Their next few days came to them in a strange haze of events. Sleep didn't prove restful. Each of them awoke a handful of times together, and Ash at times that Callum did not. She imagined there were other times that he was awake and she wasn't. How could they ever find stable sleep with nightmares of that horrible evening's events hanging over them and fear of what was to come?

In the moments they were both conscious, they passed the time with stories.

Callum shared his brief time fearing fish. As a child, his parents took him to the sea. He'd found a school of fish and chased them. Some had brushed up against him moments before a wave took him under. His young mind somehow believed the fish had dragged him beneath the water, and he feared fish until late in his teen years, even when he was old enough to realize how mistaken he had been.

Realizing that Ash didn't even know Callum still had family, she'd dug on that. His mother still lived. He lost his father to an illness when he was fifteen. The ailment remained unnamed. When she tried to ask about it, he danced around the subject, and she got the impression it was about the things he couldn't say. But his face twisted, grief and guilt battling for dominance, and she quickly took reign of their conversation, if only to alleviate the pain.

So, she told him about the biggest trouble she ever got into. The new sol approached, and with it, the celebration of births for that sol. She and Odella would be thirteen, the period where they left pure childhood and began preparing for their time as women. Ash wanted to do something special for her twin. Once, Odella had mentioned how beautiful she thought moonblossoms were, a midnight blue plant that only opened its petals at night. The only person who grew them in Lumena Village, though, was Lord Farley.

In what was then her most daring moment, she sneaked into his garden and stole from him. But the act hadn't gone unnoticed by the lord's staff. The Lord marched to her house, threatened to have her whipped for daring to steal from him, and only her father kept her safe. But oh, the trouble she had been in. Her chores had been tripled for quarter-lunes, and she hadn't been allowed to go out without supervision for just as long.

But whenever asked, Odella always said that had been her favorite birthday present. "What can top my timid, righteous sister breaking the law just to get me a gift? If that's not love, I don't know what is."

Callum had laughed heartily at that tale. "I see you've always been willing to go far for Odella," he mused.

Stealing flowers from the village lord didn't quite meet the heights of replacing her twin on a quest given by the gods, and when she pointed that out, he smiled.

"Give yourself some credit, Ashlin Crest."

They both dozed off soon after that, and then their cycle restarted. Stirring at some point, sometimes at the same time, sharing stories, and then resting again. Until it wasn't her own uneasy mind that awoke her, but charged voices. She must have made a noise because they cut off instantly.

"Are you awake?" Callum's voice. Her eyes fluttered open. He kneeled in the spot right across the bars, one hand extended through them to rest inches above her shoulder. Tension radiated from his body, and although concern for her softened his expression, his eyes were hard and guarded.

She sat up, his body language dismissing the last remnants of sleep. "What's wrong?"

He glanced toward the hall that cut between the set of cells. "We have company," he said.

The other voice that had penetrated her sleep-addled haze. Before she looked, she knew who it would be, but nothing could brace her against seeing him again.

The wrongness struck Ash like a blow as Roan smirked at her from the other side of the bars. The smug confidence in his posture, like everything was going exactly as it should, contrasted to a painful degree with the gracious, caring Scion who promised to do all he could to help her.

Even after the three days she had spent trapped on this dreaded ship, fully aware of his true nature, she couldn't wrap her mind around it. Perhaps not seeing him since that first day had provided some sort of shield, allowing her to pretend it wasn't real. But it was, and the proof stood right in front of her yet again. A painful reminder of the reality of the betrayal, of her pain. Her heart twisted.

"It's nice to see you awake," Roan said. He nodded toward Callum. "The priest and I were having a very pleasant discussion of the newest development."

Something about the victorious note in his voice set off alarm bells in Ash's head. Ignoring the desire to curl beneath her thin blanket and hide from his eyes, she forced herself to sit up straighter and stare at him straight on.

"What do you want, Roan?" she demanded.

