Page 65 of Of Songs and Silence

What if we were in control of who she married?

I freeze.

You would force her?

No.

I won’t have to.

A knife lances through me. By the time I find what I’ve been looking for, I have already pulled away. All this time, all this wondering for a word that feels so right and now, so stars-damned bittersweet.

He scrambles to put his shields in place, but it’s too late. I tilt my head up just in time to see the guilt swimming in his eyes as the final part of the conversation clicks into place.

Soulmate.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

MELODI

Soulmate.

I repeat the word in my head, once, then twice.

I can barely process the waves of emotion crashing over me. Elation and a feeling of rightness because I finally know with a certainty that he feels our bond as wholly as I do, that it isn’t going anywhere.

But all of that relief is tempered by another stab of betrayal when I remember the conversation I witnessed—the conversation he accidentally let slip.

“Kala—”

“No.” It’s one word, but final.

I can’t control the visceral way I am reacting to this any more than I can control anything else around Ari. This bond—thissoulmatebond, seems to take my choices away as surely as the people around me do.

Ari winces, slamming his shields into place. I almost feel guilty before I remember that he jumped in the boat of everyone else in my life who was high-handedly deciding who I should marry.

Somehow, that hurts the most.

I bring my shields up, too, shutting him out like he has so often done to me and swimming farther away from him.

“It must have been convenient for you, when you realized who I was, tying up your rebellion in one neat little package.” The words are coated with more sadness than ire.

The Mayiman people truly do need this rebellion. They need to be free of my savage grandfather. They need stability.

I am not so selfish that I don’t see that.

“It wasn’t convenient,” Ari all but growls. “And that wasn’t for the rebellion. It was for you.”

He moves forward but I hold up a hand to stop him. “Another move to keep me safe without involving me.”

“It was too dangerous.”

That word ignites a fire in my veins. “This is my fight, too. Don’t you think that I care about the people, too? That I feel some responsibility that it’s my family, once again, making everyone around us suffer?”

His jaw clenches. “I know that, but—”

“Were you even going to ask me?” I cut him off, still trying to land on the part of this that hurts the most.

“Was I going to ask you if you wanted to be with me?” he asks, a note of incredulity to his tone—and something else. Something deeper.

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