Into whispering shadows.., p.26
Into Whispering Shadows (Darkened Skies Book 2), page 26
“You said the university would be safe,” Astrea mumbled.
Lucian cocked one eyebrow.
“And what about the mountains?” she asked, though the question sounded silly. Lucian’s gaze flicked to where Jin still hovered right behind her. “It seems like a good way to gather more information.”
“And capturing one of these Paragon sycophants is also a good way to gather information,” Lucian said. “We can do that with your help.”
Lucian really thought using her as bait was a good idea? Of course, trying to find the Paragon made sense. They’d made it plenty clear that they would do what they had to do to find Astrea, and she hated that. But putting herself in their path? In Talmaris, where there were civilians who could get hurt, too?
She supposed they could try to clear their trap of civilians, but wouldn’t that make the whole setup easy for the Paragon to spot?
“No.” Astrea shook her head. “No, I won’t do that. Finding them is important, but it seems too dangerous for everyone involved. There’s no way you can guarantee the safety of that many people.”
“We’ve kept you safe thus far.” Lucian frowned. “You doubt us?”
“We’re behind palace walls,” Jin said. “We’ve barely left the palace. That’s different, and you know it.”
“If you don’t want to do this, Astrea, I can’t make you.” Lucian shook his head. “But I think it’s a foolish, foolish mistake not to try.”
“I’m willing to go to the mountains,” Astrea said, “and I’m willing to help in other ways, but I’m not comfortable with what you’re asking, Commander.”
Lucian sighed, a heavy, exaggerated sound. His wall was still up, the only one she couldn’t read in the room now. Even Jin’s warring anxiety and relief pressed against Astrea, strangely comforting.
“Fine,” Lucian finally said. “We’ll begin making preparations to travel to the mountain locations the professor has identified. We’ll just have to get our information another way.”
“Thank you,” Astrea said.
“I’m not doing it for you.” The hard edge to Lucian’s voice was unmistakable. “I need to keep my people safe. If this is the only way you all will help us get answers, then so be it.”
Guilt pierced Astrea’s gut. Yes, people would be put in danger if she agreed to Lucian’s plan, but they would be in danger regardless. Maybe the best thing she could do for the civilians here was to get to the mountains and stay there.
Chapter 25
A warm bed in a cool room was the best feeling in the world. Astrea curled into the blankets; both her mind and eyes ached. After getting Lucian to agree to the mountain excursion, she’d spent the better part of the afternoon balancing two tasks: looking for that elusive connection between the Great Wars and the old myths, and working with Tomas and Kostas to pull additional books for their group to go through. Once Kostas had calmed down, he’d been helpful and had assisted her and Tomas in narrowing things down greatly.
The commander had also suggested they continue their lightbringing lessons the next day. Astrea didn’t love the idea of spending time with Lucian when he seemed to be angry with her, but she needed someone to train her. She’d just have to deal with him.
Now, she clutched one of Jin’s old letters in her hands. She hadn’t touched them in a few days, her mind too raw from everything that had happened with the vision, Nazarov, and the professor’s office. But there was still so much she didn’t know about Jin’s past, and it seemed like a good distraction from everything else.
Astrea had already read about the time he was home for the winter solstice festival four years prior. He’d wanted to see her, apparently, and wanted to say hello, but couldn’t make himself. Skies, she wished he had sought her out. She’d still been in university then, though in those days, she also spent almost all her free time at the Nikaphoros home. Maybe she wouldn’t even have been at the palace; she couldn’t remember.
She’d just started on a letter about some nonsense Adi and Jin got up to at Fort Avalon when the bedroom door opened. Sweat soaked Jin’s entire body, no doubt due to whatever exercises he and Adi had just finished. He winced as he leaned down to untie his boots.
“What happened?” Astrea asked.
“Nothing.” Jin straightened and pulled off his shirt with a grunt. “Just pushed myself too hard.”
