by J. E. Holmes
“No. What I fail to understand is—”
Ediline felt a rip of panic in her chest, and she bolted upright, taking short breaths. She looked around a mostly dark room from an unfamiliar bed; it was devoid of blankets or sheets and had the thinnest mattress her royal butt had ever touched. She wasn’t at home. That’s right. She’d fallen asleep at Yithin’s manor, waiting for Javras.
The room hadn’t been dark before, but it was dark now, except for a tiny glow by the door. Her grogginess dissipated, and she realized someone was standing near the door with a candletwig, a silhouette lit by a flickering mote of yellow.
Her immediate reaction was fear, but it didn’t even have enough time to kick her into flight. It was Wien, and not someone intending to smother her in her sleep. She’d only met the woman briefly, but Wien seemed like a kill-them-when-they-can-fight-back sort of bodyguard. Ediline let out her breath.
“I went to get a light,” Wien said. “The room was dark.”
“It wasn’t dark before.” Ediline looked to the ceiling. The glowing oak had no glow left in it. It had been faint before, when she’d been eating. Maybe it had shed its last light during her sleep. She shook her head, attempting to shake away the confusion. “Someone should carve away some of the ceiling, bring some light back,” she said. “Who were you talking to just now?”
“No one,” Wien said.
“Come on, I heard you. Who was it?”
“I do not hide it. I was speaking to no one. I was not speaking.”
“I must have been dreaming.” She shook her head, as if that would clear the fog.
“Why did you sleep here?” Wien said.
“I was waiting for Javras, and I fell asleep.” She looked down, first at herself, still dressed; then at the floor, where her empty bowl of soup lay on its side. “Were you with him last night?”
“It is still last night, I believe. We were—“
“Oh, Lords!” Ediline flung herself out of the bed.
“Princess?” Wien took a step back, her hands raised in front of her for defense.
“I haven’t been home! I have to feed Marv.”
“Can Marv not feed himself?”
“Marv is a . . . uh. Well, he’s a mammal,” Ediline said plainly. “He’s my pet. He can feed himself, I’m just worried that he might be feeding on my furniture or my clothes. And defecating on my bed in protest.”
“Then you should go.”
Ediline grabbed her satchel, slung it over her shoulder, and met Wien by the door. She was an ice-storm of feelings, torn between staying and leaving. She needed to go, but she didn’t need to be gone for long. She could come back. The real problem was she had yet to accomplish what she’d come to do. “Is Javras home now?”
“Yes, Princess,” Wien said.
A jolt of nervousness. “And does he know I’m here?”
“I do not believe he does,” Wien said. “It is late. He has been awake a long while and is likely asleep. I learned you were here through Jinnrey. When Javras awakens, he will learn so as well.”
“Were you upset to learn I was here?”
“Upset? Do you mean angry?”
“Anything. Did you have any reaction?”
“I was thinking you were probably here to have sex on Javras.”
Ediline held a laugh and—she hoped—hid her embarrassment. “Um, you mean with.”
“I do?”
“Most likely. You don’t have sex on people. Well, at least not grammatically.”
“I understand. Were you here to have sex with Javras?”
“No,” Ediline said. “No, I was not here for that purpose. No, definitely not. I was here to speak with him, and nothing more.”
“Some relationships are aiyoe lientuo au heunoe,” Wien said. “It means moving steadily to the conclusion. They grow slowly, following rules and traditions, with permissions and polite conversations.” Her expression rarely changed from its placid norm. It lent whatever she said a sort of default wisdom. “Others are taethrius io bioluo. Like fire through grass.”
“I don’t know what my relationship with Javras is like,” Ediline said.
“There is no shame in that.”
“No, I suppose there isn’t. We’re still figuring it out.”
“Do you wish Javras to know you were here?”
“Yes, please tell him I was here, and that I left to feed my pet. But please please please do not tell him you thought I was here to have sex on him.”
“You mean with him, Princess.”
“Yes, that.”
Ediline bolted from the room and from the house, and she only slowed down when her lungs began to feel tight and her legs were burning. It felt good, to run across the bridges without people to dodge. It was terribly late, the air something resembling cool. She let herself fly, lost in the pace of her steps, and for this exhilarating stretch, she didn’t worry.
Marv hopped in excitement when she reached her house. He had not defecated on her bed, but he was eager to run outside. When he returned, Ediline apologized by scratching him, brushing him, and feeding him extra. Then, she shed the clothes she had slept in and bathed.
She sat in the bathtub and reached one arm out to scratch Marv. The warmth of the water worked its way into her muscles and unwound them. She tried to think—again—of what to do about Javras, but her mind didn’t want to focus. The voices from her dream returned to her. It was bad luck to dwell on a dream in the dark, even for someone as inherently unlucky as Ediline. She attempted to banish them, but the conversation wouldn’t leave her alone. Who were those voices, and what were they arguing about? It seemed eerily familiar, but she didn’t know why. She just couldn’t figure it out.
She dressed in new, clean clothes then set out her old ones to be collected and washed, when a knock came at her door. She tensed. The last person to come to her house had been Deffren. But he had trundled down the walkway like a felled oak, and rather than knock at the door he had just kicked it in. This was someone else.
