He stepped from side to side, showing me the basics with patience I hadn’t expected. I wasn’t a terrible student, but I was embarrassingly out of practice. Even as a child, I hadn’t been my parents’ pride and joy in a ballroom. That had been my sister, Katrinka.
Eventually, I learned the necessities of the dance and let Arrick handle the complicated steps. We laughed our way around the fire, enjoying the way the music danced with us and the stars sparkled overhead.
After a while, the music slowed and with it our steps. Arrick pulled me against his chest so that we were almost indecent. He held me there, daring me to pull away.
Another flash of memory or maybe recognition buzzed through me. There was something about Arrick, something that had been niggling through me since the moment I saw his face fully for the first time. The way he held me. That challenging look in his eyes. The way in which he touched me. It was all familiar.Hewas familiar.
His words from earlier danced through my head, floating on the music.
I thought I was going to lose you again…
But before I could fully grasp my thoughts, he asked, “Did the monks keep you by force?”
His question came so suddenly that I couldn’t formulate an immediate answer. His brows drew down at my silence.
“Tess?” he asked softly. “Did they truly lock you away?”
I shouldn’t have been so candid with him. “I was exaggerating,” I finally told him.
“So you could have left any time you pleased?”
No, I couldn’t have. Father Garius wouldn’t have allowed it. But it wasn’t to be cruel. He kept me there for my own protection, something I had always been keenly aware of. I couldn’t explain all that to Arrick however. So I lied, “I could have. The monks housed me out of charity. Not captivity.” He looked at me in such a concerned way that the next words out of my mouth escaped without my permission. “Although at times it felt like I was a prisoner. I was an orphaned child. And a girl at that. Where could I have gone? I was too young to have any marketable skills. I was, clearly, naïve to the outside world. I had no money or other family. I would have starved within weeks. And if someone else had found me… Well, the possibilities are unthinkable. The monks were the only thing keeping me from ruin. I needed them.” Truth.
Arrick’s fingers brushed over my jaw. I forced my gaze to his and found tenderness waiting for me. My heart responded immediately, stopping and then speeding up until I could barely breathe through the pounding of it.
It had been years since I had felt this cherished. And I didn’t know what to do with it.
There it was again. For a moment he reminded me of someone else. Those bright blue eyes sparkled with an intensity that I had seen before. His mouth pressed into that familiar serious smile and I could have sworn he was someone I knew. Someone I had trusted once upon a time.
But then he started speaking again and all traces of that little boy from my childhood disappeared. In his place stood a man. A man that was caring, but also terrifying. A man that rebelled against king and country and fought for a different kind of world.
“Then I’m glad you had the monks,” he murmured. He leaned in, brushing his lips over the corner of my mouth. Stars burst to life in my blood. I wondered if the entire world could tell that I was as bright as the sun inside. “But now you have me.”
He stepped away, leaving me to stand by myself in the middle of the universe. The heat of the fire warmed my back and the warm night air caressed my face.
“I’m glad of that too,” I whispered to Arrick’s back as he left me dancing with the feel of his lips against mine.
14
The next morning, we prepared to set out once again. Help had arrived for the Tenovians from a neighboring village. Arrick decided that we had done what we could, and he knew I was eager to be on my way.
Oliver sidled up next to me looking as though he had just risen from his death bed. “Are you alright?” I shouted as loudly as I could.
His whole face scrunched up in misery. “Mead,” he mumbled.
At just that moment his horse was brought to him. The rebel soldier who had cared for it held out the reins while Oliver stared at them with a mutinous tilt to his green-tinted chin. “No.”
The soldier rocked back on his heels. “What do you mean no?”
“I can’t do it,” Oliver confessed. “I can’t possibly ride that thing all day.”
“Are you ill?” The soldier looked truly perplexed.
Oliver nodded once. “Of a sort.”
The soldier turned to me. “Is he ill?”
I slanted my head and held his steady gaze. “Does drinking an excess of mead usually make one ill? Because if so, then yes, Oliver is very ill indeed.”
