"I tried to hate you."

ATLAS >>>

"If only you knew—"

Her voice was strained, a whisper that barely left her lips. But it was the way she looked at me—eyes glistening, throat tightening like the words hurt—that made my chest clench painfully.

What did it mean?

Did she miss me, too?

Iris stood before me, more ethereal than I had remembered. And God, I had remembered. I had never stopped seeing her face, never stopped hearing her voice in the hollow silence of my chambers, never stopped aching for something that I had no right to want.

But this? Standing in front of her again, breathing her in again?

It was torture.

It was worse than all those months without her because now I could see her. Feel her. And she wouldn't even look at me.

That hurt. More than I could admit.

Even as I spoke to Druke—even as I passed judgment like a man still in control—I was barely keeping myself together. The second we were alone, I was done for.