Moonrise ✔ [Complete]

44 Chocolate (Part 1)

And then a thought hit her.

Trust had never been a problem for her, because she'd had the ability to read others like an open book. She couldn't help but wonder if that had blinded her, had made her naive. She had failed to realize that individuals like Ristoff and Jaysek could discover a way to deceive her.

But what was it like for Reo to never know when someone could be trusted?

As she contemplated the answer to that question, the frustration in her chest began to ease.

For the sun warrior, trust was something earned. Reo was not open to leaps of faith, for he knew betrayal. He had seen it in the face of Jaysek, but he had experienced it long before that.

She recalled all that she knew of Reo's past, of the deaths of his two friends that had altered his life. The Beran scientist, Dodge Everly, had played a large role in Reo's childhood; he had been a father-figure to Reo. Dodge's daughter, Kyra, had been Reo's first love.

Maeyune remembered what had become of the Everly's. In the vision Reo had allowed her to see, Maeyune had witnessed his discovery of the experiments on celestial children.

Dodge, who had been prepared to expose the truth, had fallen victim to his traitor colleagues and the Wobeck's black smoke. Reo had been forced to watch as the people he'd thought he trusted had murdered his friend, which in turn had roused the devastating wrath of the Sun Goddess and had ultimately killed Kyra.

The event changed Reo for the worst, Maeyune thought.

It had thrust him into a world of resentment and deception. It had birthed the crimson knight, a demonic entity that yearned for blood and death. She couldn't imagine all that he had experienced during those three years he'd gone into hiding. Fighting and women and stirring trouble with merchants whose pockets ran deep--that was all a side to him that Maeyune didn't know, but a side that she realized she could understand.

Before the final years of his youth, Reo had wanted to live as any normal human being, to compensate for his lack of a childhood.

In the end, Maeyune could not blame Reo for regarding her with such caution. After all, they had met each other in the prime of their strengths--two powerful strangers who'd known nothing about the other and had been expected to work together. Given their brief history of both violent rivalry and mutual partnership, it was no wonder he was confused on whether to trust her or not.

If he didn't trust her, then it wasn't as if she could make him. And if he had wanted to act on that mistrust, he would have done so a long time ago. He was the one with all the power now.

She ran her eyes over his shield a second time and pushed aside the doubt. He had at least tried to keep her warm through the night.

Damn him, she thought.

She wanted to prolong this frustration with him--if only to help her ignore her jumbled heart--but his gesture of compassion wasn't helping.

She stirred to a sitting position. Reo's eyes opened, and his head turned to follow her movement.

"How much time has passed?" she asked, pressing palms into her tired eyes.

"A few hours." His voice was clear and wakeful.

She rubbed at the stings of lethargy in her eyes before she looked at him. "You didn't sleep?"

"Only for a bit," he said with nonchalance. He spoke as if they had never argued, as if she had never exposed her feelings for him, as if the world was not currently in danger from a massive Wobeck invasion.