Cursed, and if they knew, they couldn’t tell me why.
Time slipping away with their death looming.
Another throw of my blade. The second. Stomping over to retrieve them only to throw them again.
When Merrick’s voice echoed in the woods, I jumped.
“Reyla. Come back. Please? I promise I’ll grovel!” His honest sweetness was as equally appealing as Lorant’s sharply clever banter, and it was all I could do not to call out and tell him where to find me.
But I hadn’t even begun to lay out my squares for that quilt, which meant I needed more time.
At least my fire had gone out and was no longer smoking to give my location away.
Finally, his calls faded. Good. The tortured hoarseness of hisvoice had made tears spring up in my eyes. If he’d found me, I would’ve told him that my heart was still angry, that they should’ve found some way to tell me. That I wasn’t ready to face all that—and them—quite yet.
I laid on the blankets for part of the afternoon, still running what Lorant had told me through my mind. Answers still weren’t coming fast, but I kept collecting enough scraps to start pinning them together. My mind’s craft project wasn’t much, but I suspected I’d soon have something I could hold up to show I was ready.
As night swallowed the day, leaving only darkness behind, I ate dinner with Farris. My perky fire brought me comfort, and I sat beside it, staring into the flames. They flickered, mesmerizing me, and as the wood snapped and popped, I threaded an imaginary needle and started binding squares together, adding a section or two to my quilt made of peace. It was looking good, but it still wasn’t ready to hold up and show to the world.
I wasn’t either.
With Farris snorting and snoring beside me, I slept again, waking sometime in the stark cold night to Lorant’s snarls and bellows echoing through the woods. Hearing them reminded me again of how different the two men were. Merrick had tried to lure me out with his ever-present sweetness, while Lorant would scour the area with his usual relentless fury.
The oddest thing about the entire situation was how appealing I found both parts of this person who used to be one but had been sliced in two.
The only other time I woke outside of needing to feed the fire was when Farris growled. Rising onto my elbow, I shoved hair off my face and peered around, but I saw nothing other than my furry friend glaring toward the woods.
A mouse or a rabbit? When I saw no movement, I figured it must be.
“Good boy. Keep watch.” After smoothing down his bristled fur with lots of pats and waiting until he’d settled, I flopped back onto my bed and fell back asleep.
Nothing disturbed my sleep again that night.
Come morning, I woke to rain pattering nearby, brushed away from my warm location by the overhead branches. I ate while snuggling beneath the blankets, still thinking, yet delicately adding more squares to my imaginary quilt.
More pacing, this time accompanied by raindrops, was followed by more throwing blades at the now falling apart dead tree.
When the afternoon had settled in for a short nap, I knew it was time. I hadn’t come to any major decisions, but my quilt was done, and I was ready to lift it for the world—or Lorant and Merrick to see. I gathered my things and made sure my fire had burned away to only ashes.
But when I tried to flit to my suite, my damn power failed me.
It was a long walk home with rain drizzling down my spine.
I snuck in through the back kitchen door, gliding past the staff with my head high, as if it was normal for the queen to saunter through the cooking area wearing dingy leathers and with her hair hanging around her face in saturated strands. I only paused to wish the head chef, Dulvade, a pleasant evening before taking the back stairs to my floor.
There was no slinking past Surren and my guard.
“I’m back,” I said brightly as I strode among them and swept open my door. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Surren lifted his hand. “But?—”
I shut the door before he could finish. My bag thudded on the floor when I dropped it, making my ladies jump where they satnear the fire, Moira reading. Faelith sewing, and Calista… well, it looked like she was brooding, her new, favorite pastime.
“I won’t need you tonight,” I said as Farris left me, galloping over to scamper around Faelith. “I’ll see you all in the morning?”
Calista scrambled to her feet. “Oh, I think you?—”
“Goodnight!” With that, I walked into my bedroom and shut the door.
