was pray to Kakkari that Maeva wasn’t injured from the jump.
The impact with the shimmering sea stole my breath. Underneath the water, it was pitch black as I frantically searched for Maeva. When I surfaced, I called out for her, filling my desperate lungs with air as my wild eyes scanned the sea.
I saw her dark head bobbing with the waves and profound relief went through me. I swam the short distance to her. She was treading water very near the rock that I feared.
She saw me and her eyes went wide at whatever thunderous expression was across my face. That was when I saw the blood. Red blood, dripping into the sea, a small gash just underneath her bottom lip.
“You foolish creature,” I seethed when I reached her, snagging her around the waist and tugging her towards the shore. “You see that?”
I pointed at the tip of the rock jutting from the sea mere feet from where we were when the waves retreated.
Her breath left her when she saw it.
“If you had hit that—”
I didn’t even finish that sentence. I was furious with her as I swam us towards the shore, my booted feet heavy under the water, my jaw ticking.
“I—I’m sorry, Kiran,” she murmured, helping me kick as more blood poured from her chin, clouding the blue water. “I just wanted—”
“I know what you wanted,” I growled. “But you just took years off my life trying to prove something that doesn’t vokking matter.”
When it was shallow enough to stand, I carried her up the shore, cradled in my arms, as light as a nekkisau. I deposited her on the grey sand, leaning her back against one of the boulders that dotted the small shore. It was an enclosed beach, one that disappeared when the tides came in. Just another reason why that particular cliff jump was so dangerous…because this beach was the only way back up towards the saruk for miles.
I was shaking, I was so furious. I was shaking, I was so relieved.
Her eyes were watery with tears when they met mine, making me pause, making some of my hot anger melt away…because I couldn’t stand to see Maeva cry. Red blood was dripping down her chin in a steady stream now that the sea wasn’t washing it away.
“Let me see,” I rasped, tilting her face up. Her wide, swirling eyes—all brown and green and golden—tilted up at the corners and they met mine as my fingers curled under her soft, round chin. “Does it hurt?”
The gash was small but deep.
“It stings a little. Is it bad?”
“You are the healer, not I,” I grumbled, knowing how much she haunted the mokkira’s soliki, though he had not agreed to take her on as an apprentice yet. “What did you hit it on?”
Maeva hesitated. “A wave pushed me into the rock.”
A curse left my lips, my anger bursting back to life.
“You will never make that jump again, do you understand me?” I growled.
Even though I was scolding her, her chin lifted slightly. “Were you worried for me?”
“Lysi!”
“I was only trying to hold you to your promise,” she argued. “Maybe you should have taken me when you said you would.”
Disbelief went through me, my eyes widening.
“Impossible creature!” I snapped out, wanting to both shake some sense into her and squeeze her to my chest. “You make me crazed!”
Surprise lit up her eyes. And even though she had blood trailing down her chin, dripping down her neck and across her banded breasts, she grinned.
It was that smile. The one she knew I couldn’t stay angry at.
Almost shy. Almost sweet.
Already, I felt my anger waver.
“Damn you, seffi,” I rasped. “Damn you.”
Her grin widened. She took my hand, her thumb stroking a scar on the back of it, making me shiver. We were both soaked to the bone but the hot breeze was already threading through our hair, drying our flesh.
“Do you forgive me, Kiran?” she asked quietly.
My jaw clenched but I felt myself softening towards her. I was weak. Especially when it came to her.
“Only if you promise never to jump from that cliff again,” I grumbled, my shoulders loosening. “Promise me, Maeva.”
“I promise,” she whispered and I felt myself relax. Because my seffi always kept her promises. No matter what. I wouldn’t have to worry about her jumping from the cliff again, especially when I returned to Dothik in a few short days.
Our eyes connected and held.
Long moments passed as we regarded one another, alone on that stretch of beach that