“I trust you.”
Trust. What a sweet, precious thing. A heady thing. A sacred thing.
I watch as she settles beneath the blankets, damp strands of hair fanning across the pillow. So informal. So… familiar. Someone… some man would be very lucky to see her loose hair every day.
For a long moment, I just sit there, listening to the steady rhythm of her breath as sleep claims her.
Hours later, the room is quiet. Arlet is asleep, curled up on the bed with her back to me, her breathing slow and even. I sit on the bed, keeping watch.
Was I tired? Yes. But I’m also on edge. I’m very protective of Arlet tonight. I don’t know why.
I don’t dare let my guard down. Not here. Not in a place where the walls seem to listen, where the air hums with power I don’t trust.
I close my eyes briefly, not to sleep, but to steady myself. The soft rustling of blankets draws my attention back to Arlet.
Then, just as I think she has drifted into deep sleep, she shifts.
A breath. A whisper.
“Gracias, Vann.”
My name.
It slips past her lips so softly I almost miss it.
The sound of it curls around my memory. My hands tighten intofists, my jaw clenching against the strange, unwelcome warmth that spreads through me.
She doesn’t wake. Doesn’t say anything else. I don’t move for a long time.
The glow from the bioluminescent leaves dims, but it still casts shifting shadows across her face, softening her worry lines and highlighting the curve of her cheek. The steady rise and fall of her breath is soothing.
In sleep, she looks unburdened, free of the weight she normally carries, and something about it makes my chest ache worse than the cold ever has.
Being in the elven lands makes me think of the missive. So far, we had been lucky, but I wouldn’t rest easy until we were out of Arion’s kingdom.
If Arion ever managed to take her, I was almost sure he would destroy her. Men like him broke beautiful things. They cut wood for their castles, kept precious artifacts behind lock and key, and stomped on rotting corpses to make their way to wherever they deemed important.
I exhale slowly, but it does nothing to ease the pressure building inside me.
Longing is a foreign thing, an emotion I thought I had buried long ago, and yet here it is, clawing its way to the surface, undeniable in its presence. She shifts slightly, curling deeper into the blankets, and my throat tightens. I want to reach out, just once. Just to feel that she’s real, that she’s here, warm and alive beneath my fingers.
But I don’t.
Instead, I press my back harder against the wall, letting the cold anchor me. Wanting is dangerous. Wanting leads to weakness. And weakness, for me, has always led to pain.
So I stay where I am, watching, sketching, listening to the steady rhythm of her breath. And when the pain becomes too much, I close my eyes and pretend I don’t feel it at all.
Chapter 22
ARLET
Iwake up warm and blissfully unbound. A slow, creeping sensation spreads through my limbs before my mind fully registers where I am. The blankets are heavy with residual heat from my slumber, and the air is still, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and stone.
Then I feel a person—solid and unmoving, pressed against my back.
I liked the firmness. I couldn’t stand light touches—they made me feel anxious.
Then a blue tail with a silver tuft rests over my hip