Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(7)

She sent me a peculiar look, clearly thinking the same thing, too. “Very well.”

We made our way to the rocks. I clambered up the incline ahead of her, grunting cold gusts of breath. At the top, I noticed a crevice between two rocks. I reached for her hand, briefly grabbing hold of her fingers with my good hand before she pulled away. The rejection stung. She wouldn’t even let me have that much of her.

Her chin shot up and she shook mud-stiffened hair back from her pale face. “I can manage.”

Shrugging like it didn’t bother me, as though I didn’t feel her distance from me like a physical ache, I squeezed through the opening into the chilled space, relieved that it widened to a larger area. The area was wide enough for us both to stand with arms outstretched. I collapsed onto the cold stone, the chill at my back a welcome contrast to the fire in my arm.

She lowered herself down on the ground, keeping her distance and folding her hands on her bent knees. The closeness we’d had underground—that kiss—felt like a lifetime ago. Not forgotten, but buried deep with the dwellers and bones of the dead. I settled on my back and let my head drop back on the solid ground with a dull thud.

Now that we had escaped, my body let every pain, big and small, assert itself. I closed my eyes, not even caring that I slept on rigid stone. I ached—and not just my arm. My head throbbed, flushing with heat. My arm burned so much that I began to wonder if it wouldn’t feel better simply severed from my torso. I chuckled lightly at the morbid thought. There had been days when I thought death might be better, easier than this existence. Then I had met Luna and she convinced me that life could be more. That together we could have more. Now she had decided she had been wrong.

Luna’s voice burrowed past the growing fog of pain. “You can get me inside the capital, Fowler. You know the city. You have to know people there. Maybe you still have friends who—”

My laughter slipped out again, unbidden, and rusty as a forgotten plow blade in one of the fallow fields all across this land.

“Why do you continue to laugh at a time like this?” she demanded.

“It’s just that the only reason you want me around is to help you on your suicide mission—a mission that would bring me back to the place I swore never to return.”

“You can’t run away from this.”

I sobered, levity disappearing as I shook my head. “All I do is run. It’s the only thing I know.”

She nodded, understanding.

I added flatly, “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. You need to give up on this insane quest.”

“What do you mean even if you could? You’re saying you can’t. Be honest for a change. Tell me the truth. What you’re really saying is you won’t.”

I wished it were only that.

I took a slow breath, wondering when I should tell her that I might not be able to make it twenty yards, much less trek across the country to Relhok City.

She continued with a sneer, “He’s your father. They would fling open the gates for you. Throw you a grand party.”

Something twisted inside my chest at the way she said that. She thought less of me because of my blood. She thought less of me and she always would. “Don’t call him my father.” Even if he gave me life, he was no father to me. Nor was he any kind of husband to my mother. The man knew nothing of paternal bonds. Nothing of love or loyalty.

Moistening my dry lips, I tugged at my shirt, peeling it over my head and off my burning flesh with a wince. “Fact is, I’m not leaving this cave.” I balled up my shirt and wiped at my arm with the fabric. A hiss of pain escaped between my teeth as I attempted to wipe it clean.

She stilled, her arms wrapped around her knees. “What do you mean?”

“I’m asking you not to go.” I settled my gaze on her face, not above manipulating her with my grim reality. I always knew it was a matter of time before I died. It wasn’t as though I expected to live to a ripe old age. In this world, that wasn’t a possibility. “My dying wish, Luna. Will you deny me that?”

She uncurled her arms from around her knees and inched over to my side, her expression giving away her concern. “What are you talking about? You’re not dying. We made it out—”

I held up my arm. “Can you smell that? My arm?”

She froze, her nostrils flaring as though she was in fact smelling me—inhaling the bittersweet aroma of poison.

“It’s dweller toxin, Luna.” I glanced down to the glimmer of it on my skin. “It’s all over me. The worst of it on my arm.” I grimaced. “I didn’t get out unscathed. Like I said, you shouldn’t have come for me.”

She lifted her hand to touch my arm, but I pulled it out of her range. “Don’t touch it. You don’t want to get it on you.”

“Fowler,” she whispered, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth, her stricken expression forcing me to confront the truth of things.

I laughed roughly, but the sound twisted into a hacking cough. I had always prided myself on being so very skilled at surviving. Even when I didn’t particularly want to live, I always somehow managed to survive. Not anymore, though. Now, when I might want to live, when I might have found someone I wanted to live with—someone to live for—this happened.

She shook her head. “I fail to see any humor in this.”