I asked her once what she thought love was. She told me love was sacrifice, and only then, after so many years, did I finally understand her
choice. —EVELYN WALDSTEN
CHAPTER 36
Joining Edmund in the evenings is still a bad idea. I’m not a Pinkie without feelings, built to follow a specific program. I’m a girl knocked sideways, falling in love for the first time. Being near him is a straight road to disaster, and if it were only the two of us tonight, I would’ve said no to the horse race.
But it won’t just be us. With Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie always around, we’ll never really be alone.
Charlotte comes to my suite to get ready. My Pinkie moves briskly around the room, reciting riding etiquette as it applies our makeup and arranges our hair. I rifle through my closet, cycling through four outfits before finally settling on a crisp plastron shirt, dark green breeches, white show gloves, and a double-vented hacking jacket with horn buttons.
As much as it sometimes hurts to be around Edmund, I’m still looking forward to seeing him. The thought of his face flushing when he laughs is enough to set my heart racing, and I find myself drifting around the room, so light I feel tipsy.
When the Pinkie fastens my pearl earrings in place, my eyes drift to the jewelry stand, to the lone diamond teardrop hanging there without its match.
The other one is still missing, probably gone for good. I don’t want to imagine the look on Vivian’s face when I tell her I lost it.
Charlotte, who was excited about going riding earlier, now stands coyly at the mirror, pinning her curls back with a pair of diamond-studded pins. She hasn’t said much since she arrived.
“Did you get a haircut?” I ask her while the Pinkie touches up my
makeup.
She shrugs. “Yeah. Did it myself last night.”
“I thought you were growing it back.”
“I wanted to.”
“So, why’d you cut it?”
Charlotte loops a curl around her finger, tugging it a little too roughly, then sighs. “Long hair is for the good times, Lore.”
I drift to her side, knowing she means before her breakup with Jack. “Any progress with him?”
“Yeah. A lot, actually, but….” Her voice hardens, then softens, like something melting. “Things are never gonna go back to the way they were.”
I try to look encouraging as I crouch and zip up her high-shine leather dress boots. Edmund has his fair share of enemies, but I can’t figure out who Charlotte could’ve been involved with that made both Jack and Edmund so angry they cut her off completely.
“It might help if I knew who he was,” I say softly, hoping she’ll open up to me.
Instead, Charlotte stares at her reflection, her lips pressed into a thin line, as if gearing up to punch it. When she finally turns to me, the hollow sheen in her eyes makes it clear this is one secret she’s never going to offer up willingly.
As we head outside, I tell myself some things are better left in the closet.
After what I saw between Edmund and his mother, I should know that better than anyone.
Edmund’s midnight blue hovercar is already waiting outside the Green Dormitory, its back gullwing door swung wide. The boys are leaning against the decorative grille, looking like they drove through a wave of stardust with the windows down. Even Dickie, who’s not exactly easy on the eyes, could make a horse whinny in his dressage tailcoat.
Charlotte walks ahead of me in silence, nursing her wounds, until she spots the hovercar idling by the curb. Then a switch flips. She’s all delight and diamonds, swaying her hips with effortless charm as she calls to the boys, “I hope you are saving the window seats for the ladies.”
The sight makes my heart ache.
“Take the window seat, darling. Dickie and I are taking the bike.” Jack jerks his thumb at the big, dust-streaked hoverbike leaning against the curb.
Charlotte’s smile softens, wistful, as if she’s remembering all the nights
she rode behind Jack on it. Then she turns to the public hoverboard rack,
pulls one free, and powers it on.
“Try to keep up,” she says with a wink.
Jack laughs, though there’s a trace of regret in it. He’s much easier to read when he’s sober. “I’ll even give you a head start,” he calls, waving her forward.
Charlotte rockets down the street. Jack and Dickie hop on the hoverbike and race after her, leaving a trail of dust and smoke, while Dickie’s Pinkie chaperone follows on a hoverboard.
