“What about me?”
Kelara tilted her head. “You and David and getting married. How do you feel?”
I fiddled with a knotted strand of hair. “Good, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“How am I supposed to feel?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t even remember a bit of my wedding planning. My heart was racing the entire three months Felipe and I were engaged.”
“Well, I don’t feel that.” But even as the words left my mouth, my heart skipped a beat.
I did feel that—just with a man who wasn’t my fiancé.
“Perhaps you really are built differently than me,” Kelara said,taking another sip before scrunching up her face at the taste. “But I’ve never met a bride who wasn’t flustered about her wedding day.”
I gave a close-lipped smile and shrugged. Before she could continue to poke and prod my heart, Mama bustled in. Asha clung to her leg as Mama listed my responsibilities for my final day at home: visiting the florist, the baker, the priest.
All in hopes of a wedding I was starting to fear I didn’t actually want.
She dragged me to each, and I spent the entire time looking forward to getting back to the palace.
To the little pond where someone would be waiting for me.
I pulled my bindle closer and hurried along the streets, bracing against the autumn chill that tried to push me back. My cheeks stung from the wind’s fury. I ducked into an alleyway, desperate for the palace’s shelter before I, too, blew away with the leaves. A gust roared past as I took a moment to adjust my coat and warm my hands. It was too cold for this time of year. But then again, summer had slipped past me faster than I thought possible.
I braced myself to head back into the weather’s onslaught when a familiar voice carried over the wind. I slunk back into the alley’s shadows, ducking behind a wooden crate.
Felipe strolled by, his arm around a pretty young woman. His hand was tight around her waist, and she blinked up at him with an adoring gaze, the same gaze Kelara had given him every day of their very brief marriage.
My stomach sank. Even knowing it would happen, it still hurt seeing Felipe’s callous betrayal again.Kelara would likely fade back into the heartbroken shell she became when he left the first time, when I had to carry her heartache on top of my own.
They disappeared around the corner, their voices still floating on the breeze. Anger prickled at every part of me. I wanted nothing more than to shout at Felipe and his parasitic hold on our family. I gathered my courage to exit the alleyway, slowing down when he was nowhere to be seen.
An orange leaf soared toward me. It pressed against my torso with the wind’s hand. I grabbed it and ran my fingers over it, pieces crumbling before they flew away.
Prince Thomas would be gone soon.
A pang coursed through me at the thought.
And I feared Kelara wouldn’t be the only sister heartbroken through the fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re not focusing.” Thomas’s words were clipped and cold.
“I’m trying!”
We’d been practicing the exact same water pillar exercise for an hour. Caleb had already disappeared to sweep the area, eager to escape the frustration building in the air between us.
A frustration I still wasn’t quite sure where to direct, despite knowing exactly where it came from.
Prince Thomas was, quite clearly, ruining my life.
“Try harder.”
My nostrils flared.
