Читать книгу Storm of Ash - Michelle Kenney - Страница 10

The scar on his face glistened in the sun, while his eyes belied his words. Leaving words.

‘You know I have to do this. It gives the legatio a chance. I know where to go. I can lead them – it’s what I’m good at … Tal?’

Hopelessness, then worse, hurt fleeted across his face as I gave him nothing back. But how could I when emotion was the cause of so much.

‘Feral means free, remember?’ he whispered. ‘That’s worth something even if you let go … of everything else.’

I stared at the spring grass surrounding my leather-soled feet. It looked so fragile and swollen with monsoon rain. There were no dark veins or dust-choked roots. It had no idea of the shadows creeping closer every day. Unlike Augustus Aquila, standing less than a metre away, in my forest home, trying to save any part of us that was still salvageable.

Why didn’t he understand? How could he stand there, alive, thinking of us when we’d watched so many others sink to the icy depths of the glass river … the icy depths.

‘For all Oceanid revivals there has to be a payment of sorts: either a trade of treasure or promise of recompense …’

August’s words never felt more poignant.

Was that it? Had August and I paid the ultimate price? Could our revival have cost us … us?

I swallowed, trying to force thoughts past the rush of blood in my ears. Why would the Oceanids demand such a payment? Yet it would explain so much.

‘The Oceanids are loyal to no one but themselves.’

That they helped us was indisputable, but to what purpose?

Thoughts tumbled through my head, confused and overlapping. I gritted my teeth. It had to be a purpose bigger than us altogether. Was it to make us strong enough to finish what we’d started? To lead the war?

‘It was real for me, Talia.’

And it seemed as though the branches around us leaned in to catch his whisper, and cocoon it within their scrolled leaves.

We both knew the dangers of the legatio meant his return was against all the odds. Leaving nothing. An enormous silence, when so much had preceded it. Which was why no more words made it into the dead air between us.

After all, what was there left to say if we’d already traded it all?