“How about instead of talking about him, we talk about that dazed look you had when you walked in here? Or are your thoughts still tangled up in Emrys’s bedsheets?”
“Catrin!” I gasped.
Her smugness bubbled up, honey-thick and insufferable. She was absolutely preening inside.
“He’s been a thunderstorm for months, then you show up and things change overnight.”
My comb faltered in her hair. I didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want the flutter in my chest or the memory of his lips on my forehead to matter as much as it did because the size of this feeling was so large. And because I might be leaving Darreth in a couple of months, when I’d only just realized that I wanted nothing more than to stay.
Catrin continued, ignorant of my internal conflict. “Then he asks me to cover for you sleeping in his tent? What do you expect me to think?”
I let out a slow sigh. “That I’ve been using my magic to calm him since before we started this journey,” I said carefully.
“Oh, I have ears.” She cackled. The vixen laughed so hard she nearly undid my work. “He’s the one who put the tent so close that I can’t help but hear.”
But he’d put wards of silence around us when we—
Catrin continued, “I could hear you two talking for hours.”
Oh,thank the gods, that was all she meant. She hadn’t heard ourotheractivities.
The sweat that had begun to bead down my spine quickly evaporated.
“And?” I asked, a bit too peevishly not to be guilty of something.
She gave a slight shrug. Being so close to the end of her braid, her small movement didn’t matter. “Just saying, isn’t that how the best love stories start? Just two people, tellin’ each other everything about themselves because they want to know and be known in return?”
I conceded with a whisper, “That’s a very beautiful way to put it, Catrin.” I kept my eyes on the braid. It felt safer than looking up. “ButI don’t think that’s what’s happening with us. We have to work together. That’s all.”
With her braid secured, she turned and looked at me. A furrow now creased her brow in place of the smug smile. Taking the comb, Catrin motioned for me to turn around so she could fix my hair.
“I have to work with Emrys too,” she said softly. “But I’m not the one he’s opening his heart to, sharing stories of his childhood.”
“Youshareda childhood with him, Catrin.”
“True, but I am younger than him, so it was more like me following them around.” She laughed. “All I’m saying is… Emrys hasneveracted this way before, Isca. I think you’re special to him. I already told you that he doesn’t meet with women. And, before you start getting ideas in your head, know that I approve of everything going on. You’re good for him.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage. Her high opinion of me meant more than she could ever know.
“Did you not suspect that I’ve been trying to encourage this all along? I mean,really, Isca… The hair down during the noble dinner…”
I sent her a narrowed-eye glare.
“Sorry…” she said, not meaning it at all. “And I ‘had to handle something indoors’ all of a sudden the day we were set to explore the glacis?”
When she put it that way, it was fairly obvious that her “errors” hadn’t been errors at all.
“Is getting involved with him wise, though?” I asked, hating how revealing the question was. But her words had stirred a ridiculous hope within me I couldn’t seem to douse.
She paused, fingers still working at my hair, then eventually said, “If this is real, if there’s a chance it could last, don’t talk yourself out of it too soon.”
Wise words.
“I’ll…try.”
She snorted. “So glad I’m finally getting the truth!”
“Ugh, Catrin!” Her name came out on a whine.
