Part of her wanted to say, Yes, absolutely. We can make it work. Anything to not give in to the heartache that was beginning to claw at the thought that this was the end of the fireworks. Gods, in a few short days he had become part of her world. He had been everywhere with her, done everything.
Can we make that be enough for now? It echoed in her head, in her heart. And the thing was, it should have been enough. It was just supposed to be fireworks and good times, a way to live the next three months to their fullest in case they were her last. So it shouldn’t matter if he was there some nights and not others. She was fine on her own, after all.
But it did matter. She had learned many things over the past couple of weeks—about herself, about him, about the two of them together—and although there was plenty she didn’t know yet, plenty she didn’t understand, she knew one thing for certain: Day by day wasn’t going to work for her. Not when it came to Sven.
Maybe a different woman would have been able give him the “I’ll see you when I see you” that he was looking for. She couldn’t, though. After a lifetime of being low-priority for everyone except her mom, she wanted more, damn it. She wanted what she’d had for the past few days. And she wanted to know he was there for good, and that he was staying because of her, not because of the gods, or the nahwal’s message, or the coming battle. For her. If she gave in now, she’d be giving up what she wanted, what she needed, so he could regain his power. But in doing so, she would lose her own power, and that was just as important.
And that wasn’t just the woman talking now; it was the winikin’s leader.
Her heart tore as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, then ached when she saw a flicker of hope in his eyes. “I release you from your vows,” she said. “You are a free man, not bound to me in any way.”
“That’s not true. You have my heart.”
She yanked away from him to stand on her own with her hands balled into fists. “Don’t! You don’t get to say things like that if you’re not going to back them up.”
“I can’t—”
“You won’t. There’s a difference.” Aware that she was shouting, she took a breath, tried to level off. “You say you want to be with me? Then be with me. You say you want to stay? Then stay.”
“But the magic won’t—”
“Bullshit. The way I’ve heard it, the magic gets blocked when a mage shuts himself off from his emotions. Which means the problems you’re having aren’t because of your bloodline or your visions… it’s about making a commitment.”
And damned if he didn’t wince. “Cara. Babe. You don’t know for sure that’s what’s going on.”
“You don’t know it isn’t, and don’t call me ‘babe.’ Save that for your endless string of beach bunnies.” An inner churning warned her that they were out of time, but she knew that they needed to settle this now, that they both needed to go into battle as strong and whole as possible, whether together or apart. Swallowing, knowing this was her last-ditch, she continued. “You say you’ve wanted me for years, but you stayed away because of my father. Now you’ve got me—you can keep me—but you’re turning away because of the magic. Well, I’m calling a final ‘bullshit’ on that. More, I’ll bet you ten bucks—a million, name your ante—that if you open yourself up fully to our bond, your magic will come back online, maybe even stronger than before.”
It didn’t escape her that neither of them had much practice with love and healthy relationships. If they had all the time in the world, they could have let this one develop more slowly… but time was something they didn’t have. Her throat was raw, her heart a wound in her chest, her pulse a fast, syncopated thudda-thud that seemed to be urging, Say yes, say yes, say yes.
But he shook his head. “Cara… I can’t. I’ve got to go with my gut on this one, and it says I need to be true to my bloodline.”
She tried not to hear the echo of her father’s voice in that, tried not to think he’d finally come between them for good. Because this was it. She’d given Sven his last chance to prove that he could stick it out and be the kind of man she knew he could be, and he was blowing it.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered. “Please.”
His eyes glistened. “It’s already done.”
As if on cue, the compound’s alarm system gave a two-note bleep-bleep of warning. It was time to go.
She instinctively clutched at her wrist, as if covering her mark could prevent him from blocking her out. For a second, she thought he was mistaken; the glimmer of connection was still alive. But pain pierced her as she realized that it wasn’t the same. It was muted now, sluggish and still. A one-way street now rather than two.
Her wristband buzzed, followed by JT’s voice. “Cara? You copy?”
Eyes still locked on Sven’s, she raised her wrist to answer him. “I copy. We’re on our way.” Lowering her arm, she said stiffly, “We should go.”
“First, tell me that you’re okay.”
“No. I’m really not. But I will be.” She turned her back on him and headed for the rendezvous, hoping to hell they hadn’t just fucked things up for everyone else… and wishing that the day was already over, so she could go back to her room, pull the covers over her head, and weep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Candelaria Caverns
Guatemala
According to Lucius’s report, the Candelaria cave system had probably been the cradle of the ancient Mayan religion, because it was the one place that had all the elements symbolized by the pyramids: a mountain climb leading to a cave mouth, with a river inside it that descended down into the earth to a hidden tomb. And since the river was supposed to lead the dead to the afterlife, that made Che’en Yaaxil—a hollowed-out cavern buried deep in the forest and well off the radar screens of Candelaria’s tourists and researchers alike—a damn good place for a resurrection.
In theory, anyway. In reality, there was a big question mark all of a sudden, because where the Nightkeepers’ early scouts had reported that the place practically vibrated with power, it had suddenly become a dead zone, and not just of the radio variety. Yes, the communications were down because of the equinox’s power fluxes… but there also wasn’t a scrap of magic to be felt.
“You’re sure this is the right cave?” Dez asked, keeping his voice down so the others nearby—mostly winikin setting up the stone-shield perimeter—wouldn’t hear.
“It’s the one we saw in the vision,” Cara confirmed, not letting herself glance across the cavern to where Sven was helping with the setup. She was holding it together, but just barely, caught in a tug-of-war between grief and guilt, with a heaping side of anger—at him for not wanting her enough to fight for it, at herself for falling so hard that it had suddenly become all or nothing.
She was pretty sure the timing of the blowout had come from the magic, though. Maybe Carlos had been right that she had been reaching all along, that the signs hadn’t meant what she’d wanted them to.
“You’re positive this is the place,” the king pressed.
She nodded. The circular cavern, the irregular domed roof with the fallen-in spot that let sunlight filter through, the waterway and sandy beach were all the same. “This is where the nahwal told us we needed to be.”
“Okay. Then let’s do this, and let’s hope to hell the spell can bring the power level back up and that Rabbit didn’t damage the skull. Without his magic amplifying the uplink…” Dez shook his head. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Me too, Cara thought as Dez strode to the spit of dry sand, where the skull had been placed on a tripod altar made from carved bones.