It’s only after their echoes fade that I realize they’ve left Edmund and me alone. He’s still leaning against the ornamental grille, already a test of my restraint in the tailored riding outfit Dickie gave him for his birthday. The shadows beneath his eyes that I noticed in the lecture room are gone, replaced by a bright, sharpened alertness, like an animal that’s caught a scent.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I quietly unravel under his gaze. The way he looks at me is gentle, yet it feels like a touch, like the brush of a fingertip across bare skin. My heart kicks hard as I climb into the back seat, which suddenly feels too small and enclosed. Yet deep inside, the part of me I’m still fighting, there’s no place I’d rather be.
Edmund steps in after me and lowers himself into the seat opposite, so we’re facing each other. The hovercar lifts off and veers down the street, heading northeast toward the Moonshine Mile. As we speed through a string of green lights, he flips open the console bar and pulls out a long, iridescent bottle shaped like something that might hatch if you stare at it too long.
“What kind of alcohol is that?” I ask, reading the Knucklebone label.
“Brandy.” He pops the cork out the window. “Two shots will have you eating dirt, but one will keep your hands steady. These horses are
engineered.”
“How fast can they run?”
“A hundred.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Vivian’s fastest horse at home barely ever breaks seventy miles per hour.
Edmund hands me a shot, and I throw it back. The Knucklebone burns across my tongue, but I hardly taste it. I’m too busy noticing that, unlike Jack, drinking suits Edmund. It turns up the light in his eyes and puts a flush in his cheeks, as if he’s come off a sprint in the summer heat.
“So,” he says, setting his glass in the console, “what’d you think of my bedroom?”
I choke on air more than liquor. “W-What?”
“My bedroom.” His tone is easy, but his eyes aren’t. “Do I have style?”
My thoughts race, already plotting how to strangle Dickie if he told. “How do you know I went in?”
“You left evidence.” Edmund slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out my missing diamond teardrop earring.
Relief surges, but it dies just as quickly under the rush of heat flooding my face.
“I… t-the door was unlocked,” I stammer. “I wanted to see what it looked like, and then I saw the Vanguard uniform, and—” I cut myself off. Excuses won’t help. They never do. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in.”
“You going in isn’t a problem. That’s why I left it unlocked.” Edmund hands me the earring, then pulls a bottle of champagne from the console and unwinds the wire at its neck. “I didn’t notice it on the floor. Even stepped on it once, I think. Miss Hussey’s the one who found it.”
Shit.
Dickie said Irene searches Edmund’s room every time she visits, hunting for proof of Edmund’s mistresses. Now that she’s found the earring, she’s probably funneling all her resources into finding out who it belongs to.
“Miss Hussey already suspected I had a girl,” Edmund says, ripping the wire free. “Now she’s sure of it.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to make it worse.”
He shrugs. “It was already worse.” He smooths the wire flat against his knee, then extends it toward me. “Pick a shape.”
I blink at him, confused. “Aren’t you angry?”
“A little, sure. But only at your earring.” His eyes hold mine, still bright from the brandy. Then, softer: “Go on. Choose.”
I study his face, expecting at least a shadow of resentment. My mistake has thrown a wrench into his already strained arrangement with Irene, yet he sits there smiling, as if he’s just been told the Vanguard program is being
relaunched.
“You choose,” I say.
Edmund studies the wire as the campus blurs past us, light scattering over his cheekbones like showers of prisms. At the next red light, he starts bending one end into the shape of a petal. I lean closer, drawn in by the gentle way his
large hands move. Every curl of the wire is careful, almost delicate, reminding me of how he held my waist on the surfboard. He’s so big and bullish, like a firework in the middle of a library, yet somehow, he knows how to dim himself enough not to burn me.
I let my head rest against the window as he bites through a piece of wire to begin the second petal. Part of me wants to stay silent and let him work, but another part is tired of guarding secrets that no longer matter.
“Irene didn’t just suspect you had a girl before she found the earring,” I say. “She was convinced of it.”
Edmund’s fingers keep moving, though a small crease forms at the corners of his eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because she offered me a deal at the Speakeasy. She said she wouldn’t kill me if I agreed to spy on you and hand over the names of your mistresses.”
His hands pause on the half-formed petal. “Mistresses?”
“Yeah. Irene thought you had more than one.”
Edmund tips his head back and breaks into a loud, amused laugh. “Didn’t realize she gave me that much credit. And you, Miss Waldsten—lucky you
turned her down.”
