Page 57 of Still the Sun

Why am I crying? I swipe the tears away and stare at the streaks they leave on my hands, as though I’ve never seen tears before.

A year ago,Amlynn said.

I can’t do this anymore.

Leaving my tools, I pick my way down the machine, my grip tentative, my quivering limbs pebbling. I step into the lift and numbly pull the cord. Second floor.

My instinct is right. Heartwood’s there, in his chamber, sitting at the window again. I don’t bother knocking. I never did knock, did I?

He looks up, his body language soft and open for a split second, then closed and hard the next. “Pell—”

“Tell me,” I interrupt.Pell,he said. NotNophe.

He pushes off the windowsill. His unbound hair, slightly damp, waves around his shoulders and waist as he moves to push past me.

I shove both heels into the corners of the doorway, barring him.

“Tell me.” I want to demand, to threaten, but rising emotion chokes and breaks my words. I step forward, and Heartwood retreats like I’m a viper, his hard façade melting until he’s just as he was that first time, standing on the stairs, hurt and despairing and limned with regret.

I shut the door behind me, closing off his escape. “I remember,” I whisper, blinking back a tear, “but I don’t. It’s all pieces and shards and fragments that don’t fit together. But you know, don’t you? Someone in Emgarden said she saw me coming to the tower a year ago. I wasn’t here a year ago. Or was I?”

Through gritted teeth, Heartwood says, “I have nothing for you.” And pushes past me for the door.

I grab his wrist, holding tight because I know his strength. “Heartwood, please.” I swallow a sob. “Did I know you, before all this?” I tug, but he’s unyielding. “Didn’t you ... love me?”

That’s what does it. His arm goes limp in my grasp. He turns toward me, vibrant emerald eyes darting back and forth in short movements as he studies my face. I wonder what he sees there. Whatever it is, it’s enough.

“Ether, forgive me,” he whispers, breaking my grasp and seizing my wrist, pulling me to him, chest to chest, hand to hair, nose to nose.

And he kisses me.

Chapter 19

Heartwood’s warm lips press, tilt, demand. The scents of earth and grass andgreenfill my senses, and I startle at the familiar shape of his mouth against mine. Nerves pop beneath my skin and bleed into my chest. When I respond, his touch turns hungry, his lips and tongue insistent. He releases my wrist and coils his arm behind my back, bending me to him, claiming me entirely. He is root and I am water. He is oil, and I am machine.

My lungs empty as I arch into him, desperate to be closer. My hands run down his bare shoulders and over the prints of his godhood, memorizing every dip and facet as he murmurs my name into my hair.

I jerk back, breaking the spell, though his arms are reluctant to release me. Another vision, another memory, and in the moment, it was every bit as visceral as the kiss that just transpired between us.

Heartwood steps back, the pink amor of our kiss evident across his lips. “Forgive me,” he says. He’d said it before, but not to me.

I shake my head, bewildered even as my heart beats dizzying spirals beneath my ribs. I see him anew,feelhim anew, the length of his torso, the brush of his hair. For a few shaky breaths, there is nothing but him. No window, no tower, no unmoving sun. “Why ... why won’t you tell me? Whyhaven’tyou told me?” When he looks away, I press, “You said Machine Three took me away. What happened at Machine Three?”

“This,” he whispers without gesture. “You lost all of it.”

My lips part, and I remember Heartwood approaching me after I used the turning rod on Machine Three, testing my memory. “But ... but if we ... why wouldn’t you explain it to me sooner? How long has it been? Why would—”

“Because you betrayed us, Nophe.”

My mouth shuts so swiftly that my teeth click.

Heartwood runs his hands up his forehead and down through his hair, the left one catching on a snag in the long, white locks. He tilts his head, and I realize he’s listening. For what? Moseus?

“It was better this way.” The coarseness in his voice makes my own throat tighten. “You forgot me—us—and the work, and we thought enough had been done to move on without you. We were wrong.”

“B-But—” A headache blossoms across my skull as my mind desperately tries to loosen the knots of these revelations. “I wouldn’t ... I don’t even know what I did, Heartwood, but I’m an honest person. Ask anyone in Emgarden—”

He casts me a withering, yet utterly despondent, look.

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