Page 53 of Of Songs and Silence

“I did what I had to do to keep you—”

“Don’t you dare saysafe,” I hiss. “Don’t talk about protecting me when this, not knowing, is driving me insane. You won’t tell me why we can communicate this way.”

Silence is my only answer, along with a tightening of his shields.

“Just like you won’t tell me why I see your face in my dreams,” I push.

“Kala.” He says the word like a warning, like he has so many times before, but this time, I ignore it.

“Just like you won’t tell me why I feel like I can’t breathe when you’re not around. Why I crawl out of my skin if you stray too far from me.” Somehow throughout this conversation I have moved closer to him, his face just inches from mine. “Why even now, even when I deserve to be upset, every part of your body calls to mine, and you’re the only stars-blasted thing I can see, and—”

“Did it ever occur to you that you are not the one who couldn’t handle the truth of this?” he barks, closing what little distance is between us, his lips brushing my forehead. His touch is a gentle contrast to his impassioned tone. “The consequences of it? Don’t you understand that I—”

Whatever he was about to say is abruptly cut off by the groan of the door. Danica stands in the doorway, her features pinched with admonishment and something strangely close to grief.

But not a hint of surprise.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

MELODI

Ari stands frozen for three solid heartbeats before he slowly stretches to his full height. His features are colder than I’ve ever seen them, masking the panic I feel building in him despite his shields.

“Commander Ariihau,” my aunt says. “You may resume your duties in the hallway.”

“Yes, Kala’ni Danica.” He hesitates ever so slightly, and she gives a prolonged blink.

“I trust you’re finished helping Kala with her shield training,” Danica says, her features devoid of the lie we all know she is telling.

Ari’s shoulders relax, incrementally.

“Yes, Kala’ni Danica,” he says again, turning to leave with markedly less hesitation than before.

Once the door shuts behind him, my aunt gives me a long, lingering look. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the resemblance between her and Mother, not just her beautiful umber skin, violet hair and full lips.

It’s in the way Danica moves. The tilt of her wrist as she holds her glass. The way she meticulously and subtly checks each food dish for poison. The way she narrows her eyes and sees so much more than I mean for her to, like she does right now.

I’m not sure if she intends it to be intimidating with the twin of the expression I had been raised with back home, but Mother’s intimidation is more than a carefully cultivated selection of responses and reactions.

It is based on her volatility, her cruelty, two things that Danica lacks. So I wait patiently for my aunt to make her point.

“What you’re doing is dangerous.” Her tone is clipped.

“So I’ve been told.” Over and over again by a man who refuses to say anything more on the subject.

“Stupid girl,” she bites out with more vigor than I expect. “You may have been told, but you haven’t begun to understand.”

“How could I? When no one will begin to explain.” I’m less demanding than pleading at this point.

Her expression softens, though the warning doesn’t leave it. “Even explanations here are dangerous.”

I meet her eyes solidly. “So is ignorance.”

She levels me with another scrutinizing glance.

“You are so like him,” she finally says.

The blood drains from my face. “The king?”

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