“Why?”
“Because I would’ve caught you.”
I frown. “How?”
“You’re a good liar—almost as good as Dickie—but you’ve got a tell.”
I feign calm as I reach for the champagne, pop the cork, and sip from the bottle. “What do you mean?”
Edmund points to my ear. “You pull your left earring when you lie.
Sometimes just before, sometimes right after.”
Every lie I’ve told him races through my mind, especially the one about why I quit fencing. Did he know I was lying then? And if he did, why didn’t he say anything until now?
“What else do you think I’ve lied about?”
He bites the wire again, grinning around it. “No. I’m not gonna embarrass you like that.”
It’s too late. I’m already embarrassed enough to stick my head in the console and slam it shut. But maybe I deserve it. After all the lies and false fronts, maybe this is my penance. I shrink lower in my seat, my throat burning as I run through every moment that I tugged that damn earring
without realizing it. Mom does the same thing when she’s nervous.
I slide off my jacket, suddenly too hot. “Doesn’t it bother you that I’ve lied?”
Edmund leans back and turns the wire faster between his fingers, as if he’s trying to finish before we reach the stables. “Didn’t expect you to be straight with me when we first met. Half the time, you looked like you wanted to bite my head off. But now? Yeah, I’d rather you were honest.”
“I don’t like lying,” I say, and I mean it. “But sometimes I need to lie.”
“When do you need to lie?”
My heart pounds hard enough to shake the answer loose, the truth I don’t dare speak aloud. “For low-citizens, lies and secrets are sometimes the only way to survive.”
“You’re less alone in that than you think.” His tone is unexpectedly understanding, as if, beneath the cold machinery of rank, he’s convinced we’re not as different as I claim. “Lies and secrets are currency for high- citizens. We trade in them. And yeah—I’ve got my share. But they don’t stay quiet forever. Hold onto them too long, and they’ll turn on you.”
I fall silent, wondering if he’s referring to his mother’s abuse. But there’s no bitterness in his expression, only an edge of regret, so I’m sure he’s talking about something else.
Outside, the Moonshine Mile unfurls in a wash of neon. Our hovercar coasts past buildings frosted like cakes, past the violet glow of the Lotus Lounge, where lotus flowers twist around marble columns, blooming only when the club is open. A little farther on, we stop beside the stables, where Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie are already waiting.
I turn back to Edmund. He’s leaning under the ceiling light, squinting as he shapes the last petal and straightens the end into a stem.
“If that’s what you really believe,” I say quietly, “why not share all your secrets with me, then?”
His shoulders stiffen, as if I’ve pulled the one thread I shouldn’t. His eyes lift to mine, conflicted. “You sure you want that?”
I tighten my grip on the champagne bottle’s neck, pushing past the warning in my head. “One secret, yes. One answer.”
“All right.”
Edmund holds the flower toward me. It’s a daffodil, impossibly detailed for something twisted from a champagne cork wire in only a few minutes.
The petals spread in thin, delicate curves, and the corona at the center flares
just enough to mimic the real flower.
I smile and set down the champagne bottle.
“Well?” he asks.
“Daffodils are my favorite.”
“I know.”
He reaches across the seat, his fingers brushing mine as he places the wire daffodil in my palm. The touch feels as warm as desert wind, coursing up my arms and down my legs until it hurts to hold it in. I barely notice Dickie’s muffled voice cutting through the window.
“Hurry it up already. Waiting on you two is like trying to herd snails.”
Edmund draws his hand back slowly, his fist tightening at his side as if he needs the force to ground himself. “Go on. Ask me. I won’t lie.”
I clamp my arms across my chest, feeling as if my heart might spill out otherwise. But it hides nothing. He already hears the strain in my breath.
“Edmund… Why are you breaking all your rules?”
“Which rules?”
“That we’re not supposed to be alone. You said it more than once. And yet, these past weeks, it’s like you’ve been finding ways for it to be just us.”
He nods, unapologetic. “You’re right. I have.”