Setting his old letter down, Astrea slipped out of bed. She padded toward him, her bare feet barely making a sound on the floor. “Do you want me to—”
“There’s no need,” he said, his smile gentle as he grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. Her entire body pressed into his bare—and incredibly clammy—skin. “Sore muscles hardly require healing.”
“Fine.” Sweat beaded on the end of his nose, then dropped onto Astrea’s cheek. She pushed away from him. “Gross.”
“Oh no,” Jin said in that honeyed voice, “this beautiful, wonderful woman is sweaty now, too? If only there was some way we could both clean ourselves up.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she retorted as she fought a smile.
Another drop of moisture landed on Astrea’s cheek. “Shower with me.”
“Just for that, I don’t think I will.”
“Oh, you’re no fun.” Jin took half a step back. “Fine. I’ll be quick,” he said, his voice returning to the calm, natural one. “It’s been too long of a day.”
Every day they were gone somehow seemed like five days running together. Just that morning, they’d found Kostas’s office to be destroyed. The message demanding the Novarians turn Astrea over to the Paragon. How had that been just hours before?
“I’ll come to bed when I’m done.” As Jin pulled off the rest of his clothes, he dropped them in a pile near the bathroom door. “Don’t wait up for me if you don’t want to.”
Soon, his body was on display, the umpteenth time Astrea had seen it since they got to Talmaris. They were so different that way. Not just Jin’s lack of modesty but how different their bodies were. Where Jin’s was hard and muscular planes, Astrea’s was mountains and valleys of soft curves. And Jin did not seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to revel in it if their recent nights and early mornings were any indication.
Astrea followed Jin into the bathroom only once he was in the shower. She washed her face at the sink, then went back to the bedroom and changed from her nightgown into one of Jin’s clean shirts. In the only two romantic relationships she’d had during her university years, she’d never had sleepovers. But sharing this space—and clothes, she supposed—with Jin just felt right. Waking up next to him every morning felt right, as did falling asleep with him every night.
Admitting that was almost scary. Part of her was worried she was just clinging to the one good thing she had right now. But it was also more than that. There was something easy and natural about being with Jin. She felt safe with him. Understood. Like she could just be herself. And that was good. Very few people in the world made her feel that way, regardless of conspiracies and wars.
As she crawled back into bed, Astrea picked up the discarded letter again. Adi had joined Jin’s team three years earlier to take the place of the teammate Jin lost during the Delian-Helosian War. Jin had written about how hard it was to process what had happened, especially knowing how Adi had to feel being sent in as a replacement. Jin had been in that position once, had been sent in as the replacement Fireweaver when the one before him died.
She couldn’t imagine. Jin had been through so much in eight years, and she still had to read about everything he’d seen during the lead-up to the Corsycan War. How had he not broken down? Astrea could barely hold it together lately.
Jin’s shower was quick; he’d returned in less than fifteen minutes. Now, as he walked back into their bedroom in nothing more than a towel, Astrea set the letters on the bedside table and burrowed into the blankets.
Being with Jin felt right, yes, but sitting there in a luxurious bedroom with everything else going on felt so wrong. What would Saros think? What would he have to say about the Paragon’s message? And what would he have to say about Astrea preparing to go to the mountains?
The mattress dipped as Jin crawled into bed next to her, clothing thankfully back on. He pulled her toward the middle of the bed and ran a hand through her hair. “Am I being too clingy?” he asked. “You usually avoided close quarters when we were younger.”
While that was true, they’d also sometimes lain in similar positions. Not in bed but on the floor, either in front of the fireplace in Jin or Eliana’s rooms. They never quite cuddled like this but rather stretched out side by side while they talked. That was one of the few situations where Astrea appreciated someone being close; having physical space usually helped her gain some peace from the constant sensory input of her magic.
Astrea sank down and rested her head on Jin’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you if I need space.”
She didn’t know how long they sat like that, him playing with her hair and holding her close, before he whispered, “You know we’re not going to give you to them, right?”
