“You like that, huh?” Roc says.

“Mm-huh,” I say, smacking my lips as I chew the mango.

“Here, have the rest of that one. I prefer the others anyway.” This time, I accept the offer, resting the fruit on my crossed legs. For a few minutes we sit in silence, eating dried fruit by candlelight.

Then Roc says, “Isn’t it crazy that we’re here?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, right away thinking of my thoughts from earlier. It’s like Roc read my mind.

He runs a hand through his black hair. “Well, there are so many variables at play, from the timing of events, to the political climate, to what time we wake up each day. It just seems crazy that it all happened the way it did, that we’re here, you and Tristan, me and Tawni…”

“Trevor?” I say.

“Sure. Yeah. Him, too. Do you believe in fate?”

His brown eyes are studying me carefully, as if everything hinges on my response to this question. I never realized how serious a guy Roc is. I always thought he was just a jokester, quick-witted and clever with his words. This is a new side to him.

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I sort of did, but then my mom told me something that made me question everything that has happened.”

Cocking his head to the side, Roc says, “What did she tell you?”

Although I had originally planned to keep my mom’s revelation to myself, I’ve now told Tristan, who may or may not remember it, and I’m about to tell his best friend. But everything about Roc feels trustworthy, like he’s a guy you could share your darkest secrets with and never lose sleep over it.

“She told me it was no accident that Tristan and I met.” My words come out louder than I’d planned, echoing twice off the walls before fading into the night.

“I knew it!” Roc hisses, keeping his voice down.

Huh? It’s not the reaction I expected. “What are you talking about? Knew what?” I whisper, leaning my head in.

Returning the remaining dried fruit to his pack, Roc clasps his hands together, his grin wider than ever. He leans toward me, mimicking my movements. “From the beginning I knew something was off,” he starts. “Tristan was acting so unlike himself.”

“How so?”

“After that first day he saw you, was near you, he was so fixated on finding you again, on testing the feelings he felt for you. There was no arguing with him, which is unusual. Normally, he listens to me, listens to reason. Yeah, he hates the Sun Realm, but to pack up and leave it all for some girl—no offense, but it’s just not like him.”

I frown. So much of what Roc’s saying makes sense. I’d had similar thoughts myself. Everything about the way we met—how he left the Sun Realm, how he tracked me down, how he protected me from Rivet—seemed so surreal that I could barely comprehend it. But with no other explanation available, I’d just chalked it up to our powerful connection and coincidence. But maybe I was wrong.

“But what did my mom mean by ‘no accident’?” My mind is racing. Did someone force us together somehow? Were we hypnotized or given some strange elixir that altered our judgment? Everything just seems so farfetched.

“Has he told you about the fainting?” Roc asks.

“Yes, but…what does that have to do with anything? Any number of things could have caused him to faint. Hunger, thirst, lack of slee—

“But none of those things caused it. You caused it.”

It’s like I’m incapable of comprehending anything Roc says to me. Each new piece of information is like a shard of glass from a broken window, except no matter how many combinations you try, the splinters refuse to fit back together again.

“But I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even sure Tristan saw me. And I certainly didn’t know he was chasing me—at least not until he defended me from Rivet at the edge of the Lonely Caverns.” And yet…yet something about what Roc is saying makes sense, because it lines up perfectly with my mother’s words. There’s something else, too.

“The scars,” I say. My mind conjures up an image so vivid that it’s almost like I’m experiencing it for a second time: Tristan’s naked back as we dressed his wounds after the fight with Rivet, his muscles toned and beautiful, his skin spotted with scars; the exhilaration I felt as my fingertips brushed his skin, working to clean him up; the one scar that looked so different than the others, midway up his back, on his spine, unnaturally crescent-shaped. At the time I was curious about the scar, but I chickened out and didn’t ask him. Then, when Tawni told me about a scar on my back that I didn’t know about—also crescent-shaped and in a similar location—I wished I had.

“What scars?” Roc asks his eyebrows arched.

“Tristan has a scar on his back.”

“He has a lot of scars.”

“But this one is different. And I think I have the same scar in the same spot,” I say.

Roc is silent as he stares at me, processing the information.

Everything is lining up too nicely to just be a coincidence. “It just can’t…” I start to say, trailing off.

Roc’s watching me carefully. “Can’t what?”

“Can’t be true,” I say lamely, a sinking feeling settling into my gut.

“Because if it is true, then that means your feelings for Tristan, and his feelings for you…aren’t natural? Is that what you’re worried about?”

Roc’s perceptiveness once more takes me by surprise. I really didn’t know him at all. He’s got me figured exactly. Mine and Tristan’s “relationship,” although slow moving and separated by hundreds of miles of bare rock and tunnels and subchapters at times, has intensified as of late. But if we were brought together by some unnatural force, then we’re living a lie. Our relationship is a sham. He’s just another guy.

“Yes,” I admit.

“You can’t think like that,” Roc says, and I jerk my chin up from where it’s fallen to my chest. “Think of it this way. Different people are brought together in all different ways. It’s what you feel once you’re brought together that matters, regardless of how you got together in the first place. Does that make sense?”

It does, but our situation is different. “Yes, but what if what we felt for each other once we were together wasn’t natural either? What if something was causing those feelings? Then they wouldn’t be real, would they?”

Roc opens his mouth to answer. “I don’t know,” he says, and my head falls once more, because deep down I’d hoped he’d have a better answer, that he’d contradict my line of thinking, come up with some wise alternative.

“What are you guys doing up?” Tristan’s voice asks from the side, and a shred of anger at having been interrupted creases my temple, which is totally unfair to Tristan, who’s done nothing wrong. But the thought of not being able to finish my conversation with Roc, and having to carry on a normal conversation with Tristan, makes me angry for some reason.

Before I say something I might regret Roc comes to the rescue. “We couldn’t sleep,” he says.

Rising from his bedroll, Tristan approaches, glancing from my face to Roc’s, and then back to mine, his dark blue eyes piercing my soul, and for a second I’m worried my doubts are exposed, running down my face and arms like sweat. But then every fear—every doubt—is replaced by a warm sensation radiating out from my heart and reaching every part of my body. It’s the feeling I’d felt earlier when touching Tristan, except this time I’m feeling it just being in his presence. It’s not the tingly spine and buzzing scalp—no, those feelings are long gone—but in a way it’s better.

“Everything all right?” Tristan asks.

“Yes,” I say, my reply a lie and the truth, all at the same time.

Chapter Eight

Tristan

Her expression is unreadable, but I feel like I’m intruding on something private.

“What did you say to her?” I say to Roc, an accusation in my tone.