I meet his eyes, and the air between us shivers. “And what about touching me? That was your rule, too. A rule you break every day. And I wish—” My voice cracks as if it were torn on my teeth. “Edmund, can’t you see? It’s hard enough just being near you. Why are you making it worse?”
His eyes drift over my face, as if what’s unbearable isn’t the closeness but the distance. He leans forward, ready to answer, when Dickie raps impatiently against the window. Irritation cuts across Edmund’s expression.
He waves Dickie off, then turns back to me. “I’ll tell you. But not here.”
“Then where?”
“Later,” he says quietly. “We’ll break off from the others.”
His hand closes around the door handle, then stills. He glances back, and in his eyes, I see the promise to be careful, as if he knows that, like the wire daffodil he gave me, I wouldn’t survive a fall to the floor.
The stables echo with the crack of riding crops as high-citizens mount their
massive, muscle-bound horses, which snort and paw the ground like beasts bred to run with lions. The Blues’ gazes skim over anyone too short or too small to meet their eye level, so hardly anyone notices me as I pass. Their attention gathers instead around Edmund.
He moves effortlessly among them, greeting Blues by name and shaking hands, his smile bright and open. Someone asks him to join their riding group; Edmund declines with an apology, promising to make it up to them by inviting them to a party in his suite. Another Blue leans in to catch what Edmund says, then laughs and replies, “I’ve risked broken bones for less.”
I slip the wire daffodil into my jacket pocket with a shaky hand, still recovering from the conversation in the hovercar, then join Charlotte by her horse. The stables are crowded tonight, overbooked, so only three mounts are available. Jack volunteers to take his hoverbike, while Dickie’s Pinkie chaperone remains on its hoverboard, and Dickie himself wriggles onto the back of Charlotte’s horse.
“Do stop squeezing me like that, Mr. Langely,” she huffs. “I am not one of your video game controllers.”
Dickie smirks. “You wouldn’t be complaining if I were Jack.”
Warmth rushes to Charlotte’s cheeks. Avoiding Jack’s gaze, she yanks off her glove and jams it into Dickie’s mouth.
He spits it out and smugly snickers until Jack shoots him a look.
I strap on my helmet and follow a Pinkie to my horse, a shiny thoroughbred that’s the same dark brown as Edmund’s hair. Beside me, Edmund mounts a black Friesian, its mane flowing in long waves down to its legs like a defiant brushstroke. The horse is enormous, so tall that when Edmund settles into the saddle, his head nearly grazes the stable ceiling.
Jack swings onto his hoverbike and snaps up the kickstand. “We taking the usual? Up to Brass-Spire Ridge?”
“Yeah. But we can do better.” Edmund gathers the reins, leather creaking against his gloves. “You, Dickie, and Miss Deering take Switchbacks Trail.
Miss Waldsten and I will take Fernway. Winning team gets to decide what
we do tomorrow.”
“Fernway’s longer,” Jack points out.
“Sure. But Switchbacks is steeper.”
“All right, then.” Jack spikes his hoverbike’s power core, grinning as if it’s the sound of a lover. “I’ll blow you a kiss from the top.”
Charlotte glances back at me to check whether I’m okay with splitting up.
I shrug casually, even though sweat slicks my forehead beneath my helmet.
She nods, then kicks her horse forward and follows the roar of Jack’s hoverbike out of the stables. They ride side by side into the warm evening, like a scene from a film I once saw in which a man leaped from his hoverbike onto a woman’s horse and kissed her mid-canter.
I turn to Edmund, ready to ask whether we’re really taking Fernway Trail, when he brushes past the Pinkie that’s holding out his helmet and spurs his horse from the stable. I follow, swept up in the rush despite myself. Every bit of sense tells me to turn back, but I don’t want to. Tonight, I want to break my rules, too.
Edmund leads us out of the Moonshine Mile and onto the paths reserved for Blues, which extend into the mountains along the northwest edge of campus. The evening air is hot and muggy, but Fernway lies primarily under forest cover. The tree branches weave a canopy overhead, breaking the last of the light into fractured gold as the trail begins its ascent toward Brass-Spire Ridge. Hooves drum against the rocky slope, each stride jarring up through my legs until my thighs burn from holding steady in the stirrups. I haven’t ridden since before arriving at Grandmaster, and it shows. Sweat streams down my back in the stifling heat, and all I can think about is water.
