‘Styerra.’
A hand reached out, and Ezer yelped until she realized it was the young man from before.
The young Realmist.
He was handsome with his dark curls, his blue eyes, his summertime smile.
Was this her father? She felt nothing when she looked at him, not like she did with Styerra.
‘I missed you,’ he said.
‘Not as much as I missed you,’ said Styerra. ‘It’s getting harder to find time, with your trainings.’
‘And yet here we are again.’ He smiled, lifted her hand and pressed his lips to it.
Ezer gasped.
Styerra wore a ring. The exact one that now sat on her own hand.
‘Yes,’ said Styerra. ‘Here we are.’
Her stomach lurched when the twobegan to kiss.
She watched for only a moment, thinking it sweet, until the passion rose between them.
Gods.
It was like they were desperate for one another, as the Knight suddenly spun and pressed Styerra against the shelves. He leaned in hungrily. Like he could devour her whole.
Ezer turned away, stomach turning – gods, she’d never wanted to see her own mother doingthat.
She left the library as quickly as she could.
The next door was much the same.
And the door after that.
Each time she entered, as the months seemed to go by, she saw nothing but the two lovers stealing kisses and secret moments in the darkness.
It was forbidden love, she knew.
A fate that would end in penance and heartbreak, for a Knight could never be matched with a servant. Their union would never be blessed.
Ezer watched it play out like a romance novel, door after door, memory after memory … her heart twisting each time she saw them together. They filled the journal with love notes, leaving it for the other to find later, to keep them connected while they were apart.
Beautiful, their love.
But doomed from the start.
She wondered when it would end. When they would be discovered.
She found out when she entered a door covered in thick cobwebs. The key struggled in the lock, as if the door did not want to be opened.
She forced her way inside.
She was back in the library again … but something had changed.
‘You haven’t come for me in days,’ Styerra said. ‘I wrote to you. You didn’t answer.’
