Don’t walk away, you idiot. Stay with her.
He shook his head roughly. He could never be what she needed.
When he first met her, he’d resented the thought of having to look after someone else. Now, after these days with her, remembering his family, he saw the truth. The reality was not that he hated being expected to take care of someone else, it was that he knew he couldn’t do it.
Lucy needed someone who could succeed at court, and gods knew, it wasn’t him. Better to walk away early than to watch her resentment slowly build. To see the sparkle in her eyes turn to bitterness as she realized he had cost her her freedom and given her nothing in return. Until she finally lost whatever regard she’d had for him and sent him away.
“I can see it!” Her voice was bright with joy, pulling him out of his dark thoughts.
He looked where she was pointing. There was a hazy, dark gray line nestling between the curves of the distant hills, beneath the sky full of heavy clouds that had followed them all day.
She spun in a circle, dragging him with her as she laughed, and he forgot his worries, all his dire predictions, in the sparkling delight of her happiness.
She grinned. “Let’s run!” And he laughed with her as she pulled him along for the last mile and then up the steep grassy slope of the massive headland.
They arrived, breathless and windswept, to stand at the top of the chalk cliffs. The moody sea filled the horizon, dark and gray. Whitecaps danced as far as the eye could see, and a lone ship tossed outside the harbor, tiny in the distance.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
He couldn’t help wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to reply, “You’re beautiful.”
He kissed her, standing there on the headland as the wind pulled at them. Their clothes and hair whipped wildly in the cold gusts, but all he could feel was her warm body. Her mouth on his. Her hands in his hair. Her.
Everything. She is everything.
He didn’t argue. Somehow, it was true.
She leaned against him, resting her head against his chest, her arms wrapped around his waist as they looked out.
About a half a mile to the east lay the wide, gray-brown river Derrow that they had followed faithfully for the last four days. No longer churning and frothing, here it ran deep and still through the valley the water had hollowed out on its way to the sea.
Below them, beside the huge river mouth, nestled against the rolling grass-covered hills, was the town of Darant, beyond it the tall masts of the ships at harbor in the sheltered bay.
Surely one of them could be convinced to sail west and up the coast to the town of Glevum? He would promise them payment on arriving at the Nephilim Temple. Or he could work the voyage. They’d made good time traveling south, and they couldn’t wait to see if Tor had made it back to Eshcol and then all the way back down to the harbor town.
Somehow, they had avoided Dornar and his men on their flight south, but the town was sure to be crawling with his men. Why rip the woods apart looking for a needle in a haystack when he could find somewhere comfortable to sit and simply wait them out? That was Dornar’s way, after all.
Lucy ran her free hand over his forehead, rubbing away the scowl lines with a smile. “What’s wrong?”
Gods. She had crawled all the way into his mind. “Dornar will be down there. And somehow we have to convince a ship to sail with us.”
“Oh.” She grinned. “I keep forgetting….” She pulled a rag from the inside pocket of her jacket and unfolded it. “Maybe I can help. Hold out your hand.”
He stepped back slightly and held his hand out, palm up as she shook the rag into it. A gold ring, heavy with emeralds, fell into his hand, along with a bright sapphire, a set of luminous pearls, and a couple of gold coins.
He stared at the small treasure blankly. “What’s this?”
“That’s my running-away fund.” She laughed sweetly, and he wondered how long it had taken for her to gather her stash of jewels and coins. How dangerous it had been to pilfer from Ballanor and her father. How little she’d ever truly had, that this sad handful was her entire running-away fund. Gods.
It was everything she owned, the tangible symbol of her dream. And she had given it to him.
He didn’t know what to say. Having funds to purchase passage on a ship would be a huge help. But taking her treasure from her felt wrong. Especially since he had every intention of stealing her dream of freedom from her, and then leaving her to face that destiny on her own.
He lifted her hand and gently put it all back into the rag that it had come from, folding up the sides to keep it safe and curling her fingers over the top. Scowling at the reminder of just how small her treasure was.
Her face fell, and for the first time in days, he saw the vulnerability that she worked so hard to hide. She had smiled and laughed so openly with him. She had shared her fears and grief. She had trusted him enough to let him into her body. And now she was about to get that look again. The cool mask that she used to hide behind. And he couldn’t bear it.
He lifted her hand and dropped a slow kiss onto her fingers. “Thank you, Lucy. This means more than I can tell you.”