Edmund rides alongside me, his body tuned to the horse’s wild, unruly gait as if he’s ridden it before. He keeps glancing at me—at the squeeze of my legs against the saddle, at the arch of my neck as I brace against the pine- scented wind. Each time, he forces his eyes forward again, tightening the reins as though reining himself in, too.
For twenty minutes, we push along Fernway, passing Blues and their entourages on the winding path through the trees. Then Edmund cues his mount with a light neck rein, and the horse veers onto a narrow switchback that twists over damp roots and old deadfall. The trail opens at last to a clearing overgrown with bright, feathery dandelions. Thin waterfalls cascade in silver sheets over moss-dark stones, breaking into a creek that flows through the forest, bubbling like the laughter of the mountain.
We guide our horses to the stream bank to drink. I take off my helmet and shake out my damp hair, grateful for the cool air after the grind of the climb.
“Is this water safe to drink?” I ask, still catching my breath.
“Yeah. You could bottle it up and sell it.”
Edmund’s eyes wander over my flushed face to the strands of hair that have come loose from my bun, damp with sweat, and suddenly the dryness in
my throat feels unbearable. I dismount with a swing of my leg and move to the creek bank, where I splash my face and neck with cool water. The horses stomp and stir up mud, so the shallows cloud quickly. I edge over to a patch of reeds where the water runs clearer. As I crouch to drink, Edmund dismounts, his boots clapping against the rocks behind me.
I scoop up a handful of water, about to drink, when two sounds hit me at once: Edmund’s voice, rough with urgency, shouting for me to get back. And beneath it, a low, chilling rattle rising from the reeds. My horse startles, rearing with a terrified whinny before bolting into the forest.
The reeds shiver as a rattlesnake slithers forward, its slit-pupiled eyes locking onto me an instant before it strikes, jaws gaping, fangs gleaming with venom. I stumble back as Edmund lunges. His hand shoots out and seizes the snake below its head. The reptile thrashes, its coils lashing the air and its rattle buzzing in fury.
He adjusts his grip to pin the snake tighter, but it whips around and sinks its fangs deep into the back of his hand. Edmund bares his teeth, his face flashing fiercely, and for a terrible moment, he looks like an animal, too, arching toward the snake with his mouth wide open.
Then, as if suddenly remembering I’m here, his eyes widen.
“I—” Edmund quickly lowers the snake from his mouth. “Excuse me, Miss Waldsten.”
He wrenches his hand free of the fangs and tosses the rattlesnake into the reeds, where it disappears beneath an outcropping of rocks.
I edge closer, staring at him in shock. “Were you going to bite its head off?”
He flexes his bloodied hand and clears his throat. “I was… mad.”
I study the wound, and my shock turns to fear when I notice the skin already swelling across his knuckles. We have no anti-venom, and calling a medic will take at least ten minutes. My mind races, searching for a helpful tip, until I remember a passage from a book.
I lunge forward and grab Edmund’s hand. His whole body stiffens as I set my thumbs on either side of the bite and lift his hand to my mouth. The coppery tang of blood floods my tongue as I try to suck the poison out, desperate and frantic. My heart hammers so wildly that I hardly notice when his other hand comes down, gently clasping my arm.
“Uh, Miss Waldsten… what are you doing?”
I pull back and spit into the grass. “I’m sucking out the venom.”
He lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Why?”
“I read that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“Where?”
My stomach sinks as my memory flashes back to the pulpy romance novel I swiped from Vivian’s room. “In a book.”
He stares at me, half-stunned, half-recovering from the touch of my mouth on his skin. “No. You’re not supposed to suck out snake venom. That can actually make it spread faster.”
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.” I drop his hand and hurry to the creek, swishing water through my mouth as I activate my Bond to call for help.
“I don’t need a medic,” Edmund says quietly.
“Why not?”
“I’m immune to rattlesnake bites. All Blues are.”
I power down my Bond, and it dawns on me how random, if not strange, that is. “Only rattlesnakes? Or other snakes, too?”
