by Mary Dublin
He kissed her for that, pleased, but the pensive mood lingered in the air between them as the human celebration wore on.
It wasn't very fae to fib, but it wasn't really that far from the truth, Avie reasoned. All she had left of the time before Evrosea was a few golden moments from her earliest years. Holding someone's hand, dry and warm. Drawings hung on a stone wall. Pony rides in sunlit meadows and belly laughs shared on a feather bed. They stayed distant, cherished memories in the corner of her mind. Dim, but never forgotten.
Her brother entered the courtyard from the outside corridor. As she watched Maison fly to her father's outstretched arms, she felt whispers of another life that might have been hers.
Virgil followed her gaze, but didn't interrupt her thoughts. They both observed with quiet reverence as her mother swept into the courtyard soon after, elegant as ever in her deep rose gown. It wasn't until Queen Esmae embraced her son and kissed his forehead that Virgil broke the silence.
"It's alright to miss it, you know," he said, squeezing her hand.
She didn't answer right away, eyes roving over the human crowd below. She wondered if the servants and subjects thought about her when they looked at Maison, or if she had faded from memory almost completely, healed by her brother's presence.
She tore her gaze away to look upon her family, greeting guests. Midway through acknowledging a pair of young diplomats, her mother appeared to pause as if feeling a chill on the summer breeze. She turned her eyes to the skies, searching. Aveline did not flinch as she was spotted; she was, no doubt, little more than a high-off speck to those below.
Despite this, her mother knew her at once. She smiled radiantly and squeezed her husband's arm. He followed her gaze, and Maison caught notice, too. For a brief moment, all three of them were looking up at her, beaming, and the distance between felt like nothing at all.
As Avie lifted a hand to them in return, she knew theirs was the only love that she couldn't bear to be without.
"It almost feels like a dream," she said. "And it's easy enough to let dreams go when we wake up, isn't it?"
Watching Maison stroll through the courtyard, jubilant, it was like getting to hold onto a piece of that dream, even if it could never be hers. Evrosea was her home, and whether Mirrel knew it or not, a part of her would always belong to it, too. She was the heart between kingdoms, and she couldn't imagine a life any better.
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More by Anne Kendsley and Mary Dublin:
Shot in the Dark (pub. June 2016)
Magic in progress!
Lost in the Dark (Book 2 in the Shot in the Dark Trilogy)