Page 118 of The Isles of the Gods
He wrenches free of me, stumbles to the edge of the trees, and bracing his hands against his knees, throws up.
I simply stand in the center of the clearing, staring at him, trying helplessly to force my brain into action.
I’m not royal—I’m just the girl who brought him here in a boat, and I have no idea what to do next.
I should try to get him to safety, I suppose, to theEmma.Get away from here, back across the sea to the queen. Should we run? Is there something more we can do here?
Keegan is clutching the journal, and he falls back on what he knows best, sinking down to sit on a rock and pulling it out to start turning the pages, looking for answers.
Finally our prince straightens and turns toward us, his brown skin pale.
“Leander,” I try, aching for him, feeling his pain as though it’s my own. “This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known—”
“Don’t.” His voice is a lead weight.
“But—”
“Do you want a list of everything that’s my fault?” he snaps, anguished.
“That’s—”
“The loss of the progress fleet, and the deaths of all my friends who were on it,” he begins, stricken. “The sailors who were on it, people I never evenmet,dead because of me. TheLizabetta,your captain, and your crew. The ambassador, every ship that’s had a cargo confiscated in the last year, every life that will be lost in this war. Wholecountrieswill be lost—the Barren Reaches will be just the beginning.”
“The war is more than—” But he’s not finished.
“All this is happening because the green sisters sniffed anopening. They’ve been working for generations to get their people back to church. It’s not easy with a sleeping god, but they were finally starting to gather momentum. They looked at us and saw fewer people at temple every month, and they knew the day was finally coming when Macean could awaken. Barrica is theSentinel—it’s what she does—and my family are her servants. My sister chosemeto send here. She chosemeto strengthen my goddess.
“This war needn’t have happened at all, but I put the sacrifice off. And now he’s going to awaken—Barrica won’t be strong enough to stop him—and we’re going to find out what it’s like when twogodsgo to war.”
He lifts one hand, scrubbing at his wet eyes. I want to step forward, to go to him. To take his hands, to make him see that all this is too much for one boy to bear alone.
“They’re going to catch up with us soon,” he says quietly. “So my final act has to be taking responsibility. For the fact that I’ve killed all those people. I’ve killed Keegan, who’s offered me nothing but undeserved loyalty. I’ve killedyou,Selly. And I’ve dismantled your entire life first—yet you still saved mine, over and over.”
I take a step toward him, and he lifts his bloodied hand as if to ward me off, his eyes wet.
“Leander, let me—”
“No!” His voice is a knife.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I turn away to stumble for the edge of the clearing, as if I can outrun this hurt. Pressing a hand over my mouth, I lean against one of the gnarled trees hemming us in, letting it take my weight as my knees threaten to give.
This can’t be how it ends. With us giving up. With him pushing me away.
There’s a parade of ants marching up the rough bark, and I want to tell them there’s nothing at the top worth working for. I watch numbly as they laboriously work their way around a knot in the wood, and then I let my gaze range up until it finds a gap in the trees, and a slice of the cove where theEmmawaits for us.
She bobs at anchor alongside the sleek, silent boat that brought the dead crew behind us to destroy this place.
I tilt my head, and it takes me far too long to understand what I’m seeing. Even when I do, I stare, blinking, my mouth dry, my tired head woolly, trying to form the words to describeit.
There’s a third boat anchored in the cove.
I can’t see anyone moving on it, which means they’re probably climbing already.
“Leander.” I whirl around, already moving toward him. “There’s another boat down there—Laskia must be—”
But I’m cut off as Keegan comes abruptly to his feet, his eyes glued to the journal in his hands.
“This is the sort of place I wish I could stay forever,”he reads quietly, gazing intently at the words on the page as I fall silent.“But the captain’s calling me away. If only we could linger and explore. I wouldn’t dare visit any of the other islands, where the other gods must be as strong as mine is here, but it would be fun to take a look from the boat.
