“The bond.”
“Of that I am not sure.”
She unfolds her arms.
“You need to tell her.”
“I know.”
“Tomorrow will be too late. Tonight.”
I look at her.
She holds my gaze with seven hundred years of authority behind it.
“There is another matter,” she says.
Her voice changes register. Lower. More guarded.
How she speaks when the next words cost something.
“Lanthar.”
The walls dim. Just a fraction.
The Lithenmere absorbing the name spoken in this voice, by this woman, in this room.
I wait.
“He told me that he loved my mother. Every day since he left. That no day passed without it.”
She turns to the wall. The stone warms where her shoulder rests against it.
“Fae cannot lie. I wanted to hate him for leaving. I cannot hate someone for a truth that absolute.”
A pause.
“I am still deciding what to do with the rest.”
The gold brightens again. Slowly. The mountain holding the words against the stone.
“You don’t have to decide yet.”
“That is not what a king’s daughter does.”
“You’re not just a king’s daughter. You’re Seraphina.”
Her head turns. The wall glows where her shoulder was.
She looks at me.
“Thank you,” she says. Simply.
She leaves. The passage opens for her and seals behind her, and the warmth where she leaned stays in the stone for a long time.
That nightI lie beside Celeste as she is preparing to go to sleep. She’s been tired for the past few days. It’s been almost human-like. Thessivane has affected her strangely.
She shifts against me, finding her position, her hand sliding across my chest.