“Yes?” she said. Marv bounded toward the door with delighted glee.
“I’m looking for Princess Ediline.”
Oh Lords. Javras. How had he known where to find her? In all of their conversations she had not so much as hinted at where she lived within Sladt. It was like a small city!
“I’m here,” she said in a small voice.
“Are you feeling well?” Javras said through the door.
“Yes,” she said too loudly. She looked down at herself. Her light sleeveless shirt clung to her still damp chest, and beneath her skirt she wasn’t wearing stockings or boots or anything at all on her legs. Had he seen her bare legs before? No, certainly not. She always wore proper stockings, lightweight ones when it was hot. This would be wholly inappropriate.
“Yes,” she said again through gritted teeth. “I’m feeling fine, but . . . .”
It would be too rude to simply refuse him without opening the door. But if she opened the door, he would see where she lived. And see her like this. For all the grandeur of Sladt, her house was like a closet for muddy boots. Oh, damn it, he’d seen the walkway to her house with its broken planks, and he’d seen how many Lords-damned ladders and ramps it took to simply reach her door. What else could she do to hide the truth from him?
“Is Marv okay?” he said.
Marv made a grumbling little sound at the mention of his name.
“Well, you can ask him,” Ediline said. She swallowed. “You may open the door.”
It opened, and Javras stood in the doorway. This was not the way she had wanted to first see him after their last encounter. She had made a colossal fool of herself. She had overstepped boundaries and gotten close to something real and burning. He stood in the doorway, and Ediline gaped stupidly.
His hair swept across his brow in a way that made him seem roguish. His arms were bare like her own, and they were well-muscled but not thick like a man who bragged about how much he could lift. Those arms were strong, but
they were lean; they were graceful rather than brutish. They were appealing, not impressive. He wore soft linens rather than his usual leathers.
And he smiled, as if nothing had happened between them; it was a strange smile, and it took Ediline a moment of searching to identify it, because she had never had such an expression turned on her before. Javras was happy to see her. As simple as that.
Burn through her.
“Ediline, what are you doing here?” he said. She tracked his eyes, to see if they would travel up and down her body, exposed as he’d never seen it before. But they remained on her. Marv dashed out to Javras and buried his head into his leg. Javras bent down to pet the small creature. He looked up at Ediline. “Princess?”
She straightened and pushed at her skirts, trying to cover the flesh of her legs. Awkward was never something she had been. Fluid in movement, graceful with words, quick with wit, sharp with a joke—these were things that had always been said about her, often admitted begrudgingly. But throw Javras at her, and she bumbled and tripped over railings and tried to make her skirt longer than it was. She summoned her Presence.
“I could ask you the very same question, Sesér. It is a late hour.”
“I apologize.” He turned sheepish. “I heard that you had come, and I had missed you, and I would have preferred that I hadn’t.”
“I can’t argue with something as sincere as that. Welcome to . . . .” She brushed at her hair and realized it was still damp. Oh, Lords, she must have looked unkempt and unprepared. Either that or like she was trying to have sex on him. “Home. I live here.”
“You do?” he said. “Here, in this room?”
“Well, I sleep in that room,” she said, pointing back, “but I do a bit of living in here, and I’m sometimes in there, too.” She pointed to the washroom. “But, yes, this is where I live.”
“It’s . . . not at all like the rest of the manor.”
It’s where I was told to go, she couldn’t say. I’m lucky to have gotten this. I’m lucky my mother pities me and my brother loves me because he can get away with it. No one else wants to be with me, so they built me this place that, yes, looks like it might fall into the river at any moment. I think that was my father’s hope, to wash me away and forget about me. None of that could come out.
“Can I tell you something honestly?” she said, anxiety welling up inside. She didn’t know what she was about to say. Honesty could undo her, undo everything.
“Of course.”
“You can come in, by the way,” she said. “I forgot to mention that.”
He stepped inside. Marv continued to devour the attention given him. “So, tell me,” he said, “whatever it is you want to tell me.”
Here it was. She could do it. She could tell him the truth, and he would push her away because she had lied, or because she was no longer desirable, and Deffren would kill her. Was the truth really worth that? What did she hope to accomplish by telling the truth?
“I actually dislike the trappings of royalty,” she said. “I don’t care for the atmosphere of pretension, the maneuvering, the courting, all the fancy . . . stuff. I prefer a simpler way of living.” All that was true. She was just lying by covering the truth with a different, smaller truth. It comforted her little.
“Can I tell you something honestly as well?” he said.
“Only if you also tell me something embarrassing, too,” she said, hands at her hips.
He blinked a bit. “Are you being serious?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he said. He cleared his throat. “The honest thing is that I don’t care much for the courts, either. We don’t have much like that in Ronrónfa. Where I grew up, it’s a large house, certainly, in a large city, but it’s more . . . simple, if that makes sense.”
“You are rather simple,” she said with a wry smile.
“Most people in my country have property, some kind of farmland.”
“A . . . farm?”
