“Your parents are quite fond of each other,” Arisanna says softly.
“That is an understatement.”
Arisanna looks up at him, amusement in her eyes, and he draws her toward the chair they shared last night while they talked. She crawls onto his lap without hesitating, and he wraps his arms around her.
They say nothing for a while as Cerian holds her. Breathes in the scent of the berry shampoo clinging to her hair.
“I have questions about Tharios and Viala,” she finally says.
“I anticipated as much.”
“The fact that a magic rope ties them to each other seems like something someone would have mentioned.”
Cerian chuckles at that. “It just exists. We’re all used to it. I guess it never came up.”
“I’ve seen them apart, though. When he helped me find you, she was nowhere near.”
“It lengthens when they both feel safe. But it’s still there, binding them together.”
“Not like our bond, though?”
“No. It’s different. It’s more...transactional. Tharios vowed to devote his life to her protection. In exchange, her people let Elowyn go.”
Arisanna’s gaze snaps toward him. “They what?”
“It’s another long story.”
“But he loves Viala. I don’t understand.”
“He adores her. But he didn’t always. And when he bound himself to her with the magic of the oathbinding, it was in a moment of near panic because the Lothlesi wished to take Elowyn to New Valderi, which probably would have killed my mother as well as Rominy. Perhaps Elowyn, too, to say nothing of you and me. But Tharios didn’t know what their intentions were, and he couldn’t explain what would happen in case causing harm was their desire all along. So he did the only thing he could think of and sacrificed his freedom to protect everyone else.”
They don’t speak as Arisanna digests his words.
“Perhaps you can tell me more soon,” she eventually says. “For now, I believe I promised to finish what we started earlier.”
When she looks tentatively at him, his heat is already building.
“Catch me with your magic, my plant wielder,” she whispers in his ear before she climbs off him.
Perhaps it’s a good thing they left the jungle in their suite tonight.
He doesn’t toy with her for very long this time before he lets his vines wrap around her legs.
Neither of them speaks as he approaches and unravels her hair from the plants he wove through the glorious strands earlier. She looks up at him with a heat in her eyes that makes his fire magic difficult to hold back as her hair falls in loose waves down her back.
He reaches for her shimmeron gown, and her heart pounds.
“Yes?” he asks softly. One of his vines slips along her soft flesh, and her breath catches as her eyes slide shut.
“Yes, my elven prince,” she whispers.
And this time, they don’t stop.
Shared Secrets
Episode 106
RominywakesbeforeElowynagain, but he keeps his lips to himself this time.
