“Let’s just say,” the blade warned, “I should be the only length of steel you clench down on tonight.”
She scoffed and held The Obsidian Widow Maker at arm’s length, glaring at the pommel’s golden gem. “He’sdrunk,” she hissed. “You can think of me in whatever villainous way you want, but I take full offense at that.” With more care than the sword probably deserved just then, she carried him off to the far side of the room to prop up in the corner. “And why shouldn’t I touch your handle?”
The sword was silent, and Celeste frowned at him.
“Nothing to say? Not even another jab?”
At that, Sid snorted through an invisible nose, and she clicked her tongue, sweeping across the room to draw the curtains so there would be no blinding light in the morning. She made sure there was nothing along the pathway to the attached bathing chamber that could be stumbled over and considered lighting a fire in case it got chilly, but decided against the risk.
As she crossed the room a final time to leave, Reeve sat up. “Celeste?”
She stopped at the foot of the bed, wondering if he could even see her in the dark, but he didn’t look away from where she stood. “Do you need something?”Don’t say a bath.
“No, I just—” He grunted and fell backward again. “I feel funny.”
“That would be the ale.” She eased around the bedpost and leaned on it. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re drunk.”
Not enough. “You’ll be okay in the morning. Well, no, you’ll probably still feel funny, but it will be a different kind of funny.” No use in upsetting him now with the fact he would probably feel awful.
“Mmm, well, I don’t wanna go to sleep.” He lifted a hand and gestured.
She didn’t need much more to be convinced he was calling to her. With a quick squint at Sid over her shoulder, she crept closer. He caught her hand and tugged her down to sit on the bed’s edge.
“I need to, um…” He pushed himself up again, this time slower. “May you ask me something?”
She snickered. “Oh, sure.”
“I wondered if maybe…” One of Reeve’s eyes blinked and then the other mimicked the first, which was rather funny, but then he looked at her too sincerely, and Celeste couldn’t wait for whatever else he was going to say.
“You need to sleep.” As she tried to stand, he took her by the wrist and kept her there, but managed to fall backward again. His grip on her was loose, but she didn’t want to pull out of it. “You don’t need me here. I know you’re not afraid of the dark. You’re much braver than that. You fought a hydra.”
He rolled his head to the side, grinning. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t really as exciting as I said.”
“You…you lied?” Celeste swallowed—was he being so honest in his drunkenness that he was finally admitting that hecouldlie? About anything? Even about who he did and did not think was pretty?
“No, no, no, not a lie. Valcord says not to, but also I don’t do that because it makes me feel so bad. It’s true, we did it all, the cutting off of heads and all that.” He released her and used that hand to wipe at his forehead, a frown creasing his face. “There was just sad stuff too. But you can’t tell people about that, like about how Rory died. No one wants to listen to the sad stuff.”
In the dark, a sorrowful shadow laid itself over Reeve’s face. She had seen him angry, Abyss-bent on destruction even, as well as melancholic when he looked out on the disrepair of the temple, but not once had so much gloom settled in his features. And he had never mentioned this Rory before, yet he’d delivered the name with such anguish.
“I would listen,” she whispered, pressing her hands into the mattress and leaning forward. “If you need to talk about it, you can tell me.”
“I know you would.” Reeve reached out again, his fingers curling around the ends of her hair. “But you’ve been smiling, and it’s so nice. I don’t want to make you sad, not like I did before.”
Celeste’s chest went tight around his words. The way he smoothed the strands of her hair between his fingers made her believe everything he’d said that night, drowned in ale or not.
“May I ask you a question, Celeste?”
Her lips broke apart, and a small sound came out, something like, “Yes.”
“If you were alone in this temple, would you…what would you do? Would you stay?”
She cocked her head. She hadn’t thought about being alone in the temple since he’d shown up. It hadn’t been very long, not even half a moon, but it felt natural, having him around. She wanted to say that, to suggest neither of them had to leave, but that was…well, it was inevitable that one of them would, wasn’t it? In fact, they’d vowed that only one of them would survive their meeting. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“It’s hard, huh?” Reeve snorted, then he sighed. “Flint is leaving for Eirengaard’s temple. Says he likes it more there than in Bendcrest, and they need knights who can heal. I’m happy for him.” Even though he sounded anything but, she knew it was true. “And Gable and Tressa will be married. They might have even already run away and done it.”
“Oh, is that against Valcord’s rules? You’re not allowed to marry?”
