Her face was illuminated in perfect color when the projection sparked.
“Good,” I said. “I found?—”
“Erina’s back in Vyaan,” Maudoric said quickly.
Relief nearly made me sag.
“Where?” I asked quickly. “At the keep?”
“No, she’s staying at House Terasyn. One of the keepers spotted her in the village. I thought you would want to know immediately.”
“I’ll start heading back tonight,” I informed her. But the distance to Vyaan was over a day still, and that was without flying breaks. “Have my scouts keep an eye on her until I arrive.”
“Be careful,” Maudoric told me after nodding. “There’s a storm brewing in the Southeast. You’ll catch it.”
I didn’t care. Nothing would keep me from her.
When the Com call ended, I shot up into the air. I’d send word to Azur once I returned to Vyaan. He would understand my sudden absence when I didn’t return to his keep tonight.
Once I was over Laras, I maneuvered south and began the long flight back home, back to mykyrana.
And once I got there, I knew it would only be the beginning.
CHAPTER 32
ERINA
The storm was howling outside, but Syndras’s sitting room was warm and perfect. She was reading and sipping from the thimble-sized glass of sweet wine pinched between her fingers.
I was in the chair opposite her, working to mend a pair of trews that had seen better days. I knew that Syndras’s wealth had been dwindling over the years after her husband’s death, though I’d thought that her daughter marrying into another noble House would help her.
But she’d waved away my concerns, telling me that she was just practical and didn’t like to waste credits when she had perfectly good things that just needed some love and care.
That was what I’d always admired about the elderly Kylorr female. She wasn’t like any noble I’d ever worked for, who’d believed that flaunting their wealth and always buying extravagant things was the norm. Syndras lived relatively simply for a noble from a long-standing family. She only kept on one cook because she couldn’t make food to save her life. But all the keepers, me included, had been let go over time, and the sitting room showed signs of it.
My nose was itching from the dust. I’d already swept out her room yesterday and wiped down the windows and surfaces. It had needed it.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she grumbled from her chair.Stillgrumbling about it, just as she’d done about all the little tasks I’d done around the home.
“I know,” I said simply, conjuring up a smile for her, “but I want to. It makes me feel useful.”
“You don’t owe me, my dear,” Syndras said for the hundredth time since I’d shown up on her doorstep a couple nights ago. “You need a soft place to land. Not days spent cleaning, especially in your condition.”
I still hadn’t told her who the father was. I couldn’t. Not yet.
“You’re kind enough to let me stay, to let me eat your food,” I said softly, returning my attention to the seam I was mending. I hadn’t sewn anything, hadn’t patched anything in quite a long time. I’d missed it. The repetitive movements felt like a mesmerizing lull, a needed calm. “Tidying a few things is the least I can do. Besides, I would get bored otherwise.”
“You?” Syndras harrumphed. “Bored,” she repeated softly, smiling as she took another sip from her wine. “You’re never bored, Erina. You’re always galaxies away in your head.”
I sobered. “That’s what everyone’s been telling me. They say I need to be realistic.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Syndras frown.
“That’s not a bad thing, little one,” she said. “I think it’s delightful. I think people need to be more like you. Maybe then they wouldn’t be so miserable all the time.”
I didn’t reply. Instead I thought,I’m just as miserable now, so what good is it, really?
I was heartbroken after Kaldur, rejected by Luc—who I’d always thought I could rely on, pregnant, and partly still in denial about it. And I’d returned home with my proverbial tail tucked between my legs because I’d run out of money. And now I wasmooching off my friend and old employer’s good graces with no true plan.