He shakes his head faintly, but his eyes don’t leave me. His response seems delayed, like it’s been dragged from somewhere far away. “No. Just
rattlers.”
“Why?”
“Honestly…” His voice trails off, as if he’s forgotten the question. He leans in, his gaze locked on me, his hand lifting almost helplessly until his fingers find my arm. His fingertips trace slowly upward past my shoulder, leaving a trail of hot, blooming spots on my skin. “…I don’t know.”
“Edmund,” I whisper, trying to snap him out of it, but my voice emerges hoarse and shaking, sounding more like a plea. He doesn’t stop. His hand slides up my neck, and as he draws closer, his expression tears wide, filled with the same unbearable, all-consuming longing I’ve been battling since the
night we surfed.
“I’m the wrong color,” I whisper.
Edmund’s hand knots in my hair, shuddering with restraint. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I’m Green, and you’re Blue.”
“I like green.” His other hand lifts to cup my chin, tilting my face toward his. “And I like you even more.”
My body presses into his even as I fight to resist. I curl my toes tightly in my boots, muscles straining against the longing inside me, so relentless it makes my eyes well up and sting. “Do you really, Edmund? Enough to cross
this line?”
He edges back, letting me see the certainty in his face. “Yes. And do you know why? Because I don’t agree with it. Not the line or the people who
drew it.”
“Your people did.”
“I know. Which ties me to it just as much as them. If nature had decided, there’d be no line between us at all. But men decided. And the hands that built us did it for control.”
I pull away slowly as he speaks, each word taking me further. Not because I disagree, but because his certainty makes me realize that of all the people I’ve lied to, I’ve lied to myself the most. I’ve thought Edmund’s exact words a thousand times. I’ve raged against the laws, against the differences engineered into us by people who try to build gods without even believing in the idea of one. And yet, through all of it, I’ve held myself back. Only now
do I let myself admit the real reason.
I’m afraid.
Afraid of punishment, afraid of loss, afraid of the Blues, who’ve done nothing but steal and destroy, twisting the world to fit the shape of their boot heels. And I see now, with sudden, startling clarity, that fear is the only chain binding me to the rules. I hate the system as much as Heretics do. I hate the world that lets it stand. And in this moment, I’m just as guilty as Edmund of belonging to it.
I stop beside his horse, still drinking at the river, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts. Across from me, Edmund rakes a hand through his hair, as if flustered by the sudden break between us.
“Am I your first?” I ask.
His head tilts, confusion flickering across his face. “My first what?”
“Low-citizen.”
“Yes.”
“Then why me?”
His hand clenches at his side, tendons sharp beneath the skin. Then, as it slowly relaxes, the tension spreads up into his expression, a restraint stretched so thin it feels like he might turn and tear a tree from the ground for release.
“Because it couldn’t be anyone else but you. I tried to stay away. I fought it every way I knew how. But I’ve put my fist through enough walls to know how useless that is, apart from giving me a view into the next room.”
Edmund drags a hand across his face, unaware of the blood he smears over
his cheek. “Protecting you isn’t enough anymore. It hasn’t been enough since you looked at me like I was a man instead of a Blue.” He takes a step closer, his stance hesitant, almost defenseless, as if he’s holding his heart out for me to see, and if I don’t take it, he won’t pull it back. He’ll leave it here in the forest when we go.
“I want to be worthy of that look,” he says. “Even if that’s still a long way off—and even if you don’t feel the same.”
If I don’t feel the same?
The thought makes my blood rush to my head. I open my mouth, desperate to tell him how deeply he’s grown through every inch of me and how hopeless the strain of resisting him has been over the past months, but all that comes out is a small, airless gasp. His words cut straight into me, into the part of my heart that already belonged to him but that I was too afraid to let him see. Now, as it breaks open, happiness floods me so violently it feels chemical, like I’ve swallowed a Bliss pill.
I can’t do it either.
I can’t resist him anymore.
“I’ll tell you how I feel, Edmund,” I say. “But I want to show you first.”
