Page 31 of The Divine Lies We Weave

Leela had been too scared to ask if the Viperess was originally from the Awakening or Netherworld, but the more she grew comfortable with the Viperess—as comfortable as one could be with a Flame in their head—she had to find answers.

Are you a Flame from the Awakening or the Netherworld?

The Viperess was quiet for a moment. Does it matter?

Absolutely. Flames from the Netherworld were said to be devious.

Or pushed there for unreasonable expectations.

Leela kept her opinions to herself. The way the Viperess answered was filled with such disdain that it was enough of an answer. While Flames could be from either, the Netherworld wasn’t a place anyone ever wanted to venture. Most wanted to ascend into the blissful Awakening when one died, into several layers above and not the lower ones.

Below, the beasts grew.

Above, the creatures thrived.

All tales, mortal.

If you can talk to me, can’t you just appear in front of me, then?

Not quite how the planes work.

Then tell me!

Not yet.

Are you going to tell me what you want with me, at least?

Again, not yet.

Why?

Why destroy the fun we will have? Besides, I do not yet know my Vessel. I need to know who you are before the truth is spilled.

A horrifying thought crossed her mind. What did she have access to? Did she know every small fear of Leela’s? Did she know… everything? Could she change her mind? Adapt her?

Easy, Vessel. We will get to know one another. We have time, remember?

Leela groaned. How could I forget?

The rest of the ride was an irksome loneliness that set Leela’s bones on edge. She couldn’t sit still, continually twisting her neck toward the wheel where Rajesh stood and at the sails where the woman that kept them floating was. Now and again, Leela would connect her gaze with Rajesh’s and quickly look away.

By now, the screams of the wounded had died down. Those injured were moved to better accommodations below. They offered Leela a room, but she didn’t want to leave the sunrise. The beautifully stripped ribbons of orange merging into a dingy red cleaved the dunes in the distance, spreading like aching fingers along the ocher earth.

The sunrise was always a message saying she had another day. She was alive. Some days she wished she wasn’t, but that was when her mind and hormones were beyond the darkness.

Except Leela needed to move and hide her shadow. She kept wondering how she would keep it up. Wherever they were heading, Leela would eventually have to reveal the Flame she harnessed. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell Rajesh. This person knew her the most, yet when she spoke to him, there couldn’t have been any more distance if she tried.

Six years.

Besides the longer curls by his face, the sharper tongue, and the edges of his muscular frame, he was still the same Rajesh. The same man who told her long ago that he could never love her.

Leela’s chest squeezed at the distant memory, surfacing like a blade puncturing skin. She would never forget that feeling. The feeling of loving someone and having her heart thrown back in her face. To be told the person she would spend the rest of her life with, the person she grew alongside, didn’t love her back.

Leela bit her tongue, her emotions cracking before she could get a hold of them. She hadn’t wept over such a foolish thing in years, but suddenly the torment of those memories came back with hunger, and she couldn’t control them. Trauma was a terrible thing, buried deep and then surfacing before there was time to comprehend it all. First, she had a vengeful Flame in her head, and she had to work out how to hide her, as well as work out what that Flame wanted with her.

You think too much, mortal.

You speak too much, snake.