I wheeled back toward the wood pile. Midway, my eyes landed on a pair of blue ones.
While patrolling one of the lookout points across from my level, Aire riveted his gaze on me. A fitted vest exposed the knight’s toned biceps, his broadswords rested at his back, and a hawk settled on his bare shoulder.
He stood there like a descendent of the sky. Hovering over everyone. Keeping them safe. The scion of an ancient sylph.
Savior. Defender.
Wistfulness stretched across the knight’s features, those irises as lacquered as a midnight sky, the pupils blazing like celestials. Heat scorched my flesh. Like a gust of sweltering wind, his attention stirred the blood in my veins.
A feminine throat cleared. I whirled toward Briar, who stood two paces away, threading both hands in front of her. A caramel velvet coat hugged her straight frame, scalloped walnut trim edged the collar and fitted sleeves, and walnut brown leather pants sank into high matching boots. She resembledAutumn itself, with that lustrous red hair plaited amid a strand of gold leaves.
The princess must have finished talking with her mother. Linking our arms together, Briar graced me with an empathetic expression. “Take a turn with me.”
Not a request. Not from this paragon.
More than warranted. Obeying her every command was the least I owed this woman, whom I had idolized since childhood.
I harnessed my axe. As we strolled from the timbers, the brush of Aire’s gaze pursued us, the sensation lingering like a caress as we fell out of range. Always, a part of me stayed behind with him too.
Crossing a gangway in silence, the princess and I admired the legendary setting. Leaves rained from the boughs. A group of stags with gilded antlers promenaded along the creek.
On an abutting bridge, Eliot combatted with Poet, the minstrel’s garrote lashing against the jester’s blades. The narrow planks challenged their balance as the men trained thirty feet above the earth like gods, their chiseled torsos glistening with sweat. In between blows, the men’s wicked banter carried across the enclave.
While spinning a pair of knives between his fingers, the jester caught his wife’s eye, their connection intrinsic, the temperature hot enough to break a thermometer. Briar’s complexion piqued as if someone had injected lava into her veins, the blush enhancing her freckles.
I’d seen this exchange more times than I could count. No more restrained than Jeryn and Flare, the jester and princess would be fucking within the hour.
There was a time when I hadn’t identified with this innate tension. The erotic buzz. The atmospheric charge. The unspokenpromises of sensuous things to come. But now I knew that experience to the point of agony.
After a prolonged lapse of eye-fucking, Poet seethed like a pissed-off feline when Eliot took the initiative, cuffing the jester in the ribs. We chuckled as the men launched into another bout.
At another vista point, Posy and Vale stood guard. Whereas Cadence and Nicu swept brooms over the cabin stoops, the lady’s presence diverting his attention from a certain disheveled alchemist.
The domestic sights warmed my chest. Isolated from the court, with our fellowship laboring on simple tasks, it became a different kind of home. A new sort of castle.
With her free arm, Briar reached out to a tree that caressed her fingers like an old friend. Next, the bough shifted direction, extending to the strand of leaves in her braid, tracing it tenderly. This must be the tree that gifted her the foliage while she lived out her banishment. The same species where she left a note her son would eventually find.
“I remember this place vividly,” Briar shared, grinning at the branch as it retracted from her hair. “Fairytales are often ghastly. But in our nation, some of those tales inspire hope and wisdom, as well as redemption.”
The wordredemptiongripped me in a chokehold. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“And yet you have it.” Releasing my arm, she wheeled to face me. “If the public knew what you did, they would demand your execution. But then, I’m not a princess who does what others expect. Nor is my mother or the rest of our clan. We decided together on this matter and unanimously chose not to convict you.”
“I plan on apologizing to them until I lose my voice,” I promised. “I should have told everyone from the beginning.”
“Yes, you should have. Trusting you again will take time, but we’re willing.” Briar stepped closer. “We each have our flaws and errors of judgement. That’s what strengthens us as a unit.” Then she took my hands in her own. “As a family.”
Family. The confirmation tethered around my heart.
“So long as we’re honest,” the princess stressed. “You’re as much kin as anyone here. We cannot do without you. Please, do not lie to us again.”
“Never,” I agreed, my voice breaking. “I love you, princess.”
Briar’s eyes glistened as she traced a foliage marking on my skin. “I love you too, Aspen of Autumn.”
The canopy dappled us in a prism of colors. After a moment, Briar rounded her pragmatic shoulders. “Onward now.”
***