The need to touch him surges up all at once, too wild to contain. Before I register the mud squelching under my boots, I’m rushing toward him, watching him close the distance with the same fierce urgency. His hands catch my waist, his arms closing around me and lifting me high enough to reach his neck. I hold on, pulling myself to his chest. In that instant, I feel it all: the heat of his skin beneath my shuddering palms, the solid ridges of his shoulders, the scent I can never quite remember or forget, as impossible to hold onto as a fistful of wind. Edmund’s grip tightens, his hands bunching in the fabric of my clothes as he leans in to kiss me, his breath close enough to warm my lips. I drag my fingers down the hard line of his jaw, aching for his mouth, so desperate for him to take my own that I barely hear the pounding hooves closing in.
Edmund’s head snaps toward the sound, his chest heaving against mine.
He squints through the trees, then curses and sets me down.
“Who is it?” I ask, still dazed by the rush of adrenaline. I swing around and reach for my horse, only then remembering it bolted from the rattlesnake.
“Blues.” He grabs the reins of his horse at the riverbank. “A lot of them.”
Edmund swings into the saddle, backs the horse away from the creek bank, then rides toward me with his hand outstretched. I grip it, and he pulls
me up, settling me against him, facing him straight on.
“Why this way?” I breathe, holding his waist.
“So you can tell me when we’ve lost them.”
He digs in his heels, and the horse gallops into the forest with a furious snort. The world blurs into patterns of green as branches whip past, the creek and waterfalls shrinking behind us. I cling to Edmund unyieldingly as he urges the horse faster. I lean sideways in the saddle and see the Blues stopping to water their mounts at the creek, their figures breaking apart in the trees until the shadows swallow them whole. Relief tumbles through me,
breaking into laughter.
“We lost them,” I shout.
But Edmund doesn’t slow down. He drives the horse onward, pushing until the trail bursts open, spilling us into a vast meadow where the grass stands tall around us, swaying in the bright, vivid blush of the setting sun.
Only then does he ease the horse into a smooth canter. The wind blows coolly across my face, blending my hair with his, stealing the breath from my lips as we cut across the open stretch, Edmund’s heart pounding wildly against mine. The rhythm of it jolts through me, the same as that night on the surfboard, when I told myself it was nothing more than adrenaline. But now, after everything he’s said, I need to be sure.
I pull open the top of his jacket and run my hand along the folds of his shirt, pressing it flat against his chest. His head tips forward, a sharp breath tearing from him as his heartbeat kicks against my palm, so fast and forceful that the very feeling seems to roar. The impact rattles through me, scattering every thought until I can only look up.
When I do, I see Edmund’s face turned toward mine, strained and flushed, burning for me as fiercely as I burn for him. I push upward in the saddle, breathless. His hand closes at the back of my neck, tangling in my hair as he drags me into him, past the last slanting rays of sun between our bodies.
When his mouth touches mine, it’s startlingly soft, as if chosen for my sake, as if he hasn’t forgotten he’s my first. The gentleness undoes me. It rushes through me with the shock of a beginning, so transformative it feels like the first true touch of my life. My hand lifts on its own, my thumb brushing in a slow, trembling glide across his lips. Edmund’s eyes haze over briefly, then sharpen and fix on me with sudden, focused heat.
He catches my wrist and pulls me closer, and my whole body responds, my fingers curling into his jacket as I rise again to meet his mouth. This is
more than a release. It feels like a door opening, one that will never close again. And I don’t want it to. I race through it headlong into what lies beyond, every part of me unmoored as our kiss deepens, hot and relentless, as though, if we weren’t clinging to the horse beneath us, racing forward together, we might burn straight through each other. My hands slide up Edmund’s chest, over his neck, and into his hair as the kisses intensify, growing harder, wilder, until restraint finally gives way and the world collapses into nothing but the feverish movement of his mouth on my gasping lips.
The horse gallops beneath us, hooves drumming the earth, the meadow blazing gold in the last fire of the sun. Edmund’s hand glides to the small of my back, holding me fast, while the other tugs the reins as we tear through the windblown grass. Our kiss slows, softening again toward its end, just as the trail pulls us back into the forest’s shadow, the meadow falling away behind us. But unlike that night on the surfboard, I don’t cling to the experience in fear of losing it. I know it’s inside me now, in the part of my heart that belongs to him, where even a single moment can last and live forever.
