Page 138 of Seasons of War
Breath stalling, Kira lifted her face, taking in Zayne's sanctuary. He'd shaped and sanded the hollowed trunk into smooth walls. A single shelf held carving tools he used to write, each also masking devices that protected this area from surveillance. The same switch that turned on the lights activated the equipment.
It was the only place in Ciondo he truly trusted.
But Kira didn't seek out his security measures. Her eyes traced what Zayne spent years carving into the walls. Dozens of names, crafted one chiseled stroke at a time, with all his honor poured into each swing.
Kneeling down, Kira's finger trailed the first names he ever engraved. Deep and messy, they stood out from the rest. He remembered sitting there months after returning from Dr. Cooper's, clasping the screwdriver tight, chipping away at the wood. Now, Kira's tender touch followed the letters with such intention that he felt her tracing their names inside his chest.
The girl
Her mom and dad
Her brother
Her sister
Remaining with that dead family a few moments longer, Kira rose and turned slowly, her gaze ruminating on each name, as if she knew them herself.
The raw early names evolved into order. On one side, Zayne listed squad-mates and friends who died, and in the column beside them, anyone in his charge he lost. Edwards existed in the margins between the two, as his first corporal and his friend. He'd written others there as well, few and far between, etched into the empty space between the two sections.
But on the same side of the tree as the girl and her family, he carved the names of the innocent he failed to save. Or worse, who he killed.
The dead scarred the inside of Zayne's tree.
He'd never brought anyone except Brock here.
Once she finally faced him, grief wound her lips into a frown. “Oh, Zayne.”
“Don't make me write your name here.” No attempt at covering his sorrow or desperation. If seeing the hurt might save her, then he'd let himself bleed dry inside this tree. “I can't.”
Didn't she know that if Zayne wasn’t already strong enough to live, he'd never be strong enough to survive killing her? The life of the one he spent three years protecting. The life of the bravest person he knew.
A person brave enough not just to die, but also to live when most people only accepted one.
Kira must have known because she looked stricken, her face pale and her eyes glassy.
“The empire needs you,” Zayne said, fearing the danger of thinking, much less saying, he needed her too. Needed her not to die on him. Needed her to live, so he'd believe it was possible.
“It needs you more.” Her voice cracked. “You almost died last night. Those bullets were meant for me. Any of them could have hit you. And no one is in a better position to stab the Phaedra in the heart one day than you.”
“Where does that leave the people of this empire? I kill and destroy, and once I ruin the regime, I'll only usher in another season of war.” He plastered his hand against the names of the people he slaughtered. “But you—Kira, you're the only person who ever wrote life into these skies, into this hopeless empire.”
Into him.
“Zayne.” Her gaze consumed him, soul raw. He lost himself in her unending zeal, and he didn't try to find his way out.
“I am death, and you are life.”
A tear dropped down the curve of her full cheek and caught in the corner of her mouth.
In this moment, he cared nothing for the past or future, for all demanded by the dead, nor the wounds ripping his chest open. There was no prying the next words out or struggling to find his breath. Zayne looked straight into the center of her, and he spoke as if he possessed the power to shape reality with mere words. “Stay alive.”
Her eyes widened.
The memory thickened the air around them until he took in lungfuls of water, drowning in the tension of trying so hard not to remember the moments before he kissed her. When soft, warm lips grazed his, and her scent broke his last strand of composure. His hands relived the curves that damn emerald dress from the other night showed off. Zayne fought against the memories, but he was losing.
Kira's eyes dropped to his lips for the briefest moment. So brief. She remembered too. And remembering together in this vulnerable, hidden place, where her warmth beat away at him, destroyed what remained of his strength. He couldn't speak, but he forced out a single guttural, “Please.”
The strain in her body relaxed, and she sank against the wall of the tree, fleeing him only to fall into the exact position where he'd once kissed her. Against the tree, body wilted. Waiting. Calling out to him.
