Page 42 of Devour the Dark

“Do you have nerves that need to be calmed right now?”

She shrugs. “We’re stuck on a ship with a man who won’t tell us what kind of beast he is, whose beast continues to take over and devour people bone by bone. So,a little.”

I like this girl more and more.

I take the mug and sip from it. It’s sweet and earthy, with a hint of floral.

“I think you already know what kind of beast I am,” I say, handing the drink back.

She crosses one arm over her middle, using it to prop up the opposite elbow, mug held aloft as she contemplates me. “I do have a theory.”

“And?”

“Still working. I will admit I am a scholar first, and a soldier second. Killing men was a necessary skill and I’m very good at it. But research, studying, translating, that’s what lights my soul on fire. And your past is interesting.”

“Mmmm. I think you’re giving me more credit than I’m due. My past does not matter.”

She laughs. “I think it’s the only thing that matters. Not justwhatyou are, butwhoyou are.”

My gaze cuts to hers.She knows.

“I left all of that behind a long time ago.”

“But has it left you?”

I take the drink from her again and down another swig. The tea is good and, surprisingly, calming. “Have you told anyone?”

“I don’t discuss theories, only facts.”

Meaning she hasn’t confirmed her suspicions with proof.

I give the mug back. “Do you have a theory about the witch?”

Asha goes to the railing and leans her back into it, the moonlight skimming her dark hair with strokes of silver. She’s wearing all black with a dagger strapped to her waist. “Let me ask you this, can what you devour hijack you entirely? Permanently?”

I sigh. “Never been proven. But this thing happening with the witch leads me to believe it’s possible.”

“Then yes, I do have a theory.”

I join her at the railing but prop my arms on the wrought iron and peer down at the churning ocean. “We have the same theory?”

“I think we do.”

I’m desperate to get away from this conversation or at least turn the tides away from me. I don’t like digging into my past. And I sure as hell don’t like thinking about my future. Not when it’s fucked.

“It occurred to me recently,” I say, “that you might be the age of someone who was around during the worst of the Kimura coup in the remote Winterland Alps.”

I don’t have to look at her to sense how she goes rigid.

“A girl your age, she might have been, what, nineteen, twenty, when the revolt began?” I glance at her.

Her jaw is locked, her nostrils flared. “Eighteen,” she corrects.

“Ahhh yes. The age a girl might be when she ascends to the Taira throne.” I half turn to her. “The age a girl might be on her wedding night when the man she just married kills her entire family and steals her throne.”

She swallows.

“I have my own theories,” I tell her.

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