“Lanen isn’t all jungles and forests. You have some land, you plant some crops, you raise some animals for food.”
“You raise your food? Like—” She looked at Marv with the urge to grab and protect him. “Would you eat him?”
He laughed a little, but not so much to make her feel stupid. “No, you don’t eat your pets. Some animals have different uses. Raising livestock is a type of occupation. You trade the food to others.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been taking tiny steps closer to him. The distance between them had half closed. She felt embarrassed and confused again. They were each ignoring the fact that they had nearly kissed, the fact that he had opened up to her about his father. She didn’t want to ignore that. Couldn’t. But in a way she had to.
“So, you grew up around animals?” she said.
“Animals and my siblings,” he said. “I don’t think disliking the wealthy nature of your house is anything to be ashamed of. You should have someone repair your walkway, though.”
“I will look into that.” So what if he believed that she lived here because she chose to? That was fine. That would suit her purposes. Now she had to get to it, what she’d been dreading. Grab him and kiss him or tell him it was a mistake. She took a breath and clasped her hands in front of her. “Javras, about the day of the ice-rain. I want to apologize for what happened.”
He looked up from Marv. Those dark blue eyes. His smile faded. “Do you really?”
“No,” she said in a burst. She hadn’t known it a second ago, not for certain, but now she did. He was sad, hurt by her apologizing for it. She didn’t want to be turned inside-out by Wulfgar, but there was more than that. She didn’t want to hurt him, and she didn’t want to lie to herself. At least, not about this.
“I’m confused,” he said.
“Just how I like it,” she said. She took one step, then another, and Javras stood up tall—taller than her, especially as she was currently barefooted—and she stopped in front of him. She raised her hands and set them on his shoulders. His eyes never left hers. “I do want to apologize, but only for leaving. For not staying. For not doing . . . what I should have done.”
His attention remained locked on her. She inched toward him, drawn in. Her breath was heavy. As she pushed herself up on her toes so she could reach his lips, Marv brushed against her bare legs. It tickled, and she laughed, and instead of kissing Javras, she jerked forward and collided with him, and her head smacked into his nose. He steadied her with his hands on her forearms.
“Oh, damn you to the desolation, Marv!” she barked toward her ankles. “I’m so sorry, Javras. Are you all right?”
“No harm done,” he said, wincing and shifting his nose.
She’d assed it up again. There was no way for her to navigate this gracefully, being as inexperienced as she was. It was time for some more truth. “Can I embarrass myself just absolutely before this goes any farther?”
“Have you not already accomplished that feat?”
“I’m afraid it can get worse.” She shrank down a little bit. “I’m new to this kind of thing. This kind of you-and-me thing. I hope you’ll acknowledge that it takes a not-small amount of courage to admit that. And—Lords, I’m babbling again. How do you do that to me?”
“I’m not following much of what you’re saying.”
“You entrance me and make me behave stupidly.”
“And the part before that?”
“When I tried to kiss you just now, I didn’t know—I still don’t know—damn it.” She growled internally at her stumbling. “What I mean is, I have never before kissed anyone.” Her chest tightened. “I do not know what to do in such a circumstance, and I do not want to make any stupid mistakes. But mostly I hope that you will not be offended by my tripping over myself.”
“I won’t be,” he said.
“Are you sure? What if I make an inappropriate joke?”
He nodded and pursed his lips. “I have not been offended by anything you have said, even those things that have s
urprised me.”
She let out a long breath. “Okay,” she said. “Javras, could you—could you come with me somewhere?”
“I would love to accompany you. Am I permitted to know where?”
“I’d like to show you off to my mother,” she said. “I promise it will be better than your introduction to my father. I also have a question for her.” Far more than just one. She’d realized, when coming and going from Yithin’s manor, how differently people treated her when she was around Javras. That had to hold true, in some respect, with anyone—even with her mother. She couldn’t ask her mother outright what was going on, but maybe she could find clues.
“I’ve met Her Brilliance once in my time here, just after my arrival, but haven’t seen her or heard from her since. I do not object. But . . . .”
“Yes?”
“It’s very late.”
“Ah, yes, that.” She’d forgotten, with all the swooning and tripping over herself, that it was well into the night. “We can take a chance,” she decided on. “If she’s available, then perfect.”
She began hunting around for stockings, so her legs weren’t scandalously revealed when she brought Javras to her mother. She looked up, her hair whipping back. “I have to, um, finish dressing. I apologize for my semi-nakedness. Could you wait for me just outside?”
He smiled, a little tinge of red to his cheeks. “Of course, Princess.”
She watched him leave. Marv flopped flat onto the floor and stared at the closed door. Ediline laughed. “Like him, do you?” Marv wiggled. She laughed again. Under the light of the glowing oak in her ceiling, she put on stockings and boots and tried to fully dry her hair.
“I like him, too,” she said, to no one in particular.
— Chapter 9 —
“The Great Tyrants of Attenia ruled with both absolute power and a full lack of checks upon each other. Their Lanen was one split into zealous factions that could not stand one another, and it was only by the horror of the Desolation that we were freed from their Tyranny. Even the greatest loss can foster hope.”