Asha didn’t wait for the song to end. Instead, with her hand still in Jas’s, she stopped dancing and pulled him through the crowd.
“What are you . . . ?”
Pulled him all the way up to his friend.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Asha said when the scrublander girls stopped dancing and turned to face them. Sensing what she was about to do, Jas tried to tug his hand free and escape, but Asha held firm. “I’m afraid I have to rush off, but I don’t want to abandon my dancing partner. So I wondered . . .” Asha looked from one to the next, until her eyes fell on the girl Jas had been watching. Lirabel, he’d called her. “I was wondering if you might want to dance with him?”
Lirabel’s big eyes looked from Asha to Jas in surprise. She was a soft-looking girl with a heart-shaped face and a gentle mouth. Lirabel dipped her head shyly, then said, “I would be honored.”
And that was that.
Asha smiled. Jas looked terrified. But when Lirabel looked up into his face, he stepped toward her, swallowing.
Asha released his hand. Turning, she pushed out of the crowd, heading in the direction Torwin had disappeared, down the path between tents.
She walked past the noise and the crowds and finally caught sight of him near the outskirts of New Haven.
“Torwin! Wait!”
At the sound of her voice, he slowed. Then turned around.
Asha ran to catch up, stopping just before a leaning structure that smelled like iron. There was no door, just a small opening, and in the starlight Asha could make out the shape of an anvil before everything melted into shadow. The smithy stood on the edge of the camp. Out here, the world was silent and dark and the stars were bright specks of sand, glittering above them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be—”
“Dancing with Jas?”
Torwin looked away from her.
Was he . . . jealous?
“It’s rare for someone I’ve only just met to be kind to me instead of afraid of me,” she told him, touching the crimson fabric of her dress. It was a little rough, but she never truly belonged in the beautiful sabra silk of her kaftans, and Asha didn’t mind it. “He gave me this.”
“Did he?” Torwin smiled a shadow smile. A fake. “Well, Jas certainly has fine taste. You look exceedingly pretty tonight.” He looked over his shoulder. “He’s probably wondering where you are. Maybe you should—”
“Or maybe you should tell me what’s wrong.”
Torwin went quiet, looking immediately out over the night-touched tents. Asha studied the shape of him. Already he’d recovered from the effects of the dragon bone. He was lean and tall and strong. Not strong the way Jarek was strong. Torwin’s strength was a strength of spirit.
She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said in the meeting tent a few days ago. He would stay until the wedding, he told her. And now the wedding was over.
And here they were.
“I heard a rumor tonight.” She stepped toward him. “Are the skral planning to leave Firgaard?”
He kept his gaze away from her, nodding. “The skral support your brother, but most intend to leave the city after the invasion.” Torwin sighed, running long fingers through his hair. “When this is over, if your brother secures the throne . . . the scrublanders have offered to take us across the desert.”
Us. Her heart sank at that word.
But not you, she thought, staring up at him. You’re planning to run even farther.
“For those who stay behind . . .” He shrugged. “No one knows what their fate will be.”
“Dax promised to free every slave.”
He nodded.
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s easier said than done, Asha.”
“You can’t think he’ll go back on his word.”
“When we all go free, who will dress you and cook your meals? Build your temples and labor in your orchards? Your way of life will crumble and in the midst of that crumbling, we’re supposed to find our place among you? Be treated as your equals?”
“Yes,” she said, angry—but whether it was anger at his doubt, or her own, she wasn’t sure.
He shook his head. “Very few draksors will be eager to lose their slaves. And where will we live now that we’re free? Who will employ us?” He kicked at the earth beneath his feet. “Things are going to get worse before they get better. Draksors will be angry and skral will be easy targets. It will be dangerous for us to remain in the city.”
“So you’re leaving,” she said.
She wished she didn’t sound so angry.
Torwin merely glanced at her.
“When?” she demanded. The question had been burning within her for days now. “Tonight? Tomorrow?”
He swallowed. “When the army heads to Firgaard in the morning, I’ll leave for Darmoor. My things are already packed.”
Something broke inside her.
“You should go.” She spat the words like they were bitter. Like she hated the taste of them. She couldn’t look at him, thinking instead of what he’d told her. Of what he wanted most: freedom. She stared out at the hundreds of tents scattered across the valley. “You’ll be safer far away from here.”
Away from her.
Torwin went silent. After a moment, he stepped in close. “Safe?” His gaze bore into her. “Is that . . . ?” She could almost hear the thoughts spinning though his mind. “Are you trying to keep me safe, Asha?”
Looking at him would give her away. So, to keep her eyes from meeting his, she stared at his collarbone, noticing how it jutted out just a little, swooping elegantly in toward his throat on both sides.
To stop herself from reaching out to touch it, she curled her fingers into her palms, keeping them firmly at her sides.
