Page 48 of Love, Nemesis
Lethe tried to think through what threat might silence Cal for the rest of the ride, but soon determined that Cal didn’t have enough context in life to find anything truly frightening. When he noticed everyone else’s misery under the speech, he then relished letting the boy talk.
* * *
The journey took the group through scenery as varied as their dynamic. One day, they rode through a historic town that inspired an informative, and painfully dry lecture from Jasper. Another day, they found themselves navigating a burned forest that was likely as gnarled and dead as Evira’s soul.
Jackson had been sure to let her know.
A week in, they camped along the coastline again where Cal had eagerly collected seashells and then lost his Atlas in the sand. Luckily, Ana had patrolled the beach with him until he found it.
Jackson knew the mountains on the horizon reflected his own spirit, and so he attributed the pine forests they now camped in, to Ana.
There was a serenity to them that seemed to put the group at ease. Even Evira seemed to change her approach of intimidation, though Jackson knew this was a strategy, apparently targetedat Jasper. She started sharing personal details about her life. She asked Jasper questions, intellectual questions that he would answer with hesitation at first and then, as the days passed, with eagerness.
Ana seemed to ignore most things Evira did, but this, she appeared to notice, if only in the slightest way when they were all tired, and conversation was sparse.
Lethe stayed out of the stirring pot, knowing that Evira might soon turn the ladle in a different direction and cause conflict. Watching her bad behavior kept him in strict tow of his own. You could only really have one bad actor in a team at a time, at least that was his personal philosophy.
The group stopped for their last night when they saw the Dragon’s Spine on the horizon, the sun starting to set beyond the jagged mountains. En Sanctus’s border could be seen in the distance, the clouds alternating with the change in time, creating a simmering line of color in the sky.
Jasper was quick to snap into action preparing camp under the cover of the trees, an apparent characteristic of his restless nature. Lethe could only imagine the man had a rotating to-do list rolling through his head at any given moment.
As they settled in for the night, Evira broke away from a conversation with Jasper and strolled back over to Lethe, smiling. Sitting next to where he leaned against the saddles, she looked at him and said, “I’ve got him.”
Lethe smirked. “I don’t think so,” he replied.
“Talk to Ana,” Evira replied, gesturing back at Ana, who’d only just returned from gathering firewood with Cal. Her hair was tied back, the outer layer of her uniform peeled down to reveal the subtle shimmer of sweat on a conditioned body. She kept something like a cloth cast on her left arm and fingers, possibly for her joints from past injuries. Lethe wasn’t sure.
“Come on, Lethe, how long has it been?” Evira whispered.
“Since I’ve destroyed someone, like you’re planning to?” Lethe replied, looking over at Evira, who was lying down like a lioness beside him.
She smiled mischievously, that hungry glint in her eyes. “The war had no heroes. We were strong enough to make it out. We deserve this. They owe us.”
“Owe us,” Lethe repeated.
“Anything we want. They’re just mice. Weak. We give their lives meaning. You know I’m right.”
Lethe had made a similar statement to Manaj several years ago when he’d gone through a bit of an entitlement phase. It was easy to think the world owed you when you gave everything up for it. Justice was strange like that. The idea that the scales had to be equal often motivated people to commit crimes they felt were justified. The only way to maintain order and justice seemed to be to let go and admitthat the world wasn’t fair at all. It was a little ironic.
It had taken Lethe all of ten minutes to reach that conclusion from the moment he’d voiced his entitlement to the moment Manaj grabbed his favorite kitchen ladle and hit him senselesswith it. The old man had claimed very loudly that stupid ideas wouldn’t be tolerated in his household. Of course, that had been only the beginning of several years’ worth of stupid ideas.
“Lethe,” Evira hissed, snapping her fingers to reclaim his attention.
“She’s gladly avoiding me,” Lethe said, talking about Ana again. He hoped that would be enough to deter Evira, but of course, it wasn’t.
“Don’t act like you haven’t been watching her.”
“I’ve been watching everyone. You especially.”
“You could earn Jasper’s trust, use Cal’s admiration to your advantage. I could say a few words. Imagine her slowly starting to trust you—how good that would feel.” She leaned closer to him and murmured, “Do you know what it’s like to take someone who thinks they’re so good and show them how bad they can really be? You change their entire identity and then they’re marked by you forever.”
Lethe looked over at her. “Like what Strike Amiel did to you?”
Evira hesitated, swallowing briefly and then flinching as if stifling the urge to look away. At last, she relented, leaning away from him again.
“I’m not going to help you reel in Jasper just for the sake of feeling a fleeting sense of power and control,” Lethe replied, knowing Evira’s true motivation was really to peel Ana away from him—and use Lethe to do it. She wanted Jasper for herself, for no other reason than to take him from someone else. “You’restill trying to get back what the Strike ultimately took from you. You won’t.”
“Not everything is as much of a lost cause as the inglorious Emma Shepherd was,” Evira hissed.
