Page 108 of Kingdom of Betrayal and Unknown

“Take an arrow to the heart,” Zayden says.

I suck in a breath and shake my head. “No.”

Elias hits Zayden’s chest. “You idiot. That’s how her father died.”

Zayden’s eyes go wide as he looks at me. “I’m so sorry. I knew he died, but I didn’t know that’s how. I would have never⁠—”

I raise my hand. “It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

Exhaustion weighs on my body as I lean into Kieran even more.

“Come on, Sweets. Time to go home so you can sleep,” Kieran gently encourages. “Say goodnight.”

“Night,” I mumble as Kieran guides me away.

They shout it back as we walk toward the entrance of the forest.

“You go straight home and get into bed,” Kieran tells me. “I’ll see you later.”

I tilt my head back, looking up at him. Everything in me wants to get on my tiptoes and kiss him, but we are so close to town, and anyone could be out and looking.

Kieran smiles, leans down, and kisses my forehead. I sigh with both contentment and disappointment.

“Soon, Sweets, soon,” he mumbles.

CHAPTER 31

I’ve been in a funk ever since I saw Kieran in the middle of the night after my nightmare. It’s been weird looking at my mother and not saying anything. I don’t want to bother her by making her worried. What would she say to something like that? I also can’t tell her because she called me High Lady, she wouldn’t know what that is, and I can’t tell her.

“What’s wrong?” Mother asks. “You’ve been even more distant and quiet this morning.”

I stop washing the dishes and turn to her. I can’t lie to her, yet I can’t tell her everything.

“Well?” she asks, not looking at me.

Sighing, I clasp my hands in front of me. I shouldn’t be expecting her to look at me so soon after my father’s death, not when I overheard her. It’s going to take time, but I can’t push her away. We need each other.

“I had a nightmare last night, and you were in it,” I tell her.

Mother stops sewing the pants she has been working on, but she still doesn’t look at me. “What was it about?”

I shrug. “You were just warning me about something, I don’t know what, and then you killed yourself,” I whisper toward the end.

Her eyes shoot up to mine for a brief second before looking back down. “I would never kill myself. You need me, and the baby will need me.”

That’s what she said before, but things can change so quickly. Just like last night with Marvin. I want to talk to her about it, but she’ll have more questions than I have answers, and I can’t do that to her.

“I would never do that and leave three children on this realm all on their own. It wouldn’t be fair to Avira, you or the baby,” she whispers.

It wouldn’t be, but a lot of people don’t think about that.

“I know. It was a nightmare and nothing else. I checked on you and went for a walk outside to calm myself down,” I tell her, waiting for her to say something or scold me, but it never comes.

Mother starts sewing again, and I know she isn’t going to say anything. Before Father died, she would have told me not to go outside alone in the middle of the night and to be safe. This is different. It’s almost like she doesn’t care.

“Maybe we should consider repairing clothes as extra income during the slow months,” I suggest. “It would help supplement our income so we don’t dip into the savings.”

“I’ll think about it,” she replies, and I get back to cleaning the last couple of dishes.