He was desperate to find her.
“You feel something for her,” Lark said. She didn’t ask, didn’t over-exaggerate. Lark was incredibly careful with her words, as they could curse men and control beasts. She approached every interaction with the fear that she would harm unintentionally, and listened far more than she spoke.
“Yes. I feel something for her,” he admitted quietly, grateful he didn’t have to admit more, and sank down on a garden bench at an angle to his brother’s wife.
“And you don’t want to?” the queen asked.
“I have tried not to.”
“But feelings don’t always obey.”
“No.” He shook his head. “They don’t. But I don’t trust . . . my feelings. Especially because I healed her. The healing has created a . . . bond. A strong one. An unnatural one.”
“I see.” She was silent for a moment, as if examining his confession for holes.
“Do you have feelings for me?” she asked suddenly.
Kjell’s eyes shot to hers, and he knew she saw the curse he swallowed.
“No,” he clipped.
The queen laughed, the sound light and silvery, like the woman herself.
“I admire you,” he amended. “I would die for you, gladly. I even . . . love you. But . . .” he struggled to explain something he didn’t understand himself.
“But you healed me too, Kjell. Remember?”
He hadn’t considered that.
“Yet the bond is very different than what you are feeling for Sasha, isn’t it?”
Even her name hurt him, piercing him sweetly, and he hung his head in submission.
“I have loved badly before,” he grunted. He could barely say the words, and they were mostly unintelligible. The queen, however, did not miss them.
“I see,” she sighed. She didn’t argue with him, didn’t question his feelings or his misgivings. She just let the statement be, accepting the truth of it. He had loved badly, and the kingdom had suffered. He had suffered. Terribly.
After a time, the queen spoke again, returning to the matter at hand.
“Sasha is devoted to you.”
“Yes.” He agreed without equivocation. He knew that she was.
“But you don’t trust her devotion either?” the queen asked.
“It is born of gratitude and servitude. I don’t want either of those things from her.”
“What do you want?”
When Kjell failed to respond, Lark answered for him. “You want her to love you. It is an entirely different thing, isn’t it?”
“I think so, yes,” he confessed, and felt both relief and pain at the admission. “I am not easy to love.”
Lark laughed again, and he winced. “That, my dear Kjell, is a good thing. The very best things in life are born of difficulty. Whatever comes too easily is easily abandoned.”
“It is the height of irony. I am forced to care in order to heal. I’ve spent my whole life not giving a damn.”
“You are such a fool, brother.” Lark smiled to soften her words, but they still stung, and his eyes shot up and his jaw cracked. Lark was his queen, but he didn’t have to like what she said.
“Kjell,” she soothed. “You care too much. And when you commit, both you and Tiras are just like your father. No half measures. All in, to the death. But Zoltev committed himself to power. You commit yourself to people. It is significantly more painful.”
His shoulders slumped, and he rose from the bench. He was a fool. And he had a sneaking suspicion the queen was right. She was often right.
“Tiras will be back soon. You should speak with him, Kjell.”
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere abusing his power.” Her smile was rueful, and she commanded the book to rise and open.
“Flying?”
“Flying. I will tell him you seek his counsel,” she murmured, allowing him to continue on in his search. He took a few steps before he spoke again, tossing the question over his shoulder.
“Is she well?” he asked.
“What?” Lark replied, clearly confused.
“Wren. Is she well?”
“Ah,” Lark sighed, and her voice smiled. “Yes. She is perfect.”
“She has grown since I last saw her. She is beautiful,” he admitted, surprising himself with his sincerity.
“Thank you, brother.”
He was almost through the garden when Lark called out to him.
“She is in the library, Kjell.” He quickened his step and heard her answering laugh. Curse his obviousness.
Kjell had never liked the library. Endless knowledge and obedient words, everything in its proper place, everything with a beginning and an ending. Tiras loved the rows of shelves. Kjell just wanted to knock them down.
Sasha was perched on a ladder, one arm clutching the top, one arm stretched high, wielding a duster made of goose feathers, her tongue caught between her lips in concentration. Either she didn’t hear him coming, or she was too intent on her precarious position to spare him a glance.
He reached up, wrapped his arms around her legs, and toppled her into his arms.
Her small squeal became a smile, and she sighed his name as he stepped behind the tallest of the shelves, hiding them from the wide, double doors and from anyone who might come to check on the new maid. Sasha twined her arms around him, looking at him like he was the sun and she’d been lost in the dark. She pressed her lips to his cheek so sweetly that he moaned and let her feet find the floor. Then his fingers were in her hair and on her face, touching her nose and her chin, touching the freckles he saw when he closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice catching, her body pressing into his.
“I’m counting your freckles to make sure you haven’t lost any.” He felt her teeth on his shoulder, as if she wanted to get closer, to consume him. He bundled her hair in his hands, nipping at her chin and her throat, following the path where his fingers had been.
Then he was kissing her, telling her all the things that he couldn’t say, listening for all the things he needed to hear. His hands cradled her hips and slid up her slim back, tracing and retracing, reveling in the feel of her and in the knowledge that she welcomed him.
“Thank you,” she sighed into his mouth. He withdrew slightly, just enough to glower down at her.
“You are thanking me for kissing you?”
“Yes. Every time you do it, I’m afraid you will never do it again.”
“Why?” he asked, incredulous.
“I can’t explain it,” she whispered. “It isn’t something I see. It’s something I feel.”
“How can I make that feeling go away?”
“You must promise to never stop kissing me,” she said, her face solemn. “You must kiss me relentlessly and never cease.”
He nodded, every bit as solemn, and immediately obeyed.
“Sasha!”
She was trembling, her eyes open, but something about her gaze and the sounds in her throat convinced him she wasn’t awake.
He shook her gently, kneading her arms and stroking her hair.
“Sasha, wake.”