Thora busied herself with stirring the pot of stew boiling over the fire. Marai deposited the cactus fruit onto the wooden table and faced Thora, crossing her arms.
“What?” Thora snapped, worrying her lower lip. “You can stop looking at me that way, and cut up those fruits.”
Marai took her knife and started slicing the fruit into perfectly equal pieces, enough for seven people. “Do you and Raife have feelings for each other?”
Thora dropped the ladle into the pot of stew. Frazzled, she plucked it out with two fingers. “We’re all very close here. We’re all each other has.” Her voice was higher than usual.
Marai popped a piece of fruit into her mouth. “You always told me never to lie.”
Thora scowled. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever feelings Raife and I have . . . it doesn’t matter. And you shouldn’t lie.” Her ginger eyes flashed in that stern, motherly way Marai was used to.
“I should think those feelings matter a great deal,” said Marai, having learned that herself recently.
“It’s complicated.”
Marai stared back blandly.
Thora stopped stirring the stew and sighed. “We can’t, Marai. It’s not safe.”
“What does that mean?”
“Why are you so full of questions tonight?” snapped Thora.
Marai couldn’t help it—she gave Thora a knowing smirk.
Thora sighed and tucked that loose strand of hair back again. Her expression changed. Her eyes saddened, lips pouted, making her appear younger, more akin to her age of twenty and four. “We’ve managed to survive this long because we’ve stayed hidden, always alert, always ready to run if we need to. There’s never a moment when I don’t fear that we’ll be found. You and Keshel have assured us that will happen. And I cannot bring myself to love someone in that way only to have them taken from me.”
Marai’s heart sunk. Thora wasn’t wrong. There was certainly a chance one of them could be killed at any moment. Marai understood that fear. It was one of the reasons why Marai had spent the past four years trying not to feel, untouchable and unattainable. She’d experienced the loss of love once, and she never wanted to feel that powerless again.
But she had. She’d let Ruenen into her heart. Now every part of her ached from the loss of him.
“Do you ever think that maybe it’s worth it to have a few days of happiness?” Marai asked her, making Thora pause. “That if death comes for you or him . . . at least you had some time together.”
Marai wasn’t asking about Raife.
Thora studied her for a moment, as if she could read Marai’s thoughts and knew she was struggling. “Sometimes I feel that way, but then I worry about children.”
Children? Marai had never thought about children before. No new fae had been born in nearly two decades.
“I know I’d love them more than anything,” Thora said, wrapping her arms around herself, “but how could I bring them into this world? It would be selfish of me to want them, when all they’d experience would be fear and pain. Our lives are not fit for a child.”
“But we were children, and we survived,” Marai said, coming to Thora’s side. “Your children would at least have a mother and father, and all the rest of us to watch out for them. Aunts and uncles at their beck and call.”
Thora smiled sadly and shook her head. “What if I die? And Raife dies? Then they’d be orphans, no better off than we were, and I wouldn’t wish that life on my flesh and blood.” She returned to stirring the pot. “No, Marai, we’re all better off trying to live for as long as we can. That must be enough.”
Marai’s anger rose. It wasn’t right. Thora deserved happiness. They all did. Marai wanted to give them a world where they would be safe, yet there was nowhere like that here on the continent of Astye. Perhaps in Andara things would be different, but Marai knew the risk of trying to leave these lands. What boat, what captain, would carry seven penniless faeries across a treacherous ocean leagues and leagues away to an unexplored, potentially dangerous country?
Her stomach knotted. Slate would have. He would’ve had them steal and kill for him, sure, but Slate was the one captain who would have relished the company of faeries and their magic onboard. She hated discovering those small, decent parts of him. They were the things that had made her fall in love with him. If Slate hadn’t been so greedy, if he hadn’t become a pirate, Marai thought he might have led a very different life.
“Sometimes, I look across the cavern, and I think how much it hurts to love him,” Thora said in a quiet, distant voice, full of a pain Marai recognized. “It’s almost unbearable. It’s not the feeling that hurts, though. It’s the thought of anything happening to him.”
The memory of Ruenen’s dimpled smile and gold-flecked eyes swam into Marai’s brain. But then his smile disappeared and became an expression of shock and betrayal. The image was too clear. Too vivid. Too recent. It tore through her heart.
“Have you ever told Raife how you feel?”
“Dinner’s ready,” Thora said, her voice high-pitched again. “Please go get the others.”
Marai left Thora to ladle the stew into bowls, her lungs unable to contract. Outside, she gulped down fresh air, and forced her mind to go blank again. Forced Ruenen out of the chambers of her heart.
She found Raife by the river, staring at the moon. Kadiatu, Aresti, and Leif were farther away, laughing at something as they gathered firewood.
“Thora says to come in for dinner,” Marai called to them all.
Raife gave Marai a halfhearted, melancholy smile, before beginning to head into the cave with the others.
“I wish you didn’t have to hide your feelings,” she said, making him stop. “I wish you could feel free to live the way you want and deserve.”
Raife blushed and shrugged, a gesture that so reminded Marai of Ruenen. She hated how she kept seeing him in others, hearing his voice in their inflections. Echoes of him dwelled everywhere.
“It’s the only way to survive, as you well know,” Raife said. “If I could take her somewhere safe, where we could have a home, I would.”
“Do you love her?” Marai pressed, and this time, Raife gave her a real smile.
“With every fiber of my being.”
Chapter 5
Marai
