Page 64 of The Amber Sunburst

“A shipwreck. I’m a— I work in trade.”

Kallias squints and inspects Alexander for several seconds, then shakes his head. “No, you don’t,” he responds casually.

Alexander should lie. He should double down.

“No, I don’t,” he affirms instead.

Silence falls for a long moment, and in that time, the tension builds tenfold. He can practically see Kallias’ wheels turning, figuring out what to say next, and he feels his own face go uncharacteristically blank. Usually he knows what people want from him. He can mold himself to fit their expectations.

But he never knows what Kallias wants. Kallias is a mystery.

Even more so when all he says is, “You know I’m going to make you tell me the truth at some point, right?”

“Okay,” Alexander whispers back.

But it doesn’t feel like enough. And maybe that’s the problem—how much he wants to share this burden with someone. How much he wants to share it with Kallias. So he adds, “You know when you love someone, when they’re your family, but you don’t trust them. But you do trust them not to do something horrible? And then they do?”

Kallias pushes his glasses up into his hair. “No, I don’t.”

Alexander rests his face into his palm, then, upon recognizing it as a habit of his brother’s, immediately drops it. Let the world see what he feels—it’s not his nature to hide.

“Yeah,” Alexander finally says, his voice embarrassingly shaky. “Well, that’s what happened, I guess.”

“Okay,” Kallias starts, earnest in a way Alexander hasn’t seen from him. “Tell me more about one of the other countries then.”

Alexander’s been slowly piecing together that Kallias is nicer than he pretends to be. Or, not nice; that’s too superficial. Kallias is kind.

The cold monster everyone else seems to know wouldn’t let him get away with that. Wouldn’t give him an out because he doesn’t want to see him cry.

“Right, okay. The Sangoian Nation is really cool. An ally to where I come from.”

Kallias’ lips tilt up in a smile different from the mean one Alexander earned earlier tonight. This one is unguarded and tender and real. A little crack in his sarcastic, prickly facade.

It’s so small his dimples aren’t even showing, but Alexander is still overwhelmed by how beautiful it is.

So, so beautiful.

Alexander carefully closes the door behind him at half past midnight two days later, keeping extra quiet so as not to wake Zeno.

It’s not like he needs to keep his time with Kallias a secret, but it would be kind of hard to explain that he’s visiting a secret library with the guy who people are convinced is some kind of evil genius. All to leave the place that everyone thinks he belongs in.

He’s also heard Zeno murmuring in nightmare after nightmare about losing the Trials or dying in the Trials or someone named Xia dying in the Trials, and he doesn’t want to disrupt the limited sleep Zeno manages. The first Trial is tomorrow—he needs all he can get.

Alexander sighs on his way down the stairs because his legs are sore from taking the stairs to Arc Four for patrols today, the Trials are scaring him, he really wants to go home, and a million other things. But his bad mood dissipates, as it tends to do, when he finds Kallias sitting on the bottom step, head buried in a book.

Alexander nudges the tip of his shoe gently into Kallias’ back.

“It’s me,” he supplies, redundantly.

“Oh, it’s you? I thought someone else decided to meet me here and assault me with his foot.”

Alexander scoffs. “I would only assault you if it was consensual, don’t be silly.”

“I hate you.”

“Hate sex is hot too, you know.”

“Yeah, but you would also have to hate me for that.”