But he was not put off by my words. “Noble, brave, and virtuous, too,” he said, smiling. “You are a rare find, good Aenna.”
He kissed me on the forehead again, and then apologized if he had been too bold. “If you wish me to leave you alone with the blankets tonight, I understand, for I did promise to be a gentleman, and now here I stand with you in my arms, kissing you like a scoundrel. And yet look,” he said as his hand touched my cheek softly again. “I am unable to stop.” He stepped backwards, letting his hand drop from my cheek to grasp my hand. He lifted my hand delicately and kissed it.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t wish to be silly and let either of us freeze in the night. I also didn’t wish to appear indecorous and agree to lie beside him. Additionally, I didn’t like appearing indecisive about the matter, lest he think I was leaning one way or the other when both decisions held such potential repugnance.
“You look upset. I’ve upset you, haven’t I, with my boldness? Aenna, I’m truly sorry, I was swept up in the moment with your beauty—”
“Please,” I said, unsure from where the words came. “Please don’t be sorry.” My heart was on the verge of breaking if he should regret the kiss, but I couldn’t tell him that. I could not be so bold. How ironic, that he thought me so brave and bright, yet my mind was shaken to pieces by a simple kiss.
Then I noticed he was at an equal loss for words. “I’m not sorry, but I am, well, sorry for being so bold.” I found his stammering endearing, for it must mean he was as delighted and alarmed and as confused as I. “Not for the kiss, unless if offends you, because if it offended you than I would be sorry for that—”
And that’s when I seemed to have lost my mind entirely, for I did something so brazen, so unexpectedly forward that to this day I don’t know what demon or deity inspired me. As he rambled apologetically, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled myself up to him, smashing my lips hard against his and kissing him with every dream of passion fuelling the rush. I believe I startled him as much as myself, for at first he threw his arms into the air in surprise. Then he wrapped them around me and returned the kiss, igniting my entire being with desire and longing and love.
As the kiss ended and I fell into his embrace, he held my head against his shoulder again and said, “I’m not sorry. Not in the least.”
I realized what I had done and stepped back, ashamed of myself. I could not speak; it was all I could do to breathe. We stood like that, facing each other two paces apart, silent, for some time. He must have heard my thoughts of shame, for eventually he said, “Don’t be sorry, either. It wasn’t wrong. It can’t have been.”
I felt my face turn red and could look at him no more. I turned my eyes to the ground and worked my hands into a knot. He approached me and took my hands, parted them gently and held them in his own. I looked at him, and he seemed like he was going to say something but then didn’t.
“I trust you,” I blurted out.
He seemed confused but said, “That’s a good thing.”
“I mean, I trust you, with the blankets.” I paused until he understood what I meant, that we could still share the blankets and not have to freeze for propriety’s sake. “Does that make me …” I trailed off, unsure what word I wished to use to describe my concern that he would find me indecorous.
“No, not at all,” he said softly, squeezing my hands in emphasis. “I can still be a gentleman. I … you … we’ll be …”
“Just sleeping and staying warm,” I said.
He nodded. Again we stood frozen for some time, locked in each other’s gaze. My heart pounded so loudly now, I wondered that it did not echo in the hills.
He let go of my hands and bade me take his arm, just like a lady of the court. I could not help but smile and blush at being treated so kindly, and allowed him to gently guide me to our shelter for the night.
Chapter 3
WHEN I WOKE THE next morning, Jarik was already awake, sitting nearby watching me. I looked at him, and he smiled back me.
“We should reach the gates of Endren by mid afternoon, if the weather is kind to us,” he said.
I stretched and sat up. Smiling back at him, I said, “A bath. That’s all I want right now, more than food or mended clothes, or even a soft bed. I really want a bath.”
He laughed and said, “At least it’s been cold. Can you imagine how we’d stink travelling like this in summer’s heat?”
“Ugh,” I grunted, wrinkling my nose at the thought.
“The guards would smell us before we were even in sight.” He chuckled.
I wrinkled my nose even more and replied, “Don’t even mention it. I couldn’t bear to be that filthy. This is bad enough, and there’s been snow to wash my face.”
We ate the last of the preserved food, little that there was, packed the gear, and headed off. The sun was nowhere to be seen, and snow had fallen during the night, adding a powdery layer over the ice crusts we had battled the day before. As the day warmed slightly, the powder became wet enough to give us better traction as we walked, and our steps made loud creaking noises.
Once we were down that last large hill, we could no longer see Endren, but we were clearly passing through farmland surrounding the city. We came to long fences cutting across our path, and a few times were able to make out farmhouses in the distance.
The approach made me worry again for the Prince, and I said to Jarik, “I hope the others returned safely.”
“Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “Jarik’s one of the wisest and mightiest warriors in Keshaerlan. He can care for himself.”
I stopped walking. I thought I must have misheard, but still I said, “You called him Jarik.”
Jarik stopped and turned back to face me, wearing that confused look again. As usual, he quickly composed himself and said, “Did I? I must be tired from lack of comfortable sleep and decent food.”
There was something wrong with his dismissal, and the fact that he’d kept looking out of place in such a fashion ever since our journey began. “No,” I said. “You said it casually, as if that was his name.”
