She pinched her leg. That had quickly taken a turn.
“Or, I could be a gambler—I seem to be good at beating you,” he said as he played his final card.
She opened her mouth in shock. “Best two out of three?”
The storm outside had intensified over the last hour, and a shuddering wind swept through the cave and knocked some of their cards off the table. They went flying behind her, a couple getting caught under the heavy blankets that made up her bed.
“You know, you should be able to control that,” she grumbled as she crossed to the blankets and got on her knees to retrieve the cards. She heard a chuckle behind her as she lifted the thick material.
It wasn’t only the playing card she found underneath. Her stomach dropped as she saw the familiar silver chain between the folds of one of the blankets. She carefully fingered the delicate necklace.
“What is it?” Rynn asked.
“It’s—it’s my locket. The one I thought I’d lost that first night,” Isla said, looking up at him. “I guess it got shoved under the blankets. I don’t know how I missed it.” She smiled weakly.
So many emotions and memories flooded her at once. She remembered the night Waylan had given it to her before he went on his first long hunting trip six years ago. It was the night he’d told her he loved her. He had taken her out to her favorite clearing behind her family’s property and surprised her with cream-filled chocolate breads and “borrowed” mulled wine. She could clearly picture his blue-green eyes as he held the necklace out to her, feel his fingers on her skin as he fastened the chain around her neck. It had a star etched on the back, for he had known how much she loved the night sky.
“It’s so you don’t have to wait for the sun to go down to see the stars,” he said against the shell of her ear.
She smiled. “Well, now I’ll have to get you your own star, too.”
“There’s no point. I’ve got the brightest one right here.” And he kissed her.
She’d worn the locket every day since, until she had lost it over a week ago. Guilt wracked her chest when she realized she hadn’t thought of it or the man she had once loved in so many days. Blinking back tears that threatened to overwhelm her, she clutched the small necklace in her hand.
She hadn’t heard Rynn leave his seat, but he was now beside her on the blankets. “Who was he?” he asked softly.
She took in a long breath. “Why do you think there’s a ‘he’?” she replied.
Rynn gave her a knowing look. “You were so frantic that night you lost it, and I can see it in your eyes now. I know what love looks like, Isla, even if I have so rarely felt it.”
She paused, waiting for her mind to seize and her lips to lock up with anguish as they usually did when she tried to talk about Waylan, but those feelings never came.
“His name was Waylan,” she began, her fingers trembling. “He was…my first love. The boy next door and everyone’s best friend, always happy and helping. His father was the best butcher in town, so we’d see each other often when Papa let me go with him to take over our recent kills. We would sit on the floor as kids and play dice or cards while our parents talked business.” She looked at the cards lying on the table, the parallels between her story and this night jarring her to reality. “He died two years ago.”
“How?” Rynn asked.
She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them, looking at Rynn. “He was on a trading trip with his father. They were attacked on the way south. His injuries were too great, and his father had to carry his body back.” She forced her voice to stay even.
“I’m sorry,” Rynn said. “I know the pain of a loss like that does not lessen over time. You simply grow along with it.”
Nodding, she leaned back against the cave wall behind them and sighed.
“What was he like?” Rynn murmured gently.
She tugged at her lower lip. It had been so long since she’d spoken with anyone about Waylan, even Bri. But maybe she needed to do this, to honor his memory instead of pushing him away as if he had never been there.
“He was close with my brother and Hamil and a couple of other boys. He was never as loud as the rest of the group, but he was sneaky and clever.” A faint smile blossomed on her lips as a memory came to mind. “Once, he decided to get revenge on Arden for a joke my brother had played on him. Waylan came up with this elaborate scheme to sabotage Arden’s upcoming archery competition. The night before the contest, Waylan snuck into our stables where Arden’s weapons bag was. He cut just enough off every single feather on the arrows so they still looked normal but had too much spin. When Arden tried to shoot the next morning, none of them would hit the target.” She chuckled, even as an errant tear slipped free. “Arden was furious when he found out, but it was so clever. We all thought it was hilarious.
“He was also kind. And gentle. He liked to play tricks and have fun, but he truly cared about others. There was one time when I was fifteen and the boys were going through a bit of a mean streak. A group of them asked me to go hunting with them in a different area than we usually went to. Waylan and Arden weren’t with us. When we got there, they said we should all spread out. After a couple hours of hardly any animals coming by, I went to find them to complain and go home, but they had all left without me.
“I finally found my way home late that night. Waylan was waiting on my doorstep. He took one look at my dirty clothes and tears coming down my face and stormed off. The next day, he, Andrei, and Kristopher—the boys who’d left me—all had black eyes and cuts on their faces. He’d gone to yell at them after finding out what they’d done, and they got into a fight.” She paused. “I may have been young, but that was the first time I realized I loved him.”
She fiddled with her fingers nervously and sniffed. “I’m sorry if this is strange. I haven’t talked about any of it in two years, since...”
Rynn leaned over to wipe away another tear as it tracked down her face. “Don’t apologize. He was part of your life, and you should not try to erase that. I’m sorry you have known such loss.”
Isla closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. It felt like a small weight had lifted off her chest. Talking about Waylan usually caused her too much pain over the future she’d lost, but she was starting to be able to look back on her time with him and be grateful for the epic love she’d had instead of keeping it locked away in a dusty corner of her soul. Waylan would always be her first love, the first one to hold her heart. And she realized she could carry him with her wherever she went while still leaving herself open to what the future held.
