Ramona smiled.
Matias stretched, rubbing his knee. The healing booster had taken care of the swelling and most of the pain, leaving behind only an echo of a dull ache. It was their fourth evening in the forest. Tomorrow his people would pick them up. They’d have twenty-four hours to prep in Adra. The plan was complicated. He would have liked two weeks to test it, but even then, he couldn’t recreate battle conditions. It would either work or it wouldn’t.
He had called his aunt after Karion had told them about the secare. He asked for a favor, and then he asked about Angelo Baena.
“The girl told you,” Nadira had said. “Well, she is a secare. She knows where to stab.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Blame your great-grandfather,” she told him. “After that second clash, he purged all of the records. He didn’t want the future generations to grow up with the family’s shame. I only know because he had forgotten about some data banks he left in an old storage room, and I found them when I was about twelve. It rocked my world. My father didn’t even know.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“What would it have accomplished? Angelo Baena wasn’t some heartless renegade, Matias. He did what he did because he was part of a synchronized pair, and when their unit withdrew from one of the final battles, they left him and the woman he loved behind. They abandoned them to their fate, Matias. He survived; she did not. His diary will make your soul bleed. He didn’t want money. He wanted revenge. He stopped because he had done to Ray Adler the exact same thing Ray Adler had done to him, and it didn’t make him feel any better. He regretted it every day of his life. It’s ancient history. Let it go.”
“It would feel like you’re torn in two.”
“What?”
“Losing your match in a pair. Like having half of you amputated.”
She’d stared at him with her piercing eyes. “Did you and the Adler girl synchronize?”
He hesitated for half a second. It felt like betraying Ramona’s confidence, like sharing something that belonged only to the two of them. But sooner or later their families would have to know, because he had no intention of letting Ramona go. “Yes.”
Nadira glared at him. She was the closest person to a mother he’d had ever since his own parent abandoned him. Being on the receiving end of that stare was like hurtling into the sun.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Six generations since the last synchronization, and you pair up with your lifelong enemy?”
Lifelong enemy was a bit of a stretch, but he didn’t want to argue. “Yes.”
Nadira stared at him for another long moment. “Why can’t anything be simple with you, Matias?”
“Because life is complicated.”
She’d exhaled and waved him off. “Go. Practice. Work on achieving harmony. I need to pray.”
He did practice, until he thought his body would give out. And after he was done, he made himself work on things that would have to be settled tomorrow, because he didn’t want to think about turning into Angelo Baena.
Matias looked away from the divorce agreement on the tablet in front of him. The sun had set a while ago. Around them the forest breathed. Swarms of purple fireflies meandered through the air, mesmerizing spots of light against the indigo and navy of the woods. It was beautiful in the way only the wilderness untouched by humans could be.
He glanced at Ramona perched on the ramp of the temple. She bent over her own tablet. Her dark hair was loose, and it spilled over her shoulder in a soft curtain.
They needed more training. They needed more time.
She looked up as if sensing his stare. He wiggled the tablet at her. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She passed her tablet to him without a smile.
He looked at it. “An annulment? After four years?”
“He will give it to me.” Steel vibrated in her voice.
“Why not a divorce?”
“A divorce is when two people can’t make their partnership work. We were never partners.”
He gave the tablet back to her. “Tell me about him.”
She looked up at the night sky. “Gabriel is a quintessential ‘second son.’ His family owns a freight fleet. His grandfather built it, his father improved it, his older cousin runs it. She runs it well, very well. Five years ago, Gabriel’s older brother tried to stage a family coup. He felt he had a better claim than his cousin. Their father picked his cousin as his successor for a reason, and when Gabriel’s brother took off with a third of their fleet, she asked my father to solve her problem. In the secare way.”
“Did he?” Matias already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her say it.
“Yes. My father would never accept money for his services.”