Authors: Sara Walsh
Craving the touch of his skin, I reached for the hem of his shirt and felt the firm muscles in his back. He responded immediately to my touch, his gentle kisses taking on a harder edge until it was impossible to know who wanted this more.
And then he stopped.
Our faces remained together, almost cheek to cheek, the tip of Sol’s nose grazing my skin, his breath warm against my ear. “Mia, I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice soothing and deep.
Sorry?
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
He’d kissed me.
Sol
had kissed
me
. Was it possible he felt for me what I felt for him? I had to know.
“Just tell me why,” I gasped between breaths. “I didn’t think you . . . When did you . . . ?”
“Always,” he said. “It was Delane who stopped me.”
There was no space between us, no room to breathe. He had to feel how fast my heart was beating. I stepped back, but didn’t get far, as the wall behind me blocked my retreat.
“He told you?” I asked, shocked that Delane would break his promise to me and tell Sol how I felt.
Sol looked down at my face, his body towering over mine. “Told me what?” he asked.
Then Delane hadn’t told him. “Nothing,” I stammered. “It’s just . . . I don’t believe this is happening.”
He analyzed every inch of my face, his expression so earnest, so open and honest. How was I ever going to keep my hands off him?
“I wanted to tell you, Mia,” he said, “but there didn’t seem any point. None of this was about me. It was about you. As if you needed me harassing you on top of everything else.”
“Harassing me?”
“I think you’re beautiful, Mia,” he said. “Smart. Tough. The way you’ve handled everything that’s happened—it’s unbelievable to me. How I felt? That was my problem. I couldn’t let it get in the way. Your safety came first. Always. I thought about telling you, but then I saw how close you’d grown to Delane and I . . .”
“Delane?”
“The two of you were always laughing, finding fun, even
during the worst of what had happened. I could see how close you’d grown.”
“It was that or go crazy,” I replied, frantically. “Sol, it didn’t mean anything.”
“It meant something to me.” He took my arm, squeezing my wrist as if willing me to understand. “Mia, Delane is like my brother. Whatever he wanted, if I could give it to him, I would. But not you.”
This was a dream. The times Sol had watched us with that strange look in his eye . . . “You were jealous of Delane?”
“I’m not proud of it,” he said. “And if there is anything between you, please say, and you won’t hear another word of this from me.”
“Delane’s my friend, Sol,” I replied. “That’s all.”
Sol’s eyes twinkled, his lips moving as if to smile. I couldn’t let him smile, not if we were to avoid doing things you
really
shouldn’t do in an alley behind somebody’s house. I slid from between Sol and the wall, certain that if I didn’t move I’d be unable to stop myself from dragging him to the ground there and then, to hell with the world and its problems. That couldn’t happen. There was too much I had to say.
I put a few feet of distance between us before I spoke, “Then I’d better tell you too. Delane knew I was crazy about you. He saw through me from the start. He warned me off.”
Sol frowned. “What did he say?”
“That all you care about is the war and that there isn’t room in your life for anything else. I have to know, Sol. Is that what I am? Just another pawn in your war?”
“Mia, no,” he said, aghast. “Why would you even ask that?”
“Because this is complicated,” I replied. “Sol, just think about your life. You have all of Brakaland to worry about. You’re the king’s son, remember?”
He came at me, his long legs covering the small gap between us in an instant. “I remember,” he said, his voice low. “And for just a second, why don’t you think about what that means.”
Right away, I saw the change in his expression. It was the look he’d flashed the sentinels in the Wastes. Shoulders back, head up, a warning of danger in his eyes. That was how he looked at me then. He looked like a king’s son.
“Every second watched,” he said. “Every decision crucial. So few people I can truly trust. The daughters of men I can’t stand thrown in my path night and day all to further ambitions at court. A click of my fingers and whatever I want is there—money, friends,
girls
.”
I flinched. “Is there a point to this?”
“Yes,” he replied, and he took my hand. “
You
are the point. I never told you who I was because I cared about you, Mia. I didn’t want that between us. People change around me when
they know who I am. You’re one of the few people whom I can truly trust.”