His lips twitched, an emotion flicking across his face too fast to read. "I came down here to retrieve you, Ashlin."

He bit out her name in a way that implied he chose the one she less preferred out of spite. It shouldn't have bothered her. She hated that it did.

He wasn't her friend anymore, and the sooner she accepted it, the sooner the bitterness she injected into her tone would stop feeling like acid on her tongue. "I don't want to go with you."

"I didn't think you would." He undid the lock on her cell while he spoke, and at the same time, he dipped his head toward the doorway.

Ash followed the movement. The large man with the rock-encrusting on his arm stood in the room's doorway. Noticing her attention, he beamed at her and waggled his fingers in a wave.

"That's why I brought Dalmat with me," Roan went on, drawing back her focus, "but I ask you don't force me to have him carry you. After all, I come bearing good news."

Callum snorted. "She wouldn't need to hear it if not for you," he grumbled.

Roan ignored him and swung her cell door open. He stepped in, hand extended. "Come along, Ashlin. I've found a way to send you home."

Home. The word should have thrilled her. Some of the hours in which she and Callum both sat awake, they had tossed half-hearted plans back and forth, all with the goal of returning them home. Him back to Volant, her to Lumena Village, even if he didn't know the name of where she would go.

The word didn't offer the hope and safety she had expected. It latched onto her, sapping the little warmth the blanket provided and replacing it with an icy dread. She took a shaky breath and shook her head. "No."

"Please, Ashlin, don't make me ask Dalmat to pick you up," Roan said, exasperated. "I really do wish for you to come of your own free will."

Ash almost laughed at the hypocrisy of his statement as nothing of the last few days came about from her own free will, but then Roan stepped into her cell. It was a mere extra few inches closer to her, but her insides clamped against themselves. Panic pounded like a hammer against her skull, and pressure built in her chest. A familiar pressure that she had only felt once before.

That moment on the beach when Sanford had fallen.

The light burst from her. Even expecting it, she still couldn't help but feel her fear spike. Her magic hurt, as if it pried itself from her skin. Perhaps worse, it was out of her control. Forming its own creations and bowing to the whims of terror she couldn't grasp.

Callum shouted a curse. She tried to make out the forms within the light, but it required tearing her gaze away from Roan, and she couldn't do that. His expression hardened, so sharp it could have sliced at the right angle. He strode forward, covering the distance in two long strides and smoothly lowering to one knee in front of her. He flinched at whatever he saw, but he didn't retreat.

Close. He was too close. She tried to scramble back, but he grabbed her shoulder with one hand and pinched her chin with the other, forcing her to keep facing him. His eyes flared green, so bright she could tell through the blue of her own magic.

"Calm, Ash."

How dare he think he could tell her to calm down? As much as she hated this flurry of magic, she hated him even more. She wanted it to lash out at him, for the very power he'd given her to provide some sort of defense—

The thought slipped from her grasp like water from between spread fingers. She swayed. A blissful haze settled over her mind. A small part of her knew she'd been experiencing more just moments before, but why?

"Calm," Roan repeated, his voice silky smooth as his eyes blazed even brighter.

"Get out of her mind, Scion!" a voice snapped, but it was distant. Lost to the tranquil state she found herself sinking into. The pressure seeping through her skin ebbed away, and the light around her flickered before finally fading.

Roan sighed. "I didn't want to ever use that against you, Ashlin. Now please, just listen."

"Are you asking her or are you telling her?" that distant voice sneered.

Roan shot a withering glare off to the right. "I may not be able to use my abilities against you, priest, but I do have other ways of silencing you. Do not test me."

Once his eyes were off her, Ash felt the mental cloud begin to clear. The previous panic didn't return, but clarity did. She went rigid from the ice flowing through her veins. Had Roan just manipulated her mind?

"What did you just do?" she whispered. If she was right, what he had done went beyond the horrors of kidnapping her because it meant he'd have also stolen her mental control. The betrayal cut deep. A betrayal she wished she would stop feeling.

