Page 175 of Daughter of No Worlds

No! Never—

But its next words hissed through me with the acid green of jealousy.

{I gave you everything. I gave both of you everything. And you betray me, too?}

I—

Gods, I was tired. I was so tired, and so afraid, and my mind couldn’t form the right words— and all this, when it hadlocked me up—

{I DID lock you up! Just as you did to me!}

You were going to kill innocent people, and you were going to—

{I was giving you what you had asked of me. I gave you what you wanted and you gave yourself to HIM. The two of you conspiring against me.}

Fingers on skin. Two seconds of memory, over and over again, cycled obsessively.

{Show me the rest.}

No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. That was the only thing that was real, the only thing that wasmine.I forced myself to calm down. This was dangerous. I needed to be careful. I needed to count my dancing steps.

You gave me gifts beyond my imagination. I would never—

Pain crackled at the edge of my vision, stealing the breath from my lungs. My fingers tightened around fistfuls of linen.

It slammed itself against my thoughts, raking fury down the back of my skull, flooding over my tongue with the sharp pain of heartbreak.

All I could think about were Max’s memories. His memories of Reshaye, the day it had taken everything from him.

All I could think about was everything I had to lose, here on sheets still warm from everything precious to me.

And in my panic, I threw at it the only thing I could think to offer. The thing it wanted most of all. The thing that I had always sold in exchange for the safety of myself or the people I cared for:

I love you. I love you, Reshaye.

One terrible moment. Fingers on skin, again, again, again.

{You cannot lie to me,}it hissed, as it fell back into silence like a wave retreating from the shore, leaving behind nothing but the scarred remnants of its fury.

I NEED you!I cried.

Raw. Honest. The ugliest truth of all.

But by then, it was gone.

Chapter Sixty-Five

Tisaanah

My encounter with Rehsaye echoed in my head long after sunrise. It lapsed into total silence, so still that I could only assume that it was still recovering from the day before, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still loom over my every thought.

I felt ill.

Especially when I left my tent beneath the harsh light of sunrise and saw Max for the first time since everything had changed between us. He had stopped in his tracks and just stared at me, somehow managing to look serious despite a tiny reluctant smile quirking at the left side of his mouth, and my chest had tightened and all I could think about was the way his skin tasted.

But only for a split second.

And then my thoughts had turned to Reshaye and its jealousy. I hated that its fury and its absence both frightened me equally. And above all, I hated the way that fury had latched onto Max.

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