worked before she answered. “It is the best of what I have left.”
“You could think of no other way to lift their shame?”
“What other way is there?” Her tortured gaze searched his. “By speaking the truth of what happened on the King’s Walk? No one believes it when we do.”
“And so you think this is best for your family?”
Lips trembling, she nodded into his hands.
His jaw clenched. “Did you think to ask them what they thought was best? They chose to stay in Koth, knowing what they would bear. Do you think for one moment that they would ever choose to trade their shame for your life? No. They would choose to bear worse if it kept you alive.”
Her chest hitched. “Aerax—”
No longer could he touch her. Dropping his hands from her face, he surged to his feet. “You will tear their hearts out.”
“Please, do not make this harder—”
“And you will destroy mine!”
His fury echoed through the trees and was joined by Caeb’s, as the cat roared a resounding denial into her face. With a cry, Lizzan covered her ears. Shouts came from the camp but Aerax did not turn to look. Nothing were they to him. Nothing was anything else to him now.
“You think I will ever let you do this? Abandon your quest,” he commanded.
Though tears streamed down her cheeks, her chin came up. “I cannot.”
“Then at the next temple, I will take my own quest.” Aerax stepped back into the moonlight, where Vela might see and hear him. If the goddess didn’t like what he had to say, then she could send a moonstone to crush him . . . yet still that would not stop him. “My reward will be saving your life, as I seem to treasure it more than you do.”
Another furious snarl from Caeb, and Lizzan’s face crumpled as if the cat’s anger destroyed her heart as she would destroy theirs.
“Please, Caeb—”
“And if Vela denies me a quest, I will tie you hand and foot,” Aerax promised her. “I’ll carry you to where it never snows and pass the rest of our lives there.”
A painful laugh ripped from her. “You would abandon your purpose and Koth now, when you would not come with me before?”
“Never before did I believe you would toss away your life! There is nothing I would not do to save you. I would return with you to Koth, for Vela’s power has no reach there. I would kill my uncle, make myself king, and rescind your exile. I would burn the books to remove all stain from your names. And if soldiers still called you a coward to cause you pain, I would tear out their tongues if they even whispered the word.”
She stared up at him in horror. “You would be everything you hate.”
Aerax laughed harshly and crouched before her again, cupping her nape in a firm grip, making her gaze meet his. “If I have to become a monster to save you, that is what I will do.”
“No,” she whispered.
“I will. Though strangers it would truly make us—but you already have done that.” Fury still surging hot through his veins, he told her, “All I have known of you is softhearted, generous, and strong. But to ask for this quest and name your death as a reward means you are also cruel and selfish and weak.”
Her expression shattered. “Aerax—”
“And cowardly, too,” he said, and she sucked in a sharp breath, fist flying to her stomach and pressing there, as if to stanch a wound. “You would take the easy path. But I will not let you.”
Tears welled up again but she denied them. Eyes closing, she averted her face, her features a mask of desolation. “Go away from me, Aerax.”
As strangers again. Pain shot through the rage that had gripped him, but he would not succumb to it. With a look to Caeb, who dragged the boar’s haunch closer to Lizzan and settled in, Aerax turned and stalked back into camp.
They had built the fire up again. Hair mussed from sleep, Lady Junica and Degg sat near to it, along with a few Parsatheans, Tyzen, and the monk. No doubt Caeb’s roar had woken everyone—or Aerax’s shouting had.
He took a seat near Kelir. At the warrior’s other side, Seri snored away in her bedroll.
Nothing did anyone say, until Degg ventured to comment, “It does not snow here in the jungle.”
Lady Junica shook her head. “It did during the Bitter Years.”