I glanced back—Aunt El still tended to Mayra, taking a soft brush to her feathers.
“Come inside. I’ll show you.” I waved for him to follow me to the front entry. He hummed skeptically, but trailed me.
Once in the foyer, we hung our coats and kicked off our boots to not track snow onto the estate’s plush wool rugs. He grabbed my hand, and I pulled him in to steal a brief yet chill-thawing kiss.
“I missed you,” he whispered as I led us into the sitting room.
“Soon,” I answered.
Soon, nothing would stop me from marching him up the steps of the Luz Palace or Umber House. As my husband.
We’d gone two days without seeing one another. Sneaking back here from the Sahlms was more difficult than Luz.
Dritan settled into a deep leather chair, and I tucked my knees beneath my thick wool skirt, kneeling on the floor so that I could place the tattered book on the low table in front of us. Within the tomes in the Sahlmsaran library, the collection of shortstories had hidden—so inconspicuous and overlooked. The sixth volume contained the fable.
“You found something in a book of romances?” he teased.
“Yes, listen,” I said, and used a Phynnic charm to flip through the pages to the right spot. Dritan leaned over the table, his elbows on his knees as I read aloud.
When I finished, I glanced up at him. He wore a furrowed brow, but his chest inflated. “So, only the Prince could break the curse, with a stone?” Dritan asked.
He stared at the book, gaze burning with something akin to fear. The story wouldn’t be ours, but certain things felt too close to bear. A tale of a star-crossed Princess and Prince. I flipped back to the page prior.
“Yes. A familiar stone, look.” Plopping the tome in his lap, I trailed my fingers over the illustrations that accompanied the script.
A black mirror and a flat gem with a sun symbol etched into it adorned the page.
I slid forward to sit with my hip touching his and gave his knee a gentle squeeze. “Your mother’s memorandum—it matches.”
Our gazes met, his illuminated warmth and sudden understanding. Dritan’s hand covered mine. The light from the fire and oil lamps painted his skin in golden hues in the dusk.
“Ohhh so cozy. What do we have here?” A playful voice carried into the room. Aunt El leaned against the doorframe of the sitting room with crossed arms and a mirthful grin.
Both me and Dritan jumped, too engrossed in each other to have heard her enter the estate. My hand dropped from my lover’s knee.
Caught.
Though despite how much she shielded hers, Aunt El had never once encouraged me to hide my heart.
Dritan explained his upbringing, expertly avoiding the names of either of his birth parents. He told my aunt his story—of being born in the Source Origins’ domain and then found in a burning wood. His adoptive mother, Hara, had loved him as her own.
“We got by on Mama’s meager salary until I was old enough to work. She passed away a year ago.”
He had no one left. Except me and the family who did not yet know he existed.
“I’m sorry,” Aunt El hummed.
To my aunt’s credit, she did not appear skeptical. She listened with rapt attention.
“As a babe, my birth mother left me with a memorandum just like the one in this book,” he concluded and pointed to the page. He shuffled through his pocket before withdrawing the precious object and setting it down in the gutter of the pages—an exact match.
“You carry that around with you all the time?” Aunt El asked with a quirked brow, but hope lit her eyes.
He smiled back weakly. “It’s all I have of her; I never knew her, but I believe she wanted to keep me safe. It’s a good luck charm. I don’t know why the Sources saved me. The memorandum only appeared to me once, on my twelfth birthday.”
And had told him to seek his father—though, that secret I’d guard until Dritan was ready to reveal it.
I rubbed a circle on his back. His purpose seemed clear to me—to rule the North Corridor someday, to help me reign with fairness and bring peace after a long plight.
