Page 121 of Winds of Ruin
I’d fucking kissed her. Now, the memory of it and the reckless desire to do it again consumed me.
I’d never learn my lesson—constantly falling for women with no intention of emotionally attaching themselves to me.
The next few days went by in a lovesick blur. I should have told her about Dritan, but doing so in the safety of Lamoreaux, where the trees would guard us from outside influence, felt safer.
Instead, I told Lark to keep checking in on the boy, to not let him out of her sight when she was not with us. She happily obliged.
If what Aquas had implied was true, I feared for him. Relic or not—both the Sources and Caym sought him.
We’d traveled to Laome, where the Nadiars remained a steadfast ally to Luz, and me by default. The eastern royals were grateful to hear of my renewed loyalty in keeping peace among the courts.
Since I’d last seen them, the East Corridor rulers had grown too ancient to ruffle feathers in the realm and too stubborn to step aside and let any of their eight children take the throne.
Lark came along with me when I used an Egress to visit Mama twice. Color returned to my mother’s face, and she sat up and chatted with us over a bowl of broth. Elsedora thought I didn’t noticed her avoidance to travel with us.
Wyeth, Luz’s head healer, told me she had no reason to believe Mama wouldn’t make a full recovery. She had explained it would be best for the bone to heal on its own and it would take time. But Mama had gotten through the worst of it.
Elsedora also avoided being alone with me. Selfishly, it left me enough time to figure out what to tell her about Dritan. Honesty would be the best approach.
When at last, the three of us made our way back to Lamoreux, we were exhausted and ready to eat. With the fireplaces in the estate roaring, the air was muggy and warm. We stripped from our cloaks immediately.
Lark kept her boots on while El and I kicked ours off at the front entry, and the house whisked them away.
“I’ll go to Helos and help Mama prepare for tomorrow’s festivities... You two relax.Reconnect,” the Princess said with far too much insinuation, which Elsedora playfully scowled at as she shooed her niece toward the hall.
“Mama planned your recrowning celebration, so expect a crowd,” Lark teased and met my gaze. We both had truth to face the next evening. I would not let it be the first time Elsedora learned of it all.
Lark left us, and I followed El into the parlor. She took off her dagger belt and set it on the low table beside the sofa.
Would she let me stay?I reveled in the idea of hiding out at Lamoreaux once more. Her presence made the sprawling estatefeel more like home than the cottage I’d grown up in, or my room in Luz.
At least in all the buzz, Sybilla seemed to have forgotten that my birthday landed this week. With my mother still bedridden and my father always having relied on her to remember important dates, I was free from celebrating my fiftieth year. No more wisdom graced me than when I was a bumbling thirty-year-old Constable in love with his queen, anyway.
I expected El to flit off or make an excuse to further avoid talking about our lapse in judgment. Though, it hadn’t felt like a miscalculation to kiss her at all. Despite logic, I grew eager to find out whether she wanted to continue what we’d started.
She didn’t ask me to leave or bid me farewell. That was a start.
The buckle of my harness and sword clattered down beside her weapons. After she flopped onto the sofa with an exhale, I settled beside her. Kicking one heel under myself and setting my arm around the back of the sofa behind her, I watched as she quietly stared at my weapon.
“What’s that one’s name?” she asked, nodding at the sword.
I’d taken a new blade from the Helos armory, since my old sword had been one of Isolde’s relics. I played a silly game where I named all my weapons after loved ones. Talking to them used to make me feel less homesick while traveling.
“I don’t do that anymore,” I lied.
I’d named it Elsedora.
She frowned. “That’s a pity.”
Did she wish that I’d say her name?
More likely, that kiss had meant nothing to her at all.
“You once told me that ‘love is a sacrifice of freedom, one you are happy to make,’” I said.
This back-and-forth between us exhausted me—if she felt nothing more than friendship, then why had she kissed me withsuch eagerness? It had been too impassioned, too perfect, to ignore.
She huffed a laugh before pivoting her body in my direction and meeting my gaze. “I say a lot of foolish things.”