A brief look of panic crossed his face as he stammered, “I’m half out of my mind with hunger and fatigue, Aenna, really—”
“No,” I said again. “That’s not it. Look at you, you’re like a boy with his hand caught in the pastry cupboard.” He looked as though he was struggling to think of something to say, and I started to feel queasy as I put the pieces together. “He’s not the Prince, is he? I knew the plan seemed foolish. I knew it. It made more sense for the Prince to flee on foot and hide himself on the way home while the other would be a decoy, but I didn’t say it because who was I to question your plan? But you knew that. You both knew what you were doing, and he’s the decoy, which makes you …”
My heart felt as though it had stopped dead in my chest. I could not catch my breath in the moment that I realized I had not been travelling with Jarik, cousin of the Prince, but instead with Prince Kurit himself. It all made sense, how he spoke oddly of himself with a confused look when I would question him—he had to think about it, for he was pretending to be his cousin.
I fell to my knees at the foot of my Prince and future King, ashamed of myself for everything that had occurred, from my open discussion of everything we had ever talked about to allowing him to kiss me.
He came to me immediately and pulled me to my feet, brushing the snow from my knees. “Don’t do that, Aenna,” he said. “You’ll freeze in the snow!”
I looked at him seriously, one of his hands still on my arm from having lifted me to my feet. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’re Prince Kurit.”
He seemed about to deny it, or explain it, but opted instead to simply say, “Yes.”
A rage filled my mind. I shook his hand from my arm and walked away from him. I thought, How could this be? How could I have not known, not realized the obvious truth sooner? What a fool I am!
“Wait, Aenna,” he called, and I stopped but did not turn to
face him. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. But Jarik claimed to be me when you asked at the outpost because, well, because that’s his duty. You could have been coming in to kill me. Of course you weren’t, but had you been then you would have gone to strike Jarik instead. That’s his role, at the moment, to ensure that I live.
“Then you fainted, and on the road we decided to do as you say was wise, to have Jarik wear my cloak and serve as a decoy while I went to fend for myself. I would have revealed myself to you then, but Jarik had planned that you would go with him, and if you were leading us to a trap, knowingly or not, he would then be taken to the trap instead of me. But you insisted on not slowing him down. He wasn’t going to drag you along against your will, and I wasn’t going to let you go off on your own, because truly we did believe you to be good. We just would have been fools to not take precautions.” He approached and tried to look at me, but I kept my face turned from him. “Aenna, really, we didn’t think you were lying, and we didn’t mean to lie to you—it was just prudent, given that we didn’t know you.”
“I understand that,” I said, shock, dismay, and fury bubbling inside me dangerously. “I would have recommended the same course of action in his place. But …” I had started to say there was no reason for the lie to have continued, but I was too furious to put the words together. I started towards Endren again, my footsteps hard and loud in the creaking snow.
“Aenna,” he called after me, “please don’t be angry with me. I was going to tell you the truth.”
I stopped again and spun myself back towards him. “When?” I cried, too upset by then to keep my tongue. “When we arrived at the city and the guards recognized you?”
He was clearly at a loss for further explanation and held his hands out plaintively. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Splendid,” I spat in fury and started again to storm away.
He ran to catch up with me and put himself before me. I did not stop walking, just lowered my head to not look at his face. He matched my steps walking backwards, placing his hands on my shoulders, trying to stop me. I refused to look at his eyes, knowing well that if I did I would burst into tears. That was the source of my anger—the knowledge that I had made a fool of myself in thinking my silly dreams that such a man might love me, a poor little peasant girl. Those dreams were now as the wind, fleeting and gone, and I was hurt and angry for it.
“Aenna, please,” he said, finally managing to stop me, but failing to make me look at him. “I’m sorry. Truly I am. Please don’t be angry at me for what I had to do.”
Under my breath, such that it was barely audible to either of us, I muttered, “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” I tried to pull myself free, but his hands remained gripped to my shoulders as he tried to make eye contact with me.
“What wouldn’t I understand? Please, I’m truly sorry.”
“Sorry that the poor peasant girl wasn’t willing to give up more than a few kisses?” I snapped, finally looking into his eyes. I saw them widen in shock at my words, but I was too enraged to have the sense to stop speaking. “Just because I’m poor, alone, and have nowhere to go doesn’t mean I’ll be your tawdry little tart!”
He stepped back, letting go of my shoulders, and it was obvious my words had cut him. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks, and I cursed myself inwardly for them. This was no time to weep like a weak little girl.
“Is that what you think?” he asked, clearly aghast at my accusation. “That I was trying all along to seduce you?”
I could look at him no more, not with the look of shame and pain in his eyes. I put my hands over my face to hide the sight of him from myself and to hide my now freely flowing tears from him.
“Is that what you truly think?” he asked, his voice pained.
“Why else would you show me affection?” I said quietly through my hands, ashamed that I had spoken so rudely to him. My anger gave way to great heartache, a deep agony that I had allowed myself to dream of a future that could clearly never be.
