Page 67 of These Fractured Bonds

“Are you alright?” August asked.

She rolled over onto her back. “Never better.”

It was a lie, of course. Her left wrist throbbed, and her cheeks burned.

He hovered over her face, blocking her view of anything else but his beautiful brown face. His white beanie rested above his eyes, keeping his hair from falling forward.

She cleared her throat. “What?”

“I realized I quite like the view from here,” he replied.

His implication was not lost on her, and she rushed to get off the ground, wrapping her scarf again and hiding the ardent blush on her cheeks. He sure did enjoy teasing her.

“I love you.”

The words rolled off her tongue again, and the memory lost its clarity, becoming blurry and distorted. She hadn’t said those words then either. The memory stuttered, and her vision grew dark.

Yareli blinked. Memories streamed past her, creating a tunnel of colors. She held her arms out, rotating them in the mellow light. A kaleidoscope of vivid hues painted her skin, her hands slipped through the tunnel walls, like a mirage. A bright light flared in the distance, briefly distorting the tunnel, and she walked toward it. When in a tunnel, the answer was always found at the light. Her feet lost solid ground, and vertigo hit as they floated upwards until she was supine. She realized she was still in the lake; her hair floated around her like kelp, but she didn’t panic like before. The water was warmer, comforting, unlike its earlier hostility. It floated her upward toward the surface.

When her face broke the water, the vast darkness above her peered down at her. Devoid of stars, it was a bleak, unnerving nothingness. She knew she could wake up if she willed it, but the truth held her from doing so.

She had loved August.

Chapter 25

WhenYarelicameto,Erick was by her side. His blond hair was swept in odd angles, and dark eye bags hung on his face. He had fallen asleep on his palm, his elbow resting on her bed.

Careful not to disturb him, she slipped out of bed and found a matching pair of pants in her dresser. He must have been truly exhausted, because he didn’t stir when the dresser groaned closed, and the door to her room squeaked open. Torches stretched from left to right as far as her eye could see in the stone hallway, and silence blared. It was reckless to leave her room without knowing where she was, especially barefoot, butthoughts raced through her head, leaving her without much choice. She had to run.

She decided on a direction—left—and walked for a couple of torches before she came across August, leaning against the wall. Her heart leaped in her chest. She understood it now: her immediate attraction to him, her desire to close the physical distance between them. It was the remnants of her old crush. Old because she wasn’t that Yareli anymore.

And he wasn’t August anymore.

“Augrys,” she said, surprised at the evenness of her tone.

“Yareli.”

Her name on his lips brought goose bumps to her skin. Flashbacks of her previous attempt to kiss him by their campfire brought a heat to her cheeks. It had been very careless of her to have been so forward.

“I wanted to get some fresh air,” she told him. “Care to lead the way?”

He gave her bare feet a pointed look, and she crossed her legs, putting one foot on top of the other as if she could hide them.

“I, uh, didn’t think ahead.”

“Clearly,” he replied, but there wasn’t any judgment in his tone. It was… amusement. He produced a pair of sandals from thin air and flicked them at her.

She mumbled her thanks, catching the sandals with ease.

He cocked his head, pointing behind him, and she trailed after him, unsure of how to approach this version of him. He was different—less guarded, no, that wasn’t it. He was warmer, friendlier, as he had been on their trip to visit the Curse Eater. His walls were still up, hiding the real him, but he was no longer shutting her out. It didn’t make his behavior any less confusing.

Soon, the bare walls became adorned with glittering stones arranged in swirling patterns. Occasionally, woven tapestries, filled with depictions of animals and insects, hung between thetorches. Her feet stilled by one, her attention enraptured by the picture. A great tree took up the majority of the tapestry; its branches reached far and wide, filled with bountiful, transparent leaves. Sunlight reflected off them, illuminating the tree with its own personal rainbow.

“Our Great Tree,” Augrys said from behind her.

She startled. He had moved so silently she hadn’t noticed him approach her. She slid her gaze toward him, ignoring the way the torch’s light highlighted his beautiful cheekbones.

“I’ve heard mentions of it.”