When the people settle down, the speaking resumes. But this time it’s Eogan.
“My friends, believe me when I assure you what an honor this day is, both for me and my people. For too long, our kingdoms have been on opposite sides of peace. Under my grandfather’s, father’s, and brother’s dictatorships . . .” His voice lilts, and in it, I hear a hesitation, as if he is checking his notes. “Bron was forced to act as your enemy, when in all truth, the Bron people have longed for your camaraderie.”
He steps back and the crowd erupts. Hollering. Whistling. Straining to make their agreement heard.
They’re hungry for what Sedric and Eogan are offering.
I pick up one of the knives and balance its weight between my gimpy fingers. Unlike the rest of them, I don’t know if I’m ready to move into the future just yet.
I nudge the window shut and glare at the blade, waiting for the grief that, without fail, has come every evening since the Keep. Emerging in that hollowed-out place that hides behind the right words and the dresses and the right answers to all the High Court questions about how, in fact, a female Elemental can exist.
This time when the grief comes, it’s soft. Slow. Its salty, jeweled teardrops trickle down to fill my cupped fingers like tide pools, as my hurting heart swells and floods the room.
It lasts for too long, and yet not long enough.
Until, eventually, a shimmering glow extending out across my floor catches my blurred attention. As do the sounds of celebration replacing the kings’ speeches—signaling that it’s only a matter of time before I’m summoned to sit in the king’s banquet hall.
I wipe my face with the clean memorial cloth and turn back to the window, only to lose my breath at the hundreds of globe lanterns filling the courtyard. They’re ballooning up on the breeze to drift and dip as they make their escape into the sky.
Freedom.
He gave his life so that you could be free.
I grip the blade handle as a ripple runs down my spine. I stare at my memorial arm and imagine Colin’s name carved in it. Then stall—noticing for the first time how much the markings there look like those on my owner-circle arm. Swirls. Coils.
I did it for you an’ Breck, Nym. You deserved to be free . . .
I wipe my tears as slowly his words, his gift, settle over me. Reach into me where my soul still feels the etchings of his life. A life of worth, given for those he deemed worthy. Given free of guilt.
And for the first time I can ever recall, that twisted itching in my skin, in my chest, subsides on its own. My hands calm. My heart calms. I set the cloth down. A shamed memorial suddenly offensive. Degrading.
Unneeded.
I pick up the knife and slip it into my boot before placing a lid on the mugplant jar.
I straighten the wrinkles from my overly fancy, waste-of-a-good-fortune dress and walk over to the mirror. Besides, there’s a better way to honor him . . .
With a few tugs at the clips, my Elemental hair slips from its bun to fall in long snow flurries down my back and around my bare arms. My eyes harden with the unease in the pit of my stomach. I shake the siren awake and the cold from my bones just as a soft knock hits my door.
He doesn’t even wait for my “Enter.” Just opens the door, steps in, and pushes it shut behind him with his foot. In one, two, three strides Eogan’s in front of me exactly as I’ve been waiting for. As I’ve counted down the minutes for. A moment alone with him.
In one more stride he’s got my chin in his rough hand while slipping his other around my arm. That unruly lock of black hair all but conceals the intensity in his emerald eyes as they search mine. Weary. Concerned.
“Are you all right?” His voice is ragged.
I nod. My heart dithers and thuds. Echoing with questions and uncertainty. About him. His future. About us.
I rest my hand on his chest, and then my head.
And for a moment, this is where I belong. None of the rest matters because my soul is at peace within me. My soul is at home.
It’s been five weeks since Adora purchased me from Brea. Five weeks and fuller than any lifetime because I’ve spent them with him. I inhale his scent—which is no longer honey and pine but somehow musky—before lifting my head and sweeping my gaze over his neck, his face, searching out the healing bruises, the scratches and cuts I can see, and the internal ones I can’t because they’re hidden behind that annoyingly unfair tweak of a smile.
Until it ripples and widens. And suddenly his whole body is rippling beneath my fingers.
I step back. What in hulls?
He stretches his neck as if adjusting his shoulders, his back, then his grin broadens into a toothy smile, and he straightens to stare down at me. The firelight bounces off those teeth for a second. As if he is still Eogan. And yet he’s not.
He touches my cheek and utters a soft growl.
I swallow.