do and how strange that the two are suddenly the same.
How strange that instead of taking his heart, I’m hoping he takes mine.
“Do you remember when we first met?” he asks.
“You said I was more charming when I was unconscious.”
Elian laughs, and he’s so close that I feel his body shake against mine. I can see every scar and freckle of his skin. Every streak of color in his eyes. I lick my lips. I can almost taste him.
“Ask me again,” he says.
His forehead presses against mine, breath ragged on my lips. I close my eyes and breathe him in. Licorice and ocean salt and if I move, if I breathe, then whatever fragile thing it is between us will disappear with the wind.
“Just do it already,” I say.
And he does.
35
Lira
THE PATH ENDS IN water, just as it began.
With Yukiko as our guide navigating us up her sacred route, we slice our journey in half, never lost or wavering. She leads us to camps with quickfires bright enough to burn a hole through the mountain itself, and up paths that cut as much through time as they do the mountain. Quicker routes, faster courses, trails littered with cheats. Technology that sometimes even carries us part of the way. It’s not a surprise that the Págese royalty are able to survive the climb with so many tricks at their disposal. It’s also not a surprise that anyone not from their bloodline doesn’t survive.
Though I hate to find any common ground with the likes of Yukiko, even I have to admit that her family’s scam is clever. Using everything they can to perpetuate the legend of their origins, ensuring the loyalty of their people through awe alone if nothing else. It’s not a bad hand to play. Like Elian and his golden blood. Or me and Keto’s deadly power. Though in my case, the legend happens to be true.
I stop dead and the rest of the crew stills alongside me. Elian’s gloved hand hovers dangerously close to mine, and though I feel the air spark and warm between us, I don’t look at him. I can’t. I can only stare ahead, my feet burying themselves farther into the snow the longer I stay still. But I can’t move, either. Ahead, there are wonders. There is the palace, carved from the last breaths of my goddess Keto.
Though we’re no more than five hundred feet from the peak of the mountain, we find ourselves at the base of a great canyon, surrounded by chutes of falling water that crash onto a pile of black rocks. They look like the remnants of a landslide, and when the water thrashes against them, it creates mounds of steam that hisses as it rises, before finally dissipating into the clouds. Amid the froth, the rocks float aimlessly on the edges of a great moat, like borders to keep the miraculously unfrozen water inside. In the center, surrounded by island tufts of snow, is the palace. It’s an iceberg that towers to the height of the waterfalls, with windows made from solid wind and ornate steeples that curve and protrude at awkward angles. It is a body of sculpted snow, a fortress of slants and edges that eclipse the glory of the mountain itself.