He stopped and stared at me. It wasn’t a pleasant stare. It was angry, alien, and filled with fire. It bled from him, filling the air with the threat of an inferno. I clenched my fists and resisted the urge to back away from him. Tao wouldn’t hurt me; I’d believed that from the very beginning and I still believed it, despite growing evidence to the contrary.
You may believe it all you want, Azriel commented. But that does not make it a truth you should entrust your life to.
Shield will, Amaya commented. Flames not touch.
That, Azriel said, mental tones little more than a growl, is not the point.
Point, Amaya growled. I protect.
I couldn’t help smiling. My sword had never been afraid to throw a little attitude around, but it surprised me that she so readily flung it at Azriel. I said, He hasn’t lost control yet.
Even if he was very obviously close.
The only safe place for him to be is the sacred site the elemental keeps going back to, Azriel said. I’ll take him there by force if I have to.
You can’t get him into the site itself. Besides, he’ll only keep coming back. We have to get him there willingly, or there will be little point. To Tao, I said, “Look at what you’re doing, Tao. Look at your skin, and try to convince me you’re in control at this moment.”
He stared at me for several minutes longer, then slowly, like a dreamer coming out of a dream, raised his hands and stared at them. After a few minutes, the flames that flickered and danced across his fingertips began to die, and the inferno threatening the air eased. He closed his eyes and swore softly.
“I’m sorry. I just thought—”
I closed the gap between us and touched his arm. His eyes opened, the brown depths filled with desperation and the ever-lurking threat of flame. “I understand what you’re trying to do, but you can’t do it here. It’s simply too dangerous.”
“Everywhere is too dangerous,” he said bitterly. “Maybe it would be better for everyone if I simply killed myself.”
“No!” It came out panicked. My grip on his arm tightened, and I shook him, violently. “Don’t you dare give up on me. You can win this battle, Tao. I believe that with all my heart.”
“Then you would be the only one.” His gaze moved past me. “Even the reaper believes otherwise.”
“You fate is in your own hands,” Azriel commented. “Live or die, the choice is yours.”
Tao snorted. “Live or die as what is the question, though, isn’t it?”
Azriel shrugged, something I felt rather than saw. “The fates have no answer in that regard. The decision, as ever, comes down to your own actions.”
The fates have a great way of passing the buck, I commented, somewhat sourly.
It is hardly “passing the buck,” as you say, to let a person’s fate ultimately reside in his own hands. There was a hint of censure in his voice. They can and do plan a common course for all, but it is neither practical nor logical to expect all of creation to follow such guidelines rigidly. Especially when humankind have a habit of doing the unexpected.
A trait that doesn’t belong to only humans, I reminded him. Or was it in the fates’ grander scheme of things for you to ignore every reaper rule in existence to hunt down your friend’s killer?
Perhaps not, but once I became a Mijai, I have no doubt this is what they intended.
I’m betting they didn’t intend you and I to get together.
On that aspect, they are playing their cards very close to their chest. They have never said much about you and I, and they still don’t.
“My own actions,” Tao echoed, and laughed. It was a short, sharp sound of bitterness. “Except it isn’t just my actions involved, is it?”
“The elemental has no more desire to die than you,” Azriel commented. “It lives because the flame that gave it birth still burns in that sacred place. Perhaps it merely wishes to return in order to protect it.”
“Meaning if I destroy the flame—”
“It will kill you both.” My grip tightened on his arm again, forcing him to look at me. “Don’t you dare even consider that.”
“Risa,” he said, voice soft. Desperate. “You expect too much of me.”
“I expect nothing of you that I haven’t expected of myself,” I said, voice fierce. “Do you think these past few weeks have been easy for me? I’ve been to hell and back—literally—I’ve welcomed death, and I’ve been forced back to life. And I can tell you from experience that even though death may seem the better option, it isn’t. Life is worth the fight, however much it might seem otherwise at the time.”