She hadn’t asked Niklas for any gossip since.
Asta had made up for it when saving Kaid from his own embarrassing antics at the party a few days ago, but things had still been awkward between them. This was the first time they were meeting like this since their argument. Well, since theirfirst real, emotionally-charged argument. Asta hated the weight of the silence as he continued into her chambers.
“Where do we start?” Kaid smiled as he sat on the sofa.
The pair focused on the sign language lesson for about an hour before somehow trailing off to the real reason as to why they began lessons in the first place. Asta had been to the village a few times since the killing of the courtesan creature. Luckily, the number of new orphans had slowed over the last week or so, but the villagers were still going missing at an alarming rate, and the majority were not just sailors anymore. Many were townsfolk who never approached the coast in fear of such fate. That femalethinghad not been lying when she said the disappearances would worsen.
“Maybe the answer is in one of these thousands of books.” Kaid lifted his eyebrows as he toyed with the leather cover of the book on top of a stack next to the sofa.
Asta cocked her head to the side and arched an eyebrow. “Are you making fun of my reading habit?”
His head swung back-and-forth. “Not that you read. But I am definitely poking at your ability to collect books.”
“Sometimes life is too heavy. But no matter the size of the book, it is always lighter than reality.” She knew that all too well. Asta had done a remarkable job at pretending that the whole night in the forest had never happened, but that blood would be stained on her soul for eternity. She shrugged as she snatched the book from Kaid’s hands. “Don’t you ever feel that way?”
Asta’s heart raced as the echoes of footsteps and voices sounded in the hall outside of her suite door.No one was supposed to be here!But she supposed the castle was open ground for guests, so maybe they were just passing through. She turned to say as much to Kaid, but before she could, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into her bedroom with a finger pressed to his lips.
“What in the—”
Kaid gently shut the door behind them. “We can’t risk it, blondie. I’m serious.”
And he was. He was as serious as Asta had ever seen him. Maybe he really was taking his marriage to her sister seriously. But still, something tugged at her, reminding her that he can’t marry Maren.
Oh, sweet Knud, god of love above, not now.
Asta excused herself to the washroom before she imploded, tapping her doorway on the way in. She pointed at her reflection in the mirror. “You arenotfalling for him. You hear me? That is your sister’s husband, to be king of Salendron someday. He isoff limits.”
After a few minutes of scolding herself, she emerged to find Kaid picking up various items on her vanity and investigating them.
“Will you ever tell me why you tap them?” Kaid gestured to the doorframe where Asta had just exited. “Is it a nervous habit?”
Asta wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t feel like hiding it anymore. Not from Kaid, at least. Something about him being in her room made her give in, made her want to just have someone to talk to without secrets.
“It’s not exactly a nervous habit, but similar.”
Kaid listened tentatively as Asta explained her rituals she had been doing since the beginning of her memories. The tapping, the bone cracking, the hair brushing. There wasn’t an easy way to explain that she simply could not move on with her life if a ritual wasn’t fulfilled. If she tried to skip over one, a tugging in her chest would eat her alive to the point of a breakdown. If she didn’t complete her ritual, something bad would happen to her or someone she loved and it would be all her fault.
It was hard to put into words, but Asta described it as a giant fly, buzzing around her head, and the more she ignored it, the closer the fly would get until it burrowed deep into her ear and drove her mad until she cracked a knuckle or tapped a threshold. She knew it made no logical sense, but she still couldn’t let it go once it was in her mind, until she completed the task. Well, except for one time, when she passed through the doorway of the music room to listen to Kaid play.
“You didn’t tap the threshold that day?” It was the first and only question Kaid asked throughout the entire explanation. He didn’t look at Asta like she had lost her mind, like she needed to be locked up. Instead, he looked to be in awe.
Asta shook her head in response.
“And you live through this every day and keep it to yourself?” he asked.
Asta nodded. “Every day.”
Kaid sighed. “Don’t ever see this as a weakness or flaw. You fight something internally that others may never understand, and that makes you a warrior. Your greatest battles may be within your own mind, but you do not have to fight them alone.” Kaid grabbed Asta’s mother’s comb from her vanity and held it up. “Do you think if I combed your hair, it would work that way?”
Asta didn’t know how to respond to that. No one had ever offered to do it for her. She supposed it made it difficult because only her father truly knew how important her rituals were to her, but the people around her had seen it enough to know. No one had ever bothered to help, they simply avoided the topic.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had someone try.”
Kaid gestured to the stool in front of her vanity and Asta rested on it, her back as stiff as a board. She was nervous, to say the least. Kaid was so close to her, and not only was brushing herhair intimate enough to begin with, but knowing that it may fill an emotional gap for her made it feel worse.
He is your sister’s betrothed. He is your sister’s betrothed. He is your sister’s betrothed.Asta chanted to herself over and over as she pulled her hair from its braid, breaking it free.
“Twenty-eight, right?” Kaid asked as his turquoise eyes met Asta’s in the mirror before her.
