“Indeed. Arisanna favors him in appearance, but I see him in your manner. The heaviness you carry in your eyes.”
Rominy frowns. “My father is unflappable. Like Arisanna. I’m not like him at all.”
“I believe you are. You just don’t know it yet. He wasn’t born a king, Rominy. No man is. He grew into his role the same way Lorial had to. The same way my Restoval did. The same way you will someday.”
For a moment, Rominy just stares at her. “How...”
“How do I know your fears? You’re not the first future king I’ve met, Rominy.”
Rominy sighs and stretches out his legs in front of him. He might as well talk to her. It will keep him distracted from Elowyn. “I sometimes think Nunia would be better off with Arisanna than with me.” He glances at Grandmera, expecting to read shock in her eyes, but her expression hasn’t changed. Then he looks down at his hands and huffs a wry half-laugh. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Should I be?”
“My parents would be horrified.”
“And why is that, my youngling?”
Leaning his head back, he stares at the wall across the hallway. “Because I was a gift for Nunia. Arisanna is for Lostariel. The hopes and dreams of an entire kingdom rest on my shoulders, and I can’t even take my wife on a honeymoon without almost killing her.”
He rubs his eyes and breathes out slowly, grasping at Elowyn’s heartbeat. His tether.
“That’s not the story I heard.”
Rominy drops his hands and turns to Grandmera. “What do you mean?”
“I heard that you alone chased the man who attacked her, and like a true king, you showed him mercy.”
“Because Elowyn—”
Grandmera holds up a hand, and the look on her face silences him. She’s a formidable elf, that’s for sure.
“And you got her to us in time. You kept her heart beating, Rominy. You did that.”
He shakes his head. “The heartbinding did that.”
“And who bound his heart to a stranger because it was what his kingdom needed?” Grandmera lifts her brows as she looks at him.
“You make it sound as if I’m some kind of hero. I’m not. I just...”
“Offer yourself every day to whoever needs you? I spoke to your guard. He said you are the hardest of the human royals to protect because you give little heed to your own well-being when others are in danger. My granddaughter is a brave woman, Rominy. To a fault at times. But I believe in you she has met her match.”
“I’m not brave. Not like Elowyn. I panic. I—”
“You are brave in ways she is not. Your strength isn’t in who you are alone but in who you are together. That was the gift my Nestraya gave to Nunia. And if you were having this conversation with her instead of me, she would say you are precisely who you were always meant to be. You are who you are, Rominy—”
“And who you are is enough.”
Rominy turns to see Elowyn’s mother standing in the open doorway to Elowyn’s room. As she steps toward him, he finds his feet, and she frames his face with her hands, looking deep into his eyes. “Let no one make you believe you need to be anything other than who you are, my youngling.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know my elfling loves you desperately, Rominy of Nunia. A mother knows these things.”
Rominy shudders as he tries to breathe. Slowly. In and out. The way Elowyn taught him. It’s all too much to think about right now. Too much to process.
“Keep breathing, Rominy. Be strong for her,” Queen Nestraya says.
He nods, slowing his breathing and imagining Elowyn’s face. Her voice. Her heart is there with him, steady and true.