Roan didn't answer. He stood, hand still held out. "The choice is yours, Ash. Walk out of here on your own or on Dalmat's shoulder."

She shrunk into herself, but it did nothing to help her escape his penetrating gaze. Her cell door had been thrown open, but she was just as trapped. All her options seemed to point to the same outcome. Whether by her own choice, Dalmat's physical force, or Roan's powers, she would bend to his desires.

"Go with him, Ashlin."

Ash didn't know what startled her more: Callum's voice or his words. She whipped her head in his direction. He wrapped both hands around the bars, and though his gloves obscured them, she was sure his knuckles would be white from his tight grip. The tension had left him, leaving behind a body bowed in defeat. Even with his head down, though, he could meet her eyes from her spot on the floor. He was pained yet still determined.

"What?" she asked.

He nodded at Roan. "Go with him," he repeated. "I don't like it any more than you do, but go."

Her head shook before she could manage to choke out her words. "No. No, Callum, I can't just leave you."

His face twisted into a grimace, but he didn't tear his pleading eyes away from her. "Ashlin, please. You were caught up in this kidnapping because of me. I cannot be the reason you are stuck here as well."

"You aren't." She surged forward so that she stood face-to-face with Callum, her hands below his on the bars. "He is, not you."

His eyes flicked past her to where Roan presumably watched their display before finding her again. He swallowed. "I cannot do anything to get you off this ship. All either of us can do is sit here and hope my guards or Svenril finds us, and if they do, the rescue wouldn't even be safe. A Scion against a—against Svenril would be life threatening, to say the least."

He rested a hand against her cheek and swiped away a tear. She hadn't even realized she'd started crying. "From everything you've told me, I fully believe he thinks he's doing what's best. He won't allow harm to come to you. And if he does..." Fire burned away the plea that had been on his face until that moment, turning it into a blazing threat as he once more focused over her shoulder. "If he does, he will find me a very uncooperative captive."

"Callum." She whispered his name, not even sure what all she meant by it. Only that she hated everything about this situation. Only that they both knew there was no avoidance of it, but that he was doing all he could to lift the guilt from her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she leaned into his hand and let herself just feel him. She wished the glove would disappear. There had only been one time she'd felt his bare skin against her own, and part of her despised his gloves at that moment.

"If you want to help me in any way, then get to safety. Please." His voice cracked on the last word.

"As much as I hate to break up this touching moment," Roan drawled, no hint of apology in his voice, "I had to make a request to get you passage home, and we are keeping someone waiting."

Ash longed to tell Roan where he could put his requests, but the day had drained her of her bite. She lifted her hand to place it over Callum's own, drinking him in with her eyes the entire time.

"This will not be the last time I see you," she promised with a squeeze of his hand.

His fingers lingered on her cheek as she slowly stepped back. "I pray it is not."

It took all of her will and Roan clearing his throat for her to rip her eyes from him.

"I am glad you are choosing to walk on your own," Roan said as he allowed her to go first.

She ignored him. She kept her hands balled at her side and her gaze straight ahead as she approached the steps. Tears threatened to spill, but she kept them back. Despite her words to Callum, she couldn't extinguish the fear that she was wrong. That this would be the last time they ever met.

And still she let Roan lead her away, because just like the first moment she met him, things went exactly as he wanted.

*****

Callum and Ash are so fun to write together.  Especially now that they have a common enemy in Roan and all the lies have stopped.  But who knows if they're gonna get another scene together now that Roan apparently has a way to send her off 😬 What could that way be?  Also, you get to see Roan using his specialty with magic this chapter!  Seems he can do things that influence the mind 👀

Let me know your thoughts on the chapter down below, and if you enjoyed it, don't forget to vote and comment! I also have a discord open to anyone who wants to join, and we have a section there to discuss the book :D Let me know if you want to join!