The intensity in Sol’s expression dissolved. He wandered to the step at Vermillion’s gate and then sat.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Mia, you just say the strangest things sometimes. If this was about the war, Jay would have gone to the Suzerain and that’s where he’d stay. Jay can’t manipulate the Barrier. It would help our cause more to let Elias keep the boys and waste his time wondering why he can’t forget his Equinox. If this was about the war, I could have taken the Solenetta on the Ridge and you would never have seen me again.”
“You would have done that?” I asked.
“I didn’t because of you, Mia. The night Jay disappeared, I went back to the Ridge with the Solenetta and the grain I’d saved for my return. If the police hadn’t been searching the rise, I might have crossed over, and never come back. Instead, I returned to Tiamet’s, and used the map to search for other weaknesses where I could sneak through.
“But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop thinking about your face on the Ridge when Jay’d disappeared and how you’d looked at me when I’d lied about what had happened. Your brother was gone and you’d never know where he was and you’d never get him back. Your life would have changed forever. You had friends, but you were an island among them, different. Jay being
gone would have isolated you even more. I know how that feels.”
I hung back, arms folded, stunned that he’d felt this way and never said a word. “Do you mean your life in the West?” I asked.
“You don’t want to hear about that.”
“I do.” Wanting to be close to him, I joined him on the step. “You must have given up so much in leaving your home. I can’t believe the people at court let you do it.”
“It was my choice,” said Sol. “Besides, I answer to no one but my father.”
“So what’s it like out there?”
“It’s a city of politics,” he replied, his voice thick with disgust. “Politics and pandering. I was born into it, but I’ve never wanted it. Everyone’s too busy forcing their own agenda, scrambling for a place close to my father. I have only to ask and there would be a place for me on my father’s council. No one refuses the king’s son.”
“Instead you’re sitting on a step with me,” I said.
He smiled. “Which is exactly where I want to be.”
“But you’re in the middle of a battleground here, Sol. It’s dangerous, especially if you’re recognized.”
“Everything is dangerous these days,” he replied. He leaned back on his hands, his legs outstretched. “I volunteered for the Sons of the West as soon as I was old enough to be of help. My father supports that decision. It was the right thing to do. Talk
only takes you so far; if we’re to defeat Elias, we need to be where we can see him.”
“And if your father . . . you know.”
“You mean, what happens if he dies?”
I shrugged.
“A king here isn’t the same as a king in your world, Mia,” he said. “He is an elected official. My father was elected because he comes from the line of the Lunestral and that is needed in a time of demons.”
“So if something happened to him you’d be elected too?”
“It’s too soon to say.”
I thought about what he’d told me at Bromasta’s house about one’s path to adulthood in Brakaland. “But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re proving yourself worthy.”
“No,” he said. “I am here to help stop Elias’s war on your world.”
The drums continued their thrum and the occasional cheer rose from the streets. Here we were, sitting side by side, talking of blood rites and kings of faraway places moments after sharing our first kiss. Brakaland and its problems weren’t about to wait for us.
“This is a mess. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Sol.
I welcomed his hug. The space between his shoulder and his
neck—it was like it was made for me, it fit just right. I squeezed back as hard as I could. The Suzerain himself couldn’t have made me let go. Being with Sol felt like home.
We broke from the embrace, but Sol’s arm remained around my shoulders.
“You know Bromasta’s going to kill you if he finds out about us,” I said. “He didn’t seem happy about the prospect of you and me.”
Sol grinned, his face alive and alert. “Bromasta, I can handle. I’ll have him thrown in jail.”
“Do that anyway,” I declared. “I still haven’t forgiven him for dumping us.”
“But one day you will,” said Sol. “You have the capacity to forgive, Mia. I see it in you.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was probably right. What would I, or anyone else, have done in Bromasta’s place? Could I have left my kids in Brakaland when I knew what their futures would be? That would have been as cruel a choice as the one Bromasta had been forced to make in hiding me and the Solenetta. Don’t get me wrong; he was a stranger to me. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find any trace of daughterly love simmering inside me. But I did now feel bound to him. Our family had been destroyed in order to keep the Solenetta safe. I couldn’t let that sacrifice be for nothing.
