Praetorian Rising, стр. 59
They walked fifteen more minutes before Theo abruptly halted several feet in front of Camille and Charlie. "I think it'll work just fine," he said, gesturing to the slightly open area nestled between a wall of trees and a steep, rocky hillside.
Charlie moved to the edge of the clearing and found a comfortable place to perch. Even in the frigid weather, her skin glowed golden, highlighting the yellow depths of her eyes and hair in the prettiest, most aggravatingway.
Does she have to be perfect all the time? Camille thought, rubbing absently at the run of snot slipping from her red-tipped, icy nose.
Turning in circles away from the prim perfection of Charlie, Camille assessed their surroundings with a sharp hunter’s eye. "We're pretty far from the village. You sure Vesyon's okay with this?" Camille asked, glancing back toward the foggy trail they'd taken. She shivered with a prickling sense of warning, but Theo didn't seem to share her feelings of apprehension.
"We'll be fine," he said with a confident shrug.
It took everything Camille had not to punch the smugness right off his face, but instead of giving in to her immediate and more violent tendencies, she merely rolled her eyes and swore under her breath. "Fine then," she said, removing the day pack from her shoulders and tossing it on the ground.
"I can take that for you," Charlie offered, taking a step toward Camille from her perched position.
"I've got it—"
"She's got it—"
Both Praetorians stopped to glare at one another, Theo's stoic stance sparking with intrigue as Camille's facial muscles twitched with ire.
"Fine—just thought I'd offer a hand," Charlie said with a slight tinge of exasperation. That made Camille smile; apparently, they were both feeling slightly perturbed with the events of the morning.
Everything slowed to a slug's pace as her bow slipped from her grasp, warning bells pinging through every cell of her body. Before she could process her Praetorian reaction, Camille grasped the dagger looped on her belt and her sword attached at the hip, ready before the bow even hit the ground. Her entire body tensed for action, eyes homing in on the target: Theo, who was charging at her with black eyes sparkling with vicious intent.
He was all muscle and force where Camille was grace and sophistication. Her shuffling side steps and casual leaps barely made a sound, each step dominated with pristine precision. Theo swept a leg out to take Camille down, but she rolled into a backward flip as though planned. The longer they fought, the more their tango became a graceful dance of war: a dirty, sweat-riddled battle of the best.
"Looks like you remember all right," Theo barked, finding his footing in the cold ground as he deflected Camille's forward slash.
"Such a tone of surprise," Camille shot back, raising her sword again as her legs coiled in preparation.
Their eyes continued to darken with each missed blow, the black spreading further up their foreheads and down their cheeks. Camille no longer looked like an Asperian; she radiated fierce dominance and rage and wasn't slowing down in the least.
"You're starting to resemble a real Praetorian," Theo said, angling his chin toward her face.
"Stop trying to distract me," Camille replied, spinning away from his blade as it sliced through the air in front of her nose.
He echoed her movement, bringing his sword againstCamille's to form a "T."
"No—what I meant is that you look like you," Theo said longingly. He removed a hand from the sword's leather grip with ease to caress Camille's neck. "Don't you feel it? You trust your senses, even if you don't remember. I'm begging you, please, open your eyes to me."
"My eyes are open!" Camille spat through her clenched jaw, wrenching away from Theo's grasp. She glanced at Charlie, who didn't appear to have heard their conversation even though her eyes were glued to Theo's every move. "Why can't you just let it go, let me just be me?"
"Because you aren't you, not the girl I remember! I won't just let it go, Cam, I need to see her again. That girl you were, the girl I fell in love with. How's it possible in the deepest depths of your heart that you don't remember me?" Theo continued, unaware of the effect he was having on her.
Her stomach tied itself in a series of knots, and it felt impossible to move, to take a step away from his intoxicating proximity.
"Did they take so much of your memory away that I'm no longer there?" Theo continued.
The gentleness of his tone struck a chord in her chest, blinding her with a memory she hadn't been prepared for. Deep in the recesses of her mind, she saw him: a very young boy chasing her through the whitewashed hallways of their childhood home. She felt the steadiness of his hand against her cheek as a young man, tasted the sweetness of his innocent kiss in the middle of the night. She smelled musky pine, fresh and clean, as she nuzzled against his chest in the early dawn of the morning. She heard him whisper her nickname, "Cam, my Cam," as they fell asleep in each other's arms. A routine so well-traveled, moments so well known. His hands and face were a map of memories guiding her through an entire life spent by his side.
Theo's bitterly cold fingers brushed against her cheek, and Camille slammed back to the present. "Cam, you okay?"
No, she wasn't okay. A surge of emotions crashed down on her with force, and she could do nothing but push them solidly away. She was suffocating beneath them, desperately gasping for breath. The Praecollection exploded inside her mind, cracking through the barriers to spill into every corner of her consciousness. As much as she wanted to remember her past, this wasn't the way to do it. Forcing the decades of information through