“You think Ysabel wouldn’t hand me over if it meant they left her city alone?”
The thought had lingered at the back of Astrea’s mind all day. Lucian had promised they wouldn’t just give Astrea to the Paragon. But Ysabel had agreed to work with them because she wanted the Paragon out of her city. If it came to that, what would stop the grand duchess from simply giving in to the Paragon’s demands?
“I wouldn’t let her even if she fucking tried.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Jin shifted so he faced her, but Astrea kept her gaze trained on the dusting of hair on his bare chest. “How far did you get in the letters?”
The letters? That was what he wanted to talk about?
“I was reading about Adi joining your team.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Jin’s face. “I’ll spare you the need to read one of them that’s coming up,” he said. “The Delian-Zaikudi War in Posan was one of Adi’s first missions with us.”
“Adi mentioned it to me.”
Surprise whispered over Astrea’s skin. “When?”
“In Sezia. He didn’t tell me much, just that you were doing reconnaissance and—his words, not mine—that he fucked up.” Adi had also told Astrea that they’d destroyed the Zaikudi camp by themselves and staged it to look like the Delians did it. But she kept that to herself.
“Adi didn’t fuck up. Our teammate Dorin did. The four of us were there in Posan in the dead of winter, trying to locate Zaikudi camps. We weren’t supposed to engage, just figure out what they were capable of doing.
“I was in charge of the mission. Adi was frustrated at how the mission was going, which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t productive. And Dorin, well.” Jin sighed. “Something in him changed after Lando died. When I wasn’t around, he told Adi to take a walk. A snowstorm had moved in, and we weren’t exactly supposed to be there. Helosians weren’t supposed to be there.”
Astrea swallowed.
“We had very few rules as a team. Number one, leave no teammate behind. Number two, leave no witnesses.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Adi told me that, too.”
“Of course he did.” Jin sighed again. “I broke our third, unofficial rule, which was to stick together if we could. I went to find Adi on my own, but by the time I did, a Zaikudi patrol had already found him and were dragging him back to their camp. None of this was part of the plan. We weren’t supposed to split up.”
Stick to the plan. That was what Jin had warned Adi to do in Sezia. We aren’t supposed to split up. That was what Jin had been worried about the day before, all the days before, whenever Lucian and Ysabel weren’t letting him leave the palace.
Everything made a lot more sense.
“I grabbed the rest of the team. Our new plan was to sneak in, grab Adi, and get out. We couldn’t leave him. But I think the Zaikudi knew we were there all along.”
“Why?”
“By the time we fought our way to get Adi, we found the camp’s leader holding him. The man knew who I was somehow. He knew all about what I’d been doing during the Delian-Helosian War.”
“I thought your involvement on your team was a secret,” Astrea said. Jin’s team was not something the general public seemed to know about, and Emperor Aelius certainly hadn’t announced Jin’s wartime movements.
“It was supposed to be. The leader was a Tempest. He threatened Ellie and my niece, saying he’d tell his people in Kalama to leave them alone if I went with him.”
“Was he bluffing?”
“I don’t know. But when I refused, he started pulling the air from Adi’s lungs to try to force my cooperation.”
Jin started tracing small, smooth circles between her shoulder blades, something she’d noticed he did often. He would draw them anywhere: her arms, her hands, her knees, and now her shoulders.
“Dorin was the only other one who had seen what my fireweaving could really do that day when we lost Lando,” he continued. “And even though I swore I’d never do that again, I did. And even though I hate that power, I’m glad I did it.”
Adi had told Astrea that ‘they’ destroyed the entire Zaikudi camp. They. Not Jin. Not Jin setting his fireweaving off like a bomb. She said nothing as steely pain blossomed around him.
“As it turned out, the camp was home to a large group of non-mage soldiers, so they had a lot of weapons caches there. My fireweaving triggered a series of explosions around the camp. The whole place was just . . .”
“Adi told me,” she whispered. “Not the details, but he alluded to it.”
