She tilted her head to one side. “Everyone always talks about how like our mother Gabriella and I are—Gabriella especially. I suppose it’s only natural. We’re the calm ones of the five of us. And in addition to inheriting our mother’s looks, Gabriella is the kindest of us all, her heart the largest and most loving. Even you saw only her gentleness when you first met her and mistook it for weakness.”
Dilys started to defend himself, then closed his mouth. Hehadbeen fooled by the face Gabriella showed the world. Hehadunderestimated her strength, her passion, the vitality and the power she kept bottled up so tightly inside her. It wasn’t entirely his fault... she’d run from him like a frightened rabbit from the very start.
Spring cupped one of the green tomatoes in her palm and bent to whisper to them. The fruit in her hand plumped and ripened. “But what those people forget about all the Seasons is that no matter how much any of us may look or act like our mother, the blood and magic of Verdan Coruscate runs in us, too. And none of us,” she said, leaning back to reveal the bright, vibrant yellow tomato growing amid all the red ones, “is giftnamed Serenity.”
“You’re saying Gabriella is much stronger and potentially more dangerous than she appears,” Dilys interpreted. “This, I know already. Calbernans do not fear a woman’s strength—magical or otherwise. We celebrate it.”
“Neither I nor any of my siblings fear what strengths we may have inherited from our father,” Spring murmured. “It’s the weaknesses that concern us.”
And then, at last, he understood. Gabriella’s habit of never letting any man get close, holding them at bay with soft words and that self-effacing sweetness that made her fade in comparison to her bolder, more vibrant sisters. Her fear of Dilys, of what he made her feel. Her pain when he’d given her a puppy to love.
The children of a madman would, naturally, be haunted by the specter of that madness.
Gabriella was a Siren. She felt everything more deeply than others. Indeed, her vast power came from the enormity of emotion that dwelled within her.
And she had spent her whole life trying to suppress that emotion, fearing to feel. Thinking the depth of her love, of her emotion, was proof that she was destined to follow her father’s descent into madness...
“She is afraid to love?”
Spring stroked the pungent leaves of the plant in front of her. “You met my father. You knew him at the end. You’ve seen for yourself what can happen when someone with great power, who loves without restraint, loses what they love.”
“Did Gabriella have a puppy when she was younger?”
“We weren’t allowed pets as children. My father thought it prudent to keep children with potent magic away from fragile living creatures. He was probably right. Mama used to call Autumn and I her little thunderstorms. We were forever calling up storms whenever we got upset—which was shockingly often. We tended to emote a lot. Then Khamsin came along and put us both to shame.” Her lips quirked in a wry grin.
“And Gabriella?”
Spring shrugged. “It’s no secret she’s always been the best-natured of the five of us.”
She would be. As a Siren, she thrived on love—she required it, the way plants needed rain and fish needed water. Even as a baby, she would have instinctively behaved in whatever way resulted in her receiving the most of what she required. And receiving constant, loving attention would have, in turn, soothed her and fed her own happiness, making her a good-natured child others couldn’t help but love.
“Of course,” Spring continued, “I wasn’t a particularly obedient child back then. Papa’s no pets rule didn’t stop me from sneaking out of the palace and going to play with the stable boy’s dogs. It’s a good thing I never got terribly attached. There was a horrible accident in the stables involving the puppies, and if I’d been there, I could have really hurt someone.”
Dilys didn’t have any older siblings, but he’d spent enough time around other people’s children to know that where one child went, the younger ones were sure to follow. Spring was telling him that Gabriella had snuck out with her to the stables... that she’d gotten attached to the puppies... that she’d been there when something had happened to them. Gabriella, a young Siren, who would have been overwhelmed by her first taste of grief, who couldn’t have known how to process it.
In Calberna, youngimlanigirls were pampered and sheltered, protected from all darker emotions until they could learn how to handle them, how to release sorrow and anger and grief in ways that caused no harm to themselves or others. Here in Summerlea, no one would know to take such precautions. And when dealing with a child of Gabriella’s vast power, the results of such ignorance could have been catastrophic. It could have—no, it clearlyhad—left her with deep emotional scars.
“Thank you,MyerialannaSpring.”
“For what?” Spring smiled obliquely and turned back to the tomato plants. “Be sure to close the door behind you on your way out.”
Chapter 14
The Courtship Siege was over.
The morning after Gabriella had returned the puppy to Dilys, there was no carpet of flowers on her balcony to greet her with a riot of color or an intoxicatingly delicious perfume. There was no gift on her breakfast tray. Instead there was a simple card, tucked beneath her plate, that said:
Forgive me, Gabriella. My gifts were meant to please, not to distress you. To atone, I shall honor your wishes and refrain from sending you more.
Dilys
He was true to his word. In the five days since, she hadn’t received so much as a single rosebud from him. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him either. He no longer haunted the palace gardens. He wasn’t at any of the meals. The Calbernans still played with the city’s children on the palace lawn and in the city parks, but Dilys was no longer among them. And though she got up early and stayed up late to look, she no longer found Dilys Merimydion—scantily clad or otherwise—swimming in the fjord below.
She had done it, then. She had finally driven Dilys Merimydion away.
She told herself it was for the best. She had no future with him, no future with anyone. But the absence of his relentless attention—ofhim—made her feel bereft, as if she’d lost something precious.
Although she put on a serene face and carried on as if nothing was wrong, her customary mask felt strangely brittle and ill fitting, a feeling that intensified as the days passed. Her nights were restless, beset by dreams that alternated between erotic yearning and heart-wrenching loss that more than once dragged her from sleep to find tears soaking her pillow. As the days progressed, she became aware of an aching emptiness that had taken root in her chest and was slowly growing, becoming more aching, more empty, with each passing day.
