I crossed my arms, turning to face him. “I don’t know yet. Am I not allowed to go outside?” I hated that he treated me like a child. The frustration, at both him and the whole situation I found myself in, boiled over and I was itching for a fight.
“Princess…” There was a warning in my nickname. One I wasn’t going to back down from.
“Champion…” I echoed it right back to him.
He sighed heavily, rubbing between his eyes. Coming a step closer, he put his hands on my shoulders, his eyes softening as he looked at me. “What’s wrong?”
I stared into his hazel eyes and I weakened. What I wouldn’t give to rest against him right now. Let him take the burden, even just for a minute. But that wasn’t fair to him. He had enough of his own burdens. He didn’t need mine.
“Everything?” My voice came out small. I looked away from him to stare at the stone floor. “But if you mean in this immediate instance… not having any fucking clue about the Veil. I’ve read every book Finn can track down. The only thing I can think of is trying to examine the Veil itself. So here I am”—I gestured to my surroundings—“going to inspect the Veil.”
If I could figure out how to do it.
Without waiting for a response, I shook off his hands, pushed the door open, and stepped into a drizzle. The seasons were turning, winter becoming spring, and the early rains had started.
He followed me out the door.
I glared at him. “I’m staying inside the castle wards, Griff. You don’t have to come with me.”
“Humor me,” he said as he came alongside me, his hand moving to my lower back, warm and steady.
I let his touch ground me, ignoring how much I liked it.
“Where to, Princess?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. Wherewouldbe the best place to do this? The Veil was a dome over the entire kingdom, set high in the sky… “The ramparts,” I announced.
We climbed the stone steps, slick from rain as the drizzle picked up and turned into a shower. The temperature wasn’t warm yet, and with this rain, we were going to be soaked before too long. We walked along the walls, the soles of my boots occasionally slipping, but Griff’s arm shot out and caught me. I was torn between rolling my eyes at him—it wasn’t like I was going to tumble off the wall—and liking the feeling of his hand on my waist.
I paused when we reached an overlook built into the walls. There was more space here and we wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.
“What’s your plan here, Princess?”
“Commune with the Veil?” I tried to sound certain but it came out as a question.
He settled in to wait, rain plastering his hair to his head, and leaned a hip against the ledge. He looked entirely unaffected by the rain. “Carry on.”
I strode to the edge of the wall, staring up at the sky, all too aware of his eyes burning into my back. I tried to clear my mind, but all I could think of was his gaze.
I turned back to him with my hands on my hips. “Don’t you have anything better to do than watch me?”
“No.”
Shaking my head, I turned my back on him once more and tried to block out his presence.
Easier said than done.
I was always aware of him, drawn to him. Even before he started sleeping in my bed.
There was something about him, something about the strength and grace that radiated from him, that made me desperate to crawl into his arms and feel his hands on more than just my waist or arm. But he had yet to make any sort of move, even though he held me every night until I fell asleep.
I took a deep breath and shoved my churning emotions aside. I wasn’t solving the problem of my handsome Champion in this moment.
Closing my eyes, I stretched out with my awareness, spreading it far and wide. I felt the wards of Valdris, keeping us safe. I could even sense the wards I’d put up in Terraleth and Maraleth. But nothing that felt like the Veil. Not that I truly knew what it felt like.
I kept going, stretching farther and farther upward, until I had reached my limits. And there, shimmering like a dome in the sky, almost out of reach, I found it—a woven blanket of light.
It was miraculously crafted. I could sense the seven channels that had been woven together to create it, the alchemy of which had created something completely new. No longer were the rainbow of colors represented within the fabric of the Veil, but instead, it was a glowing, pure, bright light stretching from every corner of Serentyn.
