Page 29 of Ashes of Honor

Because I knew better by now. Chasing after her wouldn’t change a damn thing.

I’d been down this road before. With Abel. I could still picture his face, the way his eyes pleaded with me that day. I tried with everything I had to keep him safe. To fix everything before it could break. I followed every protocol. Every rule. And none of it saved him. He still left in the end.

And now I was standing here again, watching someone else I cared about walk away, knowing there was nothing I could do to shield them from their choices. The weight of that knowledge, of failure … As hard as it was, I had to let her make her ownchoices. No matter how much it tore me apart inside. No matter how much it went against every instinct I had to protect her, to stop her from crashing.

Emma stared between us, trying to decide what to do, who to stay with. She shifted her stance, pacing side to side. Inevitably, she chose Elie. As she should. The two of them could protect each other if they wouldn’t accept help from anyone else.

I released the tension building inside me, though it came out uneven and strained. Elie had to figure out her own path. This wasn’t the time to coddle her or hold her hand through the pain. If I’d learned anything, it was that trying to shield people only delayed the inevitable.

I thought of my sister. Thought of how I hovered over her, watching every step she took, and how none of that stopped her from meeting death at its door.

No matter how much I wanted to believe I could, I couldn’t save everyone. God knows I would try. But somehow all that trying had done nothing but carve out this empty, hollow space inside me, and now I was too damn tired to pretend it didn’t hurt.

“Riley,” Jessa’s southern twang was the last thing I wanted to hear in this moment. “We need to talk.”

Riley

“We aren’t familiars,” I grumbled, finally turning away from the empty spot where the girls had stood to meet Reina’s girlfriend, Jessa, face to face. “It’s Lieutenant Sullivan.”

She tucked her blonde strands behind her ear and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Coal was smeared around her icy eyes. Darker, more pronounced than Reina ever did. She smiled at me, “We’re family adjacent. No bonus points for that?”

“Family adjacent, for now.”

“Here I was thinking it was Reina that would take the longest to forgive,” her smile didn’t drop, though to my pleasure, it wavered slightly.

“Reina loves love, regardless of how dirty you did her by spying for Ronan,” I dismissed their relationship. Not because I didn’t have faith in Reina, but because I knew that in her heart, she would hold on to whatever she could from her life before she’d left our gates. Change was hard for her, so me, the others, we would step in where we could. “She doesn’t see through you like the rest of us.”

Her tan hand fell over her heart and she took an inch closer to me than appreciated. “Ouch. And she said you were the nicest.”

“Imagine how the others express their fondness for you.”

“I’m here to help,” she said. “Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“No. I’m not in the mood for this. What is it that you want to share?”

“Can we go to your office for this?” she whispered. It was unnecessary given the metal clinking and groans of pain around us in The Pit. “It’s … confidential.”

“You’re a spy. I’d expect nothing less,” I said as I brushed past her.

She followed close behind. Her presence sent a crawling feeling up my spine. I refused to trust her. I didn’t care what Reina said. It was my responsibility to take care of The Compound and Reina was included in that responsibility. We’d become closer since her return. I wouldn’t fail her either.

“Wasa spy,” Jessa clarified. “Now I work for The Compound … in any capacity.”

I knew what she was hinting at. She was a fool if she thought me to be a fool. We weren’t about to trade secrets with a former spy. There were no double agents within my ranks. I appreciatedloyalty on top of everything, no matter the cost, no matter the emotions one may acquire while doing their job. A spy that flipped wasn’t worth much more than the information they were able to provide.

“Once a spy, always a spy.”

“You’re a lieutenant. Abel’s just a soldier now.”

“Once a spy, always a spy,” I repeated as I unlocked the heavy wooden door to what was now my quarters. She stepped in after me, and I motioned for her to take a seat. I hadn’t changed any of the furniture out here. The memories that had been made … I didn’t want to wipe them away. Fear of erasure. I supposed Reina wasn’t the only one with a fear of change. “Can I get you anything? Water? Bourbon?”

“I’m more of a moonshine gal.”

“Figures,” I mumbled, taking a seat in the leather chair behind the desk I’d spent days making sure suited all Amaia’s needs. Wood carving was fun when you had the magic to make it as elaborate as one could want in half the time. “Well.”

“What if I were to tell you there’s anotherSeerhere?” Jessa’s smile finally fell. Reina’s girlfriend was no longer here, a spy falling into a debriefing routine now present before me.

That caught my attention. I leaned forward slightly, not wanting to appear too eager. “Go on.”

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