“What was that?” I swear, the corner of his lip tugged up the tiniest bit.
“I. Regret. What. I. Said.” I turned my head away, unable to meet his eyes. “Comparing you to those from my childhood was a mistake. I don’t know why it bothered you so much, unless you know more about me than you let on. You probably do.You always seem to. Regardless, I am sorry. It’s too cruel a comparison.”
“Nairu, come sit.” I looked at him, confused, and he patted the desk in front of him.
I don’t know why I listened, but I did. I swung around to his side of the desk and jumped up on top of the wood, my legs dangling just in front of his.
“I don’t blame you for your words,” he continued. “It was my intention to keep my distance. I’ve prodded you on more than one occasion, and said things I never meant—never would mean. It’s a natural response for you to hate me.”
I gripped the edges of the desk. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s safer.”
“It’s safer?” I scoffed. “What does that even mean?”
I grabbed the bottle of mead off of his desk and took a sip. He hadn’t offered me a glass, and I was going to need to be at least half as drunk as he likely was to deal with his riddles.
“You have no idea how badly I want to tell you.”
“How badly?”
I took another sip, and he watched the motion like a hawk. “Badly.” He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “Why are you really here, Nairu?”
“I heard a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Zaelos’s. It was too fuzzy to make out. It felt like I was remembering something, but it started to give me an awful headache, so Kaelias pulled me out of my… trance, I suppose.”
That seemed to sober him slightly. “What did the voice say?”
“Don’t you dare look at me like you want to say goodbye because I am not letting you die,” I repeated, shrugging. “Lorian was talking about how he wouldn’t let anything harm me. It made me think about what you’d said… about how you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, and then I heard those words, too.”
Alandris stared at me, unblinking. “You don’t know who said them?”
I shook my head. “Do you think it is a memory that belongs to Zaelos? Maybe I can hear his thoughts as he can hear mine.”
He grabbed the bottle from my hands and drank, not bothering with his glass. I watched his throat bob. Once. Twice. Thrice. He stopped and set the bottle down on the desk. “No, you shouldn’t be able to hear anything Zaelos doesn’t want you to hear.”
“You said I should let you know if things like that happen, so that’s why I’m here,” I explained. It sounded like a pathetic half-truth even as the words left my lips. Remembering Alandris’ vow to protect me had made me remember how kind and gentle he’d been with me, and it’d made me feel sick when I thought about what I’d said to him. I’d compared him to people I regarded as literal monsters. People who had…
“Why do you look like you’re going to cry?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. “I’m tired, Alandris.”
His gaze softened. “I know.”
“No, I—I’m tired of hating you. Can we please stop this game?” I wiped at my eyes. “Whatever it is you are doing—saying things you don’t mean and keeping from me the things you do actually mean. Can’t we just be normal to one another? You are one of the few people I can trust with everything that’s happening to me. I don’t know when that changed, but it has, and I—”
He’d moved so quickly, and I’d been so stunned by the action, I barely had time to comprehend what he’d done. Hooking his arm behind my knees, he’d dragged me from the top of his desk and into his lap. I sat sideways across him, arms braced against his chest, staring at him in shock as he wrapped his arms around my back.
“I don’t know if I can do normal,” he mumbled. “So, let me comfort you just this once, and that will be the end of it. It is all that I can offer you.”
I don’t know what possessed me to do so, but I leaned my head against his chest, falling against his body and letting his warmth envelop me completely. His heartbeat was audible, and its pace—at least as rapid as my own—offered me comfort. I wasn’t the only one losing my mind right now. Damn, mead. Probably.
He ran a hand through my hair, the other still holding me firmly in place. “Everything will be alright, Nairu. I promise.”I promise. He repeated the word like a chant with each pass of his fingers through my hair.
At some point, I dared to look up at him and found him looking down at me. We held each other’s gaze, neither of us wanting to speak. And we stayed like that for a long time, tangled in each other’s arms. Longer than should have been, and what could have been forever, had a knock not sounded at the door, stirring us both from whatever temporary stasis we’d been plunged into.
“It’s Jyuri,” he said, voice groggy.
I practically jumped from his lap and back to the other side of the desk. “Uh—yes. How do you know?”
