Kirra had been easier to be around that morning. And with plenty of work to be done, she had a point about them getting along. He’d decided to give her a chance.
She leaned back on her elbows. “Where I come from, we have lakes. They’re quieter. Cleaner. And it’s easier to scent without all the salt in the air.”
It was the opposite for him. He preferred the way scents carried on moist ocean air. But then, that was what he’d always known. “Why did you leave?”
“We were forced out by another tribe when I was young. I grew up in the borderlands until we were brought in by the Horns. Sable’s been good to me. I’m his favorite for missions like this. I don’t complain. I’d rather be on the move than stuck in Rim.” She smiled. “Enough about me.” Her gaze fell to his hand. “I’ve been wondering how you got those scars.”
Perry flexed his fingers. “Burned it last year.”
“Looks like it was bad.”
“It was.” He didn’t want to talk about his hand. Cinder had torched it. Aria had bandaged it. Neither were things he wanted to share with Kirra. Quiet stretched out between them. Perry looked across the ocean, to where the Aether flashed deep on the horizon. Storms were constant now, out at sea.
“I didn’t know about the girl—the Dweller—when I first got here,” Kirra said after a while.
He resisted the urge to change the subject again. “So there’s something you hadn’t heard about me.”
She tipped her head to the side, mirroring him. “It sounds like I just missed her,” she said. “What if we’re the same person? Maybe I’m her in disguise.”
That surprised him. He laughed. “You’re not.”
“No? I bet I know you better than she did.”
“I don’t think so, Kirra.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Really? Let’s see.... You worry about your people, and it’s a deep worry, more than the responsibility of wearing the chain. Like taking care of other people is something you need to do. If I had to guess, I’d say protection and safety are things you never knew yourself.”
Perry forced himself not to break eye contact with her. He couldn’t blame her for knowing what she did. She was like him. It was the way they took in people. Down to the core of their emotions. Down to their deepest truths.
“You have a strong bond with Marron and Reef,” she continued, “but your relationship with one is harder on you than the other.”
True again. Marron was a mentor, and a peer. But sometimes Reef seemed more like a father—a connection that had never felt easy.
“Then there’s Cinder,” she said. “You’re not rendered to him, as far as I can tell, but there’s something powerful between you.” She paused, waiting for him to comment, and continued when he didn’t. “What’s really interesting is your temper around women. You’re obviously—”
Perry gave a choked laugh. “All right, that’s enough. You can stop now. What about you, Kirra?”
“What about me?” She sounded calm, but a vibrant green scent reached him, shimmering with anxiety.
“For two days you’ve been trying to draw me in, but today you’re not.”
“I’d still try to draw you in if I thought I stood a chance.” She said it plainly, no apology. “Anyway, I’m sorry about what you’re going through.”
He knew he was being baited, but he couldn’t help himself. “What I’m going through?”
She shrugged. “Being betrayed by your best friend.”
Perry stared at her. She thought Aria and Roar were together? He shook his head. “No. You heard wrong. They’re just friends, Kirra. They both had to go north.”
“Oh … I guess I just assumed, since they’re both Auds, and they left without telling you. Sorry. Forget I said anything.” She looked up at the sky. “That’s looking bad.” She stood, brushing off sand from her hands. “Come on. We should head out.”
As they rode back to the compound, Perry couldn’t block out the images.
Roar lifting Aria into a hug that first day, at his house.
Roar standing at the top of the beach, joking after Perry had been kissing Aria. That was killing me too, Per.
A joke. It had to have been a joke.
Aria and Roar singing in the cookhouse the night of the Aether storm. Singing perfectly, like they’d done it a thousand times before.
Perry shook his head. He knew how Aria felt toward him—and how she felt toward Roar. When they were together, he scented the difference.
Kirra had done this to him on purpose. She’d planted the idea to throw him into doubt, but Aria hadn’t betrayed him. She wouldn’t do that, and neither would Roar. That wasn’t why she had left.
He didn’t want to think about the real reason why. He’d pushed it back, where he’d kept the thought for weeks, but it wouldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t let him go.
Aria had left because she’d been poisoned. She had left because there—in his home, right under his nose—she’d almost been killed. She had left because he’d promised to protect her, and he hadn’t. That was why.
Because he’d failed her.
30
ARIA
It’s called a Smarteye,” Aria said, holding the device in her trembling hands. She sat at the dining table with Sable, a steady rain pattering outside on the stone balcony. Night was falling, and she heard the Snake River, swollen with rainwater, rushing far below.