Jin pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then pulled away enough to look down at her. “What I’m trying to get at is that when I tell you that nobody—not Ysabel or Lucian or any other skies damned person in this city—is going to hand you over to the Paragon, I mean it. If they try, I’ll send them to the stars myself.”
“Because of rule number one?”
“Well.” The corners of his mouth twitched up. “Adi and I stand by that rule, but because it’s you. Nobody’s going to take you from us. From me.”
That power he hated so much . . . “I can’t ask you to do that, Jin.”
“You’re not asking. I’m not even offering. I’m telling you that I would not hesitate, whether I need to do it tomorrow or a year from now.” Astrea grabbed his hand. Whether it was to steady him or herself, she wasn’t sure. “I know Saros isn’t here,” he continued, “nor are Sarsali and Balthazar, but we’re your family, too. I feel confident saying no one else in this house would hesitate to tell Ysabel to fuck off.”
Astrea’s eyes burned. She’d always considered Cressida her family—they were practically sisters after all these years—and thought of Eliana as family, too. But Adi and Nicos? She didn’t know them as well. And yet, her mind whispered to her that yes, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell Ysabel to fuck off if their positions were switched, if the Paragon were after one of them. They were a team now. Maybe not a family but certainly a team.
And Jin. That purple reverence vibrated around his body again. How could he be so confident in that when he’d been gone for so long? But the colors dancing around him didn’t die. They didn’t fade. They were bright, strong, true. And then her mind whispered that yes, she would do the same for him, too. Of course she would.
“Jin . . .”
He leaned down and kissed her, but that was it. It was chaste, gentle. It left Astrea wanting so much more.
“I’m afraid,” Jin said, “that I pushed myself a little too hard with Adi and Nicos. Now I can’t do all the things I very much want to do with you.”
“You really won’t let me heal you?” Astrea pushed up to her elbows, scanning the parts of his body visible above the blankets. No bruises, scratches, or swelling. Just that old, knotted scar on the front of his left shoulder. “What happened here?” she asked, running her fingers over it.
“Oh, that? Six or seven months ago, we were on a mission in Corsyca, and I got shot. There and my torso. That didn’t scar as bad, though.”
“You got shot? By whom?” Even as she touched his shoulder again, the only thing she could feel in the room was fatigue. It surrounded her, all-consuming and threatening to drag her under.
“Some Delian Metalli.”
“And yet you’re sitting here acting like it’s nothing.”
He smiled at her. “Because I’m fine. Lie down.” When she huffed, Jin chuckled. “I’m fine, just tired. And I’m going to murder Adi for goading me into that last match. Now I’ve missed dessert.”
“Dessert?” Astrea asked. “I don’t think—” She stopped as peach flashed around Jin’s head and sugar coated her tongue. “Oh, skies. How original.”
“What, I’m not allowed to tease my partner with a dirty joke?”
Partner. Astrea tried not to get stuck on that word. Partner. He’d used the term before. She knew it was true, that they were partners in every sense now, but hearing him say it felt so good.
“I don’t think that was a joke as much as it was bad innuendo,” she said.
Jin hummed as he rolled over and pulled Astrea closer. “Well, maybe I’m just going to have to keep practicing.”
Astrea shoved into his shoulder, and he laughed deep and clear. “Go to sleep,” she muttered as she rolled over and switched the bedside lamp off. “All that training’s gone to your head.”
Jin draped an arm over her waist and pressed a kiss to the back of her head. Astrea’s heart danced. She leaned back into his warmth and let those strong, clear emotions wash over her magic until they started to fade and Jin’s breathing began to slow. Only then did Astrea finally sink deeper into the bed and close her eyes, hoping she didn’t dream of Corsycan shootouts or angry void mages.
Chapter 26
“Astrea?” Lucian called. “Astrea!” Fingers snapped in front of Astrea’s face, and she blinked. Blue eyes met hers, Lucian’s impatient scowl directed right at her.
