Page 168 of Envious Of Fire
“We really should clean your wounds. That poor, starved lion really did a number.” Raya looks him over. “Your cuts are somuch deeper than I realized. Oh, and … and your eye …”
“I’m fine,” insists Kaleb. “Just feeling my pulse in my face. Or everywhere. Bit difficult … to breathe. I think. Let’s go … Let’s go and save the Bloods. I—I’m totally fine.”
“Kaleb …”
“Totally fine,” he repeats, takes a step.
And collapses.
35.
My Whole World on Fire.
—·—
The screaming from the burning banquet hall follows Kyle and Tristan no matter where they run, or how many stairs they fly down, or how many flickering hallways. Sitting rooms with shapeshifting walls. Windows that blink in and out of existence like winking eyes. The fighting and mayhem follow.
My love, I assure you, he is fine.
Kyle stops in the middle of a gallery, enormous paintings hanging on the walls, sculptures of beasts and gladiators around them on all sides, real sculptures that the illusions only touch up in color and detail, the air in the room stifling.
Kyle turns onto Tristan. “Tell me where he is.”
My dear friend Raya has him.She rescued him from the cage, he is safe and sound, and—
“As long as he’s still in this fucking place, he is not safe, he is sure as fuck not sound. Where is he?”
Can we find a place to talk? So that I can explain everything? I can’t bear you leaving here without the full truth…
“Where is he?”
And what is your plan once you find him? Return to Nowhere? To your life with Elias? That isn’t a future.Elias is a mortal.
“Where is my brother?”
He will grow old.He will die someday.You and I… Tristan’s eyes beseech him, growing desperate.We are where itall began.I am the one who will always know you, the true you, the mortal you.Your eyes never lie.I see the hope in them.Please don’t be so rash…
“Rash? You’re gonna school me about being—” Kyle scoffs and shakes his head. “You better tell me where he is before I go and do something to you thatyou’llregret.”
Think about it, please, my love…
Kyle grips Tristan’s shirt with his hands, brings their faces close, teeth gritted. “I amnotyour fucking love.”
Tristan’s misty blue eyes pour with sorrow, with urgency.When we find him, I think I know a perfect place we could all go and hide, you and your brother and me and Raya…at least until the dust settles…and there will be so much dust after this night…
“I’m not hiding anywhere with you,” hisses Kyle. “Not now and not ever again. When I find my brother and get outta here, we are gone for good. You won’t even be a thought.”
This place can really twist a person up.I am a villain in so many stories here.I am a hero, too.Kyle, you’re the only person I’ve ever—
“I swear to you, if you say another word …”
I still love you.
The next thing he knows, his fist has gone swinging, meets Tristan’s cheek, throws him back so far, he flies to the ground at the foot of a magnificent statue of a monster. It is an absolute shock to Tristan, his eyes opening, realizing he has been struck by Kyle. He brings a hand to his cheek, lips parted.
For an instant, Kyle regrets it. Then the anger takes over again, he crouches before Tristan, grabs the neck of his shirt even tighter. “This isnotlike last time. When you talked. And I talked. And we kissed. And buried feelings were still swimming around.” A tear falls from Kyle’s eyes, a tear he didn’t know was there. He wipes it away angrily, steels his voice from shaking.“I’m saying goodbye to you. Forever. For-fucking-ever. You do not get to come back from this, Tristan.”
Tristan’s eyes shine like two white-blue pools, gazing into Kyle’s, frozen in place, mouth parted, petrified by his words.
