The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)(74)

“Then you were initiated into the Rivets after formative education?” he probed gently. It was the most personal information she had ever disclosed at once and he didn’t want to say or do something that would bring it to an end.

“‘Formative education.’” She repeated with a grin. It was coy and arrogant on the surface, but it had the same undercurrent that tugged down her shoulders. “Oh-ho, you have read about the history of Loom.”

“I have.” Cvareh shifted closer to her, keeping their conversation just to themselves and not speaking loudly enough that the few others milling about the deck could hear. “At least what’s been written on Nova about it.”

“Which I’m sure is mostly slander and propaganda.”

He couldn’t argue. “And the other third is just incorrect, I’m coming to find.”

“Are you?” Arianna turned to look at him. She’d grease-penned in the symbol of the Rivets on her face again to avoid questions. Cvareh found the mark clashed with the curve of her jaw and the cut of her cheek. It was somewhere it didn’t belong, and he suppressed the urge to take her face in his palms and rub it off with his thumb. “What else were you taught about Loom?”

“That its people are weak,” he answered easily. “All my life, I’ve been told the Fenthri are pitiable creatures. That they were simply roaming around in a barren world, barely surviving by trying to establish an order they couldn’t maintain—hence no king or supreme ruler—and that the Dragons were their saviors.”

She snorted in amusement.

“The Dragons have done nothing for Loom but cause disruption in a system they shouldn’t have touched because they didn’t understand it.”

“Help me understand it?” He wanted to know more. Cvareh mentally insisted it was a result of spending time on Loom, and that was certainly a part of it. But he wanted to know about her. What had made Arianna into the woman she was. A woman who outclassed Dragon and Fenthri and Chimera alike.

She said nothing—barely moved, barely breathed. Her silence made him hang on her every action all the more. He waited for what was percolating in the back of her mind to bubble forward.

“What will you do, Cvareh, after you make it to the Alchemists’ Guild and deliver what it is you’ve carried so far, so diligently?” Arianna stared him down, pinning his toes to the floor with the weight of her interrogation. In her mind, she drew honesty from him like moisture from a cool stone on a hot day.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I may return to Nova to help my sister. She’s lied for me, I believe, making up some story about where I am to prevent my arrest.”

“What do you call the King’s Riders then?”

“Think of them more as assassins than knights while they’re here.” He shrugged. “I’m not supposed to be on Loom, so they’re not technically hunting me. Being here is all one big gray area.”

She snickered. “I’m not sure if you intended that as a pun, but it was rather funny.”

Her joke was so foreign from her usual seriousness that Cvareh had to stare and process it for a long moment before he realized it had been sincere. Arianna had found humor in what he said. Not only had she not immediately assumed the worst possible implication for his words, but she had found humor in them. It was a far cry from the woman who’d held blades against his tongue, threatening to cut it out if he bothered her.

“I hadn’t.” He laughed lightly. “But it is amusing in hindsight.”

“You seem close with your sister,” Arianna mused after a long moment. “I’m not surprised you have a whisper link with her.”

He almost asked her how she knew about the link. But for someone who never seemed to miss a thing, it was simple to see how Arianna had arrived at the conclusion. He’d mentioned Petra fondly before, and he’d told Ari he had magic in his ears. She’d seen him reporting in.

“It would make sense that you would want to go back to her,” Ari whispered so faintly that he almost thought the wind was playing tricks on him. But his hearing was too good for that. He knew exactly what she’d said, and the quickening of his heartbeat knew it too.

“I could stay.” They were the only words he could say that would offer a brief respite from the pressure that had been building in his chest.

“What?” She straightened, her arms sliding off the railing. One hand rested on it as Arianna turned to face him.

The look she gave him almost made the feeling worse. Did she realize how her eyes pleaded? Was she aware of the softness in the slope of her shoulders, or the way her hand had crept closer to his on the railing? Cvareh instinctively responded in kind, his body language unfurling to meet hers, to face her chest to chest as they had so many times.

“For a little, I’m sure I could stay, or I could leave and come back quickly.” His words were making no sense. His mind was making no sense. Nothing about them had ever made any sense and yet…he thrived off her. Her blood, the way she pushed those around her, her sharp mind and sharper blades.

“Why would you do that?” Fear penetrated her stare. She was nervous of his answer, which made it all the clearer that she was becoming aware of what was happening—what had been happening—at the same time he was.

This woman had become something more to him. He didn’t know what quite yet. But he wanted to find out.