He came to me again, laying a gentle and tentative hand on my arm. “Because I meant it. I meant every word I said, and the affection of my kisses was real. Whether my name is Jarik or Kurit does not change that.”
I looked at him through my fingers, feeling a greater shame than I had known possible. I wished desperately that the snow beneath my feet would melt into a river and carry me away. My throat was tight, and fighting sobs, I barely was able to whisper, “But being the Prince changes it.”
“How?” he asked. He tried to pull me into an embrace, but I stepped back from him. “I’m the same man I was last night. I still find you enchanting.”
I dropped my hands to my sides in frustration, the cold air stinging my wet cheeks. How can he go on like this, I wondered, playing this game that is tearing at my heart? “Until we reach the palace gates,” I said, “and then you’ll realize you’ve had an infatuation for a dirty little peasant girl, and you’ll send me merrily on my way.”
“No. No,” he said, shaking his head emphatically. “I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. You saved my life.”
“And I told you I expected no reward. It was my duty.”
“So you keep saying. And I deeply admire that. I do. You are a remarkable woman, Aenna of Alesha. I spoke honestly when I told you that I had not met your equal. And it matters not to me whether you’re the poorest peasant girl in the kingdom, or the daughter of the wealthiest lord. I know some very wealthy, beautiful, eligible maidens that I utterly detest. I am enchanted by you for who you are. You amaze me.”
“Stop, please.” His words were kind, but they cut my heart like a cruel blade, for I knew that despite his good intentions, I would not be allowed to love him as I already did.
“No,” he said again, loudly this time, with a force behind it. “I will not stop. I adore you. Please, don’t push me away.” With that he embraced me, and though I wanted to back away, I found myself allowing him to hold me as a fresh batch of tears poured forth from my eyes.
“But it can’t be,” I said. I felt so stupid and pathetic to weep so, but I could not seem to stop. Never before had I felt so weak, but then, never before had anything moved me the way this man did. “Why are you breaking my heart? Why do you insist on pretending that you could have feelings for me that could last, when we both know full well that the Prince cannot love a peasant?”
“Under what law?” he asked, pulling back to look at me again.
“The law that makes you the heir to the throne, and makes any woman that you—” I could not finish. I dared not say the words, lest I reveal the future of which I had indulged myself to imagine the night before.
His expression lightened as he understood me. “Any woman that I marry must eventually be Queen?” I lowered my face quickly, ashamed that I had implied such a thing. But he would have none of it and tipped my chin up. I tried to avoid his eyes but became locked in his gaze. His expression was of tender concern. “Aenna, is that what these tears and this anger is about? That you worry that I could not feel affection for you because I must marry a woman worthy of being Queen?” I said nothing, too ashamed and hurt to speak. “Is that why you’re so upset?” he asked tenderly.
I closed my eyes, overpowered by the intensity of his look. “Forgive me, Your Highness, I didn’t mean to sound presumptuous,” I whispered, my throat locked. I tried to gulp the lump away but gave up and whispered again, very quietly, as if it made my thoughts less shameful. “When you kissed me last night, I foolishly allowed myself to dream of a future with you. Now that I know you are not Jarik, who I already felt so far beneath, but in fact the Prince himself, I know I am unworthy of such a future, and my foolishness leaves me broken-hearted and ashamed.”
“Oh, sweet Aenna,” he said softly as he pulled me back into a tight embrace. My head was on his shoulder, and as the night before, he cupp
ed it tenderly. “You are worthy,” he said intently, kissing my forehead after he spoke. “You are more worthy than any woman alive. I would not have allowed myself to develop this adoration for you otherwise. People cannot travel together as we have these past days without having an idea of what the other is truly like. There has been no time for pretence, no energy to spare for silly charades or games of courtship. And you have demonstrated yourself to be brave, strong, even fearless. Never once have I seen you shy away from danger. You have not asked for help—indeed, you have offered your assistance. You gave up your entire life to alert me to a danger, though you did not even know me. You have shown dedication to your kingdom and to me, both as a Prince and a man with whom you travelled. If these things do not make you worthy of respect and affection, I cannot imagine what would.”
He lifted my face with both hands and brushed away my tears with his thumbs. Then he kissed me, not with the jubilance that he had the night before, but with a deliberate and intense passion. I could not help but return it, loving him already as I did. When he embraced me again my tears continued to flow, but I didn’t know what to feel. I was unconvinced of my alleged worthiness and certainly doubted it would be believed by anyone else. But I was also filled with relief that it seemed he had not been manipulating me intentionally, and deep inside me lurked the desperate hope that he spoke the truth.
“Please, Aenna, I’m sorry I did this to you. It was unfair. I should have told you who I was, if not days ago then at least before kissing you last night. That was wrong—I know it now. I just wasn’t thinking. It was foolish and irresponsible, and I’m honestly sorry for that. But, please, give me a chance to redeem myself. Let me prove to you that I was not infatuated by convenience, by the fact that you were simply there. Please say you’ll give me that chance, that you’ll still come to the palace with me.”
What was I to say? Deny that which I desired above all else? Refuse to forgive him, when I already had? I could say nothing.
Sorrows of Adoration Page 5