Maybe it was the energeia inside him, but something told him she lived, and that the next time they met she would be stronger, more deadly.
“You need to rest,” Ash said quietly. He tried to cling to her voice, but it was swept away in the current of sound and sights. He blinked, trying to steady his breath. Trying to will down the fear of what he’d done, what hecoulddo. What he might do next.
Strangle your doubt. It has no place in the heart of a weapon.
He wasn’t Geoxus’s weapon. He wasn’t Anathrasa’s either. But he was more lethal than either of them, because he could take their power away.
Where did that leave him?
What did thatmakehim?
“I can’t...” He gave a dry, pained laugh. “I can’t let go of the side of the ship.”
Ash’s gaze dropped to his hands, and his followed. His knuckles were white, his fingertips tinged purple from the effort.
“What happens if you do?” she asked, her voice on the edge of the pounding in his head.
“I don’t know.”
The slight pressure of her fingers against his shoulder made himjerk. She went to pull away, but he quickly shook his head.
Her touch slid slowly down his arm, gentle and steady, and quieting each flexing muscle it passed. He focused on the cool feel of her fingertips, on the tiny muscles that bent each knuckle as her hand closed around his.
His breath came out in a hard pull.
“What if you hold on to me instead?” she asked.
His gaze shot to hers, and then back to his hand, where she’d softly begun to pry loose each of his fingers. Longing cut through him with the sharp point of a knife. He wanted to press his face against the groove of her neck. Fan his hands over the small of her back. Disappear in the scent of her skin.
But she was different now, and so was he. He had to be careful.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Still, she worked at his grip, until his right hand was free and his fingers were weaving with hers. Smooth skin met hard calluses; then her hand tightened around his.
The ship rocked. His breath came out in a shudder.
“I’m not going to break,” she told him.
He wasn’t so sure. He was barely holding himself together.
“Come with me,” she said.
The low beckon of her voice had him releasing the railing with the other hand. He followed her, aware of Tor’s narrowed gaze tracking him from the upper deck, and the swinging lanterns, and the unevenness of his own steps. Of the energeia searing through his chest, and his frantic efforts to keep it trapped inside so he wouldn’t somehow use it to hurt Ash.
The wind pulled strands of hair free from her braid, and they whipped across her straight back. Even now, she walked like a goddess. Even after she’d lost her igneia. Her mother. Her home and her god.
She had never been more divine.
His scowl eased as she led him to the steps below deck. He felt too big for the narrow corridor, clumsy, but her hand stayed in his and he did not let go. He held on to her as tightly as he dared. She had come for him in the palace when she should have run. She had fought for him when she had no energeia to fight with.
His head began to quiet, though his heart did not.
They came to a series of doors, latched so they wouldn’t swing with the movement of the ship. At the last one, Ash slid the bolt free, revealing a small chamber with barely enough room for the bunk against the far wall.
With a hard lurch, it reminded him of home—the bunks he shared with Elias and Danon—and he knew that even when he went back for the Metaxas, things would never return to the way they’d been.
Ash locked the door behind him and reached for the candle on a small table against the wall. Her hand paused over the blackened wick, and a pained grimace crossed her face as she reached for a match.
