Footsteps and muffled shouts crashed through the silence. Her heart quickened as she looked down to the street below. The guards had found them. They'd struggle to climb the roof, but once they had...
"I'm sorry," she repeated.
"You're her," he said, and she could almost see him retreating into shock. "All along. It was you." He shook his head. "Why?" She hated the brokenness of his voice. She had done this. It was all her fault.
"I was hiding," she replied. "In the one place Medea wouldn't think to look. I tricked Lysandra into hiring me by saying I needed to escape conscription." She hated the lie as it left her mouth, but Lysandra's safety was more important.
"No," he shook his head vehemently. "Not that. Why did you spend time with me? Why did you tell me to run away with you? To hold me hostage?"
"Because I'm falling in love with you," Maia said truthfully. A part of her trembled with fear now that her secret was exposed. But what she feared more than anything else was that this would end with him hating her. "I'm a fool for it, but I am. I can't help myself."
"You're lying," he hissed. "You're lying!"
"It was real for me too, Aaron. I swear it on my life and my sister's. I swear it on my parents' graves. I swear it on my city and my crown." She reached for his hand, but he pulled away.
"You're a murderer," he said, a trace of anger in his voice.
"Yes," she said simply. "I am. I have killed the innocent and guilty alike. I am not sorry. What I have done I did for my people and my loved ones. I will never apologise for that."
The footsteps increased in volume. Maia flinched. They must have found the stairs inside the building. They'd arrive in moments.
"I am sorry for what I have done to you," she told Aaron. "Know that I did not want to hurt you. That I was doing the best I could. I tried to show you as much of the truth as was safe." She paused. "Evelyn was a lie. But much of her was real. Most, maybe." Their gazes locked and for a moment the world faded away.
"Don't go," he said hollowly. "I don't yet know how I feel about this, but...please don't go."
Something in her chest broke. She wanted to say yes. She wanted it so very, very much. But it had been weeks and weeks since she'd seen her sister, or Talia. And she had responsibilities—to her people and her soldiers.
It would be nice to say that she had no choice. It would be even sweeter to say that if she had, she would have chosen him and he her. But that would be a lie. The ugly, bitter truth was this: they both had others they cared for more than their newborn love, and responsibilities they could not turn their backs on.
Let us say this instead: if the price had been risking their own lives, they would have done it. If the world had been against them, they would have found a way to each other. And if their love had been given more time, even if had not been a fledgling burst of feelings with an uncertain future, then perhaps it would have come to mean more than their duties and their family. But it was not to be.
The guards burst onto the roof just as Maia was about to tell him no for a second time. The four were heavily armed. She could take them easily despite it, but a show of lightning on the roof of the city centre would ruin any chance of escape.
"Goodbye, Aaron," she said it softly, so they could not hear. "I would have liked to have said yes." Her eyes turned fierce. "I will find you. I do not care if it takes me all of eternity and costs me everything. I do not care what bars the way. I will find you again. I swear it on the names of my goddesses, on the lightning that crackles in my blood and on the wild and churning sea that carried me to you. I will find you."
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