Aria shook her head, pushing away the water skin. She took breath after breath through pursed lips until the urge to vomit passed. The grass rolled in waves before her eyes. She blinked until it stopped. She didn’t know how she could feel worse than just hours ago, but she did. With poison still flowing through her veins, her body rebelled against every step.

“It’ll be all right soon,” Roar said. “It’ll leave your system.”

“He’s going to hate me.”

“He won’t.”

Aria straightened, keeping her arm tight to her side. They stood on a hill that overlooked the Tide Valley. More than anything, she wanted to see Perry striding toward her.

That morning, she’d woken to the tribe’s shouts in the clearing. The Tides were splintering. People were leaving, yelling at Perry. Yelling obscenities about her. She’d stepped out of Vale’s room, panicked to get out of there quickly, before Perry lost everything. She’d found Roar with his satchel packed. Liv was at the Horns. He was leaving, too. It’d been easy to escape unnoticed. With dozens of people streaming out of the compound, she and Roar had simply crept the other way.

She wished she could’ve seen Perry before she’d gone, but she knew him. He wouldn’t have let her leave without him. That decision would’ve cost him the Tides. She couldn’t let that happen.

“We should keep going, Roar.” If they didn’t keep moving, she’d change her mind.

She walked in a daze through the afternoon, her legs shaking, her arm burning beneath its bandage. This is for the best, she told herself over and over. Perry will understand.

At night they found shelter under an oak tree, a steady rain creating a blanket of quiet noise around them. Roar offered her food, but she couldn’t eat. Neither could he, she noticed.

He moved next to her. “Let me check that.”

Aria bit her lip as he took the bandage off her arm. The skin at her bicep was swollen and red, crusted with dried blood and smeared with ink. It bore the ugliest Marking she’d ever seen.

“Who did it?” she asked, her voice shaking with anger.

“A man named Gray. He’s Unmarked. He’s always been envious of us.”

A face appeared in Aria’s mind. Gray was the stocky man she’d seen in the woods during the Aether storm when she’d found River. “A Mole was getting Markings and he couldn’t bear it,” Aria said. “He couldn’t let that happen.”

Roar rubbed the back of his neck, nodding. “Yeah. I guess that’s about it.”

Aria touched the scabbed skin on her arm. “A half Marking for a half Outsider.” She’d meant to make light of it, but her voice wobbled.

Roar watched her in silence for a moment. “It’ll heal, Aria. We can have it finished.”