Page 25 of Joy Guardian

“Where exactly should I go to get back?” I made a sweeping gesture at the black desert under the night sky.

There was no sight of the city, just an endless ocean of black, shimmering sand dunes.

He wasn’t looking at the desert when I turned back to him. He was staring at me.

“Why did you do it, Ciana? Why did you come with me?”

“Well, I didn’t know you were going somewhere or that you were leaving at all. It just looked like the guards were about to kill you, and I…” I drew in a shaky breath, remembering the moment of pure horror slicing through me when I saw the arrows pointed at him. “I just couldn’t let that happen,” I exhaled.

In one quick movement, he drew me to him.

“Careless, reckless woman. Selfless and brave,” headmonished and praised in the same breath, pressing me to his chest impossibly hard, as if wishing for us to merge into one.

Resting my cheek on his chest, I felt like this was exactly the place where I wished to be, that I could stay like this forever—calm and safe, even in the middle of nowhere.

With a finger under my chin, he lifted my face to his.

“What am I to do with you now?” It didn’t come as a hypothetical or rhetorical question. The bewilderment on his face was real.

“Take me with you, Kurai. Let me come with you wherever you’re going.” I said, shocking myself possibly even more than him with my request.

Trusting a man was the worst mistake of my past. Yet as I spoke, my confidence in my decision grew. He was my only friend in this world, the only one I could count on.

But Kurai shook his head adamantly. “I’m a wanted man now, Ciana. The guards are searching for me already.”

“Why? What do they want with you?”

“Arrest and execute me,” he said calmly.

“For what?”

“For treason.”

I peered at him carefully. “Are you guilty what they’re accusing you of?”

“Yes. Very much so,” he confessed with no hesitation.

“What did you do?”

“It’s best for you not to know the details. It’s safer for all the people involved in it too.”

A treason was an act of rebellion against the ruling monarch. Kurai broke the law. But were the laws that made it legal to kidnap and hold me captive worth obeying?

“Did you…kill anyone?” I asked.

“Not this time.” His brow furrowed, as if that fact upset him.

“But have you? In the past?” A chill of apprehension trickled down my spine in anticipation of his answer.

He searched my eyes, as if trying to read my thoughts andgauge my expectations. My opinion clearly mattered to him. But I trusted he wouldn’t lie to me because of it.

“I’m trained to kill, Ciana. It’s part of my duties to protect the Joy.”

“But have you? Have you ever killed anyone?” I insisted.

“I have,” he admitted.

I swallowed hard, trying to reconcile the image of a murderer with the calm, kind man I’d grown to know.

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