“Ma’Teo.” Liana’s prickly tone makes me turn around, slowly. I look at her, lips pursed and arms crossed. “You will sleep this time. No reading.” She snatches the scroll out from under my arm. “I will check.”
Vann lopes over to my side. “I’ll take him.”
I let out another breath and submit to my fate. As we walk, the weight from before returns. No sooner than we pass the familiar passageway that leads to the scrying grotto and the bathing pools than Vann speaks again.
“I doubt you would appreciate my lullabies, brother, so I suggest you seek slumber as quickly as possible.”
I let out the first semblance of a laugh in the last six hours. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a musical note leave your lips.”
He smiles. “Ahh, but the sound of steel leaving my belt is sweet enough for me to resist the art of crystal singing.”
I, somehow, smile again. “What if your mate appreciates a kind song to ease her into sleep?”
The easiness is blotted out by a large, looming emotion.
“You forget I will have no mate,” he growls.
I look back at him, somehow also angry. “I think you will, and I grow tired of pretending you don’t already have her. I don’t understand the intricacy of why a Fuegorra would or wouldn’t sing, but I feel?—”
“My crystal will never sing.”
I stop just before my room. “Vann, the humans are here to stay, and we are dying. If it’s not Arlet, I am sure it will be someone else. Though, there is something in the air between you two. Perhaps I could ask Liana to look at you and find out what is amiss.”
My friend’s face is as cold as ice. “I will speak to her if I wish.”
The guarded, roughness of his face troubles me. “Has something happened to you?” I ask.
The flicker on his face comes seconds before the denial, but it is too late. I’ve already seen his truth.
There is a small nudge in my gut, pushing me towards solving whatever this is. But, another part of me knows that I can only solve one problem at a time.
“You won’t go with us tomorrow,” I say. “There is no one I’d rather trust this city to than you.”
“I’m not so wise or level-headed as you,” he says.
I smile sadly. “You have been around the throne just as long as I have. You can do this.”
Vann opens his mouth to resist again, but I shake my head. He knows I’m right. Besides, a part of me isn’t settled with his love life. If there is some problem preventing him and Arlet from being together, I will be able to solve it when I get back.
“Sleep well, brother,” Vann says, reaching out and putting a hand on my shoulder. “Would it help you if I stayed nearby?”
Even upset, he offers to be a friend. Without thinking, I pull him into an embrace.
“Thank you, but I am all right,” I say as he eases himself out of my grip.
When he turns to leave, I feel like I can finally sleep.
I just pray the gods will keep Estela until I return.
Chapter 3
Uvite
ESTELA
Teo?
My mind can’t help but continue to search for my mate despite knowing he will not hear. It feels like a small eternity, but I know it has only been a day or two.
