Page 203 of Daughter of No Worlds

No. She was just as blind as we were. He had set her up too, just like the rest of us.

“Then why?” I asked. “Why would he do that?”

“I warned you about how he is.”

Possess or destroy. You’re either a tool or a threat — and in this case, we were all both. He knew that I — that Reshaye — would make it out alive, but he didn’t want or need to care whether any of the others did.

But…

“There must be more than that,” I said.

“He has his goals, and that’s all that matters to him.”

“And what goals are those?”

Nura’s mouth tightened, and I did not miss the way her fingers clenched around the letter in her hands. She turned to face me fully.

“When we get back there,” she said, quietly, “I hope you’re ready to fight like hell.”

I almost laughed.

I thought of Max, of Serel, of the Threllian refugees who would be traveling back to Ara with us. I thought of all those precious souls that I had to protect. I’d been fighting like hell since I was shackled to that cart all those years ago, utterly alone. And since long before that, when I fled a crumbling homeland that no longer exists. I was born fighting.

Of course I wasn’t going to stop now. Not when I had so much to lose.

I didn’t so much as blink as I gave Nura a small, serene smile. “Oh yes,” I said. “I know there are still many battles to win.”

Maybe I imagined the faintest echo of a smirk that brushed her eyes. But she turned away too quickly for me to tell.

* * *

That night,Serel and I spent the night lying on the floor of my bedroom, just as we had hundreds of times over the years. We laughed and cried together, then laughed again, and cried again. I felt his pain with him when he told me of the wars that he had been sent to fight, how the estate had crumbled into chaos and paranoia after I had left. He held my hand as I told him of my training, of the battles, of the pact I’d made. His face lit up with shock and confusion as I told him about Reshaye — in the loosest possible terms — asking questions that even I didn’t totally know how to answer.

I told him about Max, though I left out some details about the nature of our relationship. For some reason, I still wanted to pull those moments close to my chest, only for me.

But the topics of our conversations drifted far beyond our sad stories, which is what I had always so loved about Serel. He found the joy and the beauty in everything. He could tell me of the heavy loss of a bloody battle, and in the next moment, light up when he told me of how wonderful it felt to return to his friends. Once, many years ago, he had told me that his grandfather used to say that every moment in life was a coin with one dark side and one light. They fell on the ground with one side facing up, but the other always lay beneath it, there, but hidden. Serel always saw both sides of the coin, even when fate handed him nothing but darkness.

Finally, when the night grew so late that it was on the cusp on morning, I asked him, “Will you be returning to Ara with us, or will you stay here?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Ara. Definitely. I need a change of scenery.”

I let out a sigh of relief, then immediately felt selfish. Ara was at war. At least this city was now under the jurisdiction of the Orders. As ridiculous as it sounded, perhaps this was now the safer place for him.

When I voiced this thought, he let out a scoff.

“Please. You won’t get rid of me again so easily, Tisaanah.” He gave me a little smile and a wink that was so aggressivelyhimthat it knocked the air out of me.

For a moment, words evaded me.

How many times had I dreamed that I’d see him again? How many times had I been so certain that I wouldn’t?

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” I murmured, fighting a lump in my throat.

He smiled, and said, “I do, actually.”

* * *

…Saw…

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