“Asha. Look at me.”
When she didn’t, he reached for her. The backs of his fingers moved across her scarred skin, tracing her hairline, brushing down her cheek and neck.
Asha glanced up. The look in his eyes made her breath catch. It was like looking into the heart of a star: bright and burning.
“Do you know what it feels like to watch you dance with someone else, knowing that someone can never be me?” His hand fell to his side. “Do you know what it feels like to have you not even consider the gift waiting in your tent . . . might be from me?”
Asha looked down at her perfectly fitted garment. “The dress?”
He nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t have anything to wear. And Callie owed me a favor. I asked her to make it for you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Suddenly, footsteps crunched along the dirt path.
They broke apart. Torwin spun to face the intruder. Asha stepped back.
The musician who’d taken Torwin’s spot stood before them, gangly and pimply, barely fifteen. He held the lute in one hand as he looked from the daughter of the dragon king to the skral and back again.
“I came to tell you”—he gaped at Asha’s scar—“that they want you back.” He thrust the lute at Torwin. “They say I keep throwing them off tune.”
Do you know what it feels like . . . ?
Asha knew what it felt like.
Torwin took the instrument. “Tell them I’m coming.” The draksor boy nodded, then returned the way he’d come.
“I should get back,” Torwin said, “before—”
“It’s like watching you with Callie,” she told him, “knowing she’ll never endanger you just by being near you.”
Torwin turned to stare at her. “What?”
“You asked me if I know what it feels like.”
Asha suddenly didn’t want to care anymore. About any of it. The wedding or the war or the fact that he was a skral and she was a draksor.
She lifted her finger to his collarbone, tracing the tough scars there. Torwin drew in a shaky breath as her touch trailed into the hollow of his throat, stopping where his pulse beat out a frantic rhythm.
“Asha . . .”
She wanted to take him away from here. She wanted to hear him say her name over and over.
“Asha . . .”
Her fingers followed the arch of his throat, running slowly upward, over his jaw, across his cheekbone.
He dropped the lute and stepped in close. So close, Asha could almost taste the salt on his skin.
He dug his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. And then, with his eyes burning into hers, he kissed her. Gently at first. Then harder. Like he was hungry and Asha was the only one who could satisfy his craving.
Asha grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him back, hungrier and clumsier than he was. Torwin grabbed her waist, pulling her to him.
The smithy lay just behind her. Torwin guided her into the dark mouth of it until her back hit a warm, hard wall. Her palms moved over his chest and shoulders. He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her throat.
Asha made a soft sound. She wanted to hoist herself up, to wrap her legs around his hips, but Torwin grabbed her wrists, stopping her as the sound of footsteps rose up once more.
Asha froze. Torwin pressed his forehead to hers, listening.
“Torwin?” It was the boy again.
Torwin bared his teeth.
More footsteps. “I swear, he was right here. . . .”
A second voice grumbled an answer.
Torwin leaned into Asha, forehead to forehead, keeping her pressed against the heat-soaked wall. Releasing her wrists, he slid his thumb slowly over her bottom lip. When the footsteps got closer, his thumb stopped. When they moved farther away, it started again. Asha leaned forward to kiss him, but he didn’t let her, continuing his gentle torment. His thumb brushed along her jaw and down her throat. It trailed over her collarbone and shoulder.
Asha closed her eyes, tilted her head back, letting him explore her.
It felt like forever before the footsteps moved away. When they disappeared completely, Asha exhaled.
Torwin kissed her throat. “When I finish playing . . . Asha, can I come to your tent?”
“My tent?” The thought terrified her. “You’ll be seen.” Not to mention: she shared a tent with Safire.
“I won’t be.”
It was too much of a risk. It put him in so much danger.
I’m supposed to be keeping my distance. For his own protection.
“Please,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll be so careful.”
She thought of all the times she’d put his life at risk before now.
His forehead fell against hers. His hand cupped her neck. “What if you came to me instead?”
Asha squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of his tent on the beach. Of sneaking away in the middle of the night. Of lying next to him under the stars.
In the morning, she would go to war. A war they might not win.
And he would leave. Leave for good.
This was their last night together.
Say no.
There was no future here. No way she could ever be with this boy. She needed to cut off whatever feeling was growing inside of her. Kill it at the root. He was leaving and she was staying, and even if things were different . . .
She thought about Safire’s parents, one draksor, one skral—how they burned her mother alive, how they forced her father to watch.
The thought of Torwin dead made something crack inside her. But it had the opposite effect. She didn’t say no. Instead, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.
Torwin smiled a rare smile. One that involved his whole mouth instead of just half of it.
“Is that a yes?” he whispered, breaking away.
She nodded.
He walked backward, out of the smithy, like he was memorizing the sight of her and taking it with him. “Then I’ll see you tonight, fierce one.”