“We should get ready for Malone’s,” I said, though inside I felt reluctant to leave. Sol and I should have been together to talk and to touch. There was no time.
He gently held my face. “Mia, after all you’ve heard, do you really think you should come?”
I held Sol’s gaze, drawing on his strength, determined he see my strength, too. “More than ever,” I replied. “It’s my blood. I want it back.”
He kissed my forehead, his hand stroking my hair. “Then we better break the news to Bromasta.”
We found Bromasta at the kitchen table studying architectural plans. As soon as we entered, he looked up.
“It’s the Velanhall,” he said, gesturing to the papers. “I don’t know what changes Elias has made to the place. The Velanhall was never used for prisoners. But he must have Jaylan somewhere secure.”
My father appeared fresher than the night before, but the wrinkles around his eyes were deep. The parler stone lay on the table, but I didn’t ask about Pete. Bromasta had been right about that. Pete couldn’t help me now. It was time to play my cards.
“I understand why you didn’t tell me about the blood rite,” I said. “All that matters is that I know. It’s better that I know.”
Bromasta pushed the drawings aside. “A million lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough to make amends for what we did to you.”
I glanced at Sol before joining Bromasta at the table. “My life’s actually been pretty good,” I said. “I’m not saying that I never thought about you or hated you for leaving. I certainly didn’t think you were in another world.”
He took from his pocket a notebook bound in battered leather and held together with a silver cord. He opened it to a wallet-size photograph, which had been tucked between the pages. “It’s the only one I have,” he said, and handed me the picture.
It was my second-grade portrait, the one with the blue turtle-neck and missing front teeth. “Where’d you get it?”
“I have my sources,” he replied. “I always knew how beautiful you’d grow up to be, and I was right. How could you not, when your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world?”
I handed back the picture, suddenly self-conscious of Sol seeing my toothless grin.
“Parting with you and Jaylan was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“You did what you had to do,” I said. “Now it’s my turn. The Solenetta is a part of me. I have a responsibility to keep it safe.”
He watched me intently and a look of pain entered his eyes like when he’d spoken of my mother. “Why did we ever give you up?”
“Because you had to,” I said. I offered him my hand. “A truce?”
It was like looking in a mirror when he smiled. “Of course,” he replied, and shook back.
His touch broke something inside me. This was my
father
.
“Okay,” I said. After a moment, my hand fell back to the table. “Now how the hell are we going to get this thing back?”
S
ol drew a map of the streets around Malone’s safe house, and we huddled around it on the kitchen table.
“Cloaks on as soon as you’re in position,” he said, again pointing to our marks in the alley behind the hideout. “Mia, you’re in charge of supplies. Stay close to me or Delane. Under no circumstance does anyone pass by the eye out front.”
“And me?” asked Bromasta.
Since calling our truce, Bromasta had barely moved from my side, but he seemed resigned to the fact that I was going to Malone’s, and for that I was grateful.
“You really shouldn’t come,” said Sol. “You’re a dead man if you’re spotted out there.”
“One could say the same for you,” Bromasta replied.
“But my face isn’t plastered across every reward board in town.”
This was interesting news.
“Is that
true
?” I gasped.
Bromasta made a sound in the back of his throat that might have been a “yes.” So my father was a wanted outlaw. It was actually pretty cool.
“What did you do?”
Bromasta shuffled, uncomfortable in the spotlight. “I put the Solenetta far from the Suzerain’s reach.”
“And wiped out one of his demon armies on the Theadery Plains,” said Delane. “The Suzerain doesn’t forgive and forget.”
So Sol had been right. My father was a legend. And by the sound of it, a hell-raising legend at that. “You really did that?” I asked, impressed.
Bromasta raised an eyebrow and scowled at Delane. “It was a long time ago.”