Page 100 of Mother of Death and Dawn

It hurt to think that Max did not remember what we had built together. But it hurt even more to think about what it would feel like for him to learn the truth of Reshaye, and what it—he—had done to his family.

Maybe some part of his subconscious still knew that, too.

I watched him constantly. I drank him in like rain in the desert. I wanted to learn every part of him again, every angle of his current, leaner body, the shape and placement of every blade of hair on his chin. I was quietly obsessed with him.

And yet, when he would approach me—and he would,always, approach me—and ask me little, searching questions that were far more personal than the ones he asked Sammerin, I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

One night, near the beginning of our journey, Max rolled over to face me in the darkness. The way the moonlight settled into the angles and hollows of his face reminded me too much of the nights we had sat together in the garden, both too haunted by our pasts to sleep.

“What were we?” he asked.

“I was your apprentice. We told you that.”

So much had changed in our relationship, and yet, even with our history erased, he still gave me that same piercing stare, and it still dismantled my carefully constructed defenses the same way.

“Beyond that,” he said.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly thick. “We were friends.” A pause, and then, “Lovers.”

I didn’t know why that word was so hard to say. Maybe it was because in that question, it really hit me: I looked at Max and saw the love of my life, but the person who traveled with me now was a stranger. He was close enough to touch and yet farther away than he had ever been.

Even Max seemed like he didn’t quite know how to respond to this—as if my answer had confirmed something he already suspected, but still left him lost.

He wasn’t alone in that, at least. It left both of us lost.

My relationship with Max had been built slowly. Over the course of a million little moments, I learned how to trust him. To love so deeply was terrifying, even then—now, with the foundations of the safety we had built together torn to pieces, the thought of opening my heart again overwhelmed me.

I wanted him so much I couldn’t breathe whenever I looked at him. I wanted to bridge that gap between us. I wanted him back.

And yet, with each passing day, another thought crept into the back of my mine—one that hurt even more.

I often lay awake and watched Max sleep at night. I knew him so well that I know what he looked like even in rest. I knew how often his dreams would wake him. Now, I watched how long he went without waking.

For some reason, Zeryth’s voice would float through my mind then, from what felt like a lifetime ago. I had negotiated for Max’s freedom when I signed my life away, and Zeryth had simply laughed at me.A clean slate, he had said, with a wry smirk.Wouldn’t we all like one of those.

Zeryth, of course, had not gotten a clean slate. He died covered in the consequences of all his past mistakes.

But perhaps Max had gotten that gift.

Perhaps his broken mind, and all the horrible things it left shrouded in the dark, was the only thing that saved him in Ilyzath. Perhaps forgetting everything—and in doing so, forgetting me—was the only thing that saved him, even now.

That thought haunted me night, after night, after night, until we at last reached Zagos.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

MAX

To say that it’s strange to be constantly surrounded by people who know more about you than you yourself do is an understatement. It was one thing when it was Brayan, who I apparently hadn’t seen in more than a decade before I got myself thrown in Ilyzath. Another thing altogether to be surrounded by people whoonlyknew me the way that I was, entire relationships crafted from memories that I just… didn’t have. The ghosts of that past were still there, and I could feel them every time I looked at Tisaanah or Sammerin—a faint shadow of intimacy, but everything that had created that bond was gone, stuck behind a door I didn’t know how to open.

The rest of it, of course, was fairly outrageous, too—the Fey, the war, the Lejaras. With every explanation Tisaanah, Sammerin, and Ishqa gave to my near-constant questions, Brayan seemed to increasingly lose the will to live. Even when we were children, he had never been very good at dealing with unknowns.

I, on the other hand, found them comparably easy to swallow. It was only once I tried to unravel my role in all of this—or the bonds that had put me there—that things got… difficult.

The door was closed. The voice would whisper in the back of my head,You don’t want to go here anymore.

Yes, I fucking do,I told it, frustrated. But the headaches decided otherwise. I could only make it through a few minutes of questions at a time before the stabbing pain brought me to surrender. Tisaanah and Sammerin seemed secretly grateful for it. I knew there was something they weren’t telling me. I didn’t like feeling that I was being lied to, even if by omission.

It had been a week of this when, at last, we landed from another Stratagram leap and Ishqa turned to the west. It was sunset, the sky bright magenta.

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