Episode 26
Pretend That Didn’t Happen
Cerian shoots across the cabin so fast that Arisanna almost drops the bowl of berries.
What was that about? Did she say something wrong?
They were...bonding. Weren’t they? Not the other kind of bonding, but the real kind. Getting to know each other better.
Well, getting to know Cerian better. His strengths and weaknesses. He was letting her inside. Smiling even. That gorgeous smile that makes her heart skip a beat.
And watching him do magic—if she were the swooning type, that might have done it. He’s not just an elf with magic. He’s an elf with powerful magic. Like his parents.
And feeding him. What possessed her to do that? The air grew heavy around them, full of tension, like a taut rope.
It was...surreal.
What is happening between them?
And why did he just run across the room?
“Are you all right?” she asks softly.
But before he can answer, their cabin and the storm raging outside fade away, leaving her cocooned in layers of satin on a...bed of moss? Is this real, or is it the heartlanding still?
And if it is real, and she didn’t imagine the moss part...was the rest of it real, too?
Did Cerian really carry her to bed?
Stars above. Whose bed is she sleeping in?
When Elowyn wakes to the salty sea air tugging at her silver hair, she’s not at all surprised.
She scrambles to a sitting position on the deck of their familiar sailboat, searching for Rominy as she blinks in the bright sunlight.
He lies on his back, rubbing his eyes, the corded muscles of his forearms straining his rolled sleeves. “No labyrinth this time. I haven’t recovered from my last heroic death yet.”
Elowyn bites her lip to keep from laughing.
They’ll be embarking on their own adventure in the real world come morning. They can take a break from the excitement in their heartlanding tonight.
She wanders toward him and looks down into his caramel eyes as he squints up at her.
“What do you want to do instead? Do you think the water is warm?” Without waiting for a response, she lowers herself to the edge of the deck and swings her legs over the side, letting the waves tickle her toes. “It is warm!”
“Do you ever just sit and exist?” A smile quirks Rominy’s lips, and Elowyn takes it as the good-natured teasing he hopefully meant it as.
“You sound like my pera.”
“Pera?” Rominy pushes himself into a sitting position, and Elowyn twirls her toes in the water.
“My father. It’s an Elvish endearment.”
“You must be close to your...pera.”
With a sad sort of smile, she nods. “Both my parents, but my mother was often weak and struggled to keep up with us when we were elflings. I spent more time with Pera as a child while Mother rested.”
“Because of our heartbinding?”
Elowyn nods. “But I had Grandmera, too. And Cerian and Tharios.”
“Grandmera...your grandmother?”
“Yes. She wanted to come meet you, but Mother insisted someone from the royal family needed to remain in Lostariel.”
Thoughts of Grandmera and home tug at Elowyn, but she tries not to dwell on the homesickness prickling behind her eyes.
Rominy turns to face the horizon beside her, letting his feet hang in the lapping water as the sun beats down on them and the breeze plays with their hair.
“You should invite her to visit us sometime,” Rominy says, and Elowyn turns to smile at him.
“I’d love that.”
Then he frowns. “She’s not too frail to travel, is she?”
Frail? Grandmera? Elowyn laughs at the thought. “She’s barely two hundred. She could have more elflings if she binded again.”
Rominy loses his balance and almost ends up in the water, but Elowyn steadies him with a hand to his arm.
“Did you say two hundred? How long do elves live? I should have paid more attention to Arisanna’s lessons.”
“Most elves live about five hundred years.”
Rominy’s eyes grow wide. And then his brows furrow. “You’re the same age I am...right?”
Laughter fills her at the look on his face. “I think I’m a week younger than you are.”
“But...what’s going to happen to you when I grow old and...and die?”
“I’ll die, too, of course.”
Surely he understands their lives are bound together now.
“Elowyn!”
“What?”
“You’ll have years left to live when I’m old and frail!”
“The heartbinding will extend your life.”
What would it be like to swim in the ocean? She’s splashed in the Waters of Pendarra outside Windhaven, but that river isn’t deep. Not like this.
When Rominy remains silent and his heart starts to pound, Elowyn glances at him again. “What’s wrong?”
“Am I going to live for five hundred years?”
She shrugs and looks back over the water. “No one knows for sure. There’s never been a heartbinding between an elf and a human. But when an older elf heartbinds with a younger one, the older one often has an unusually long life.”
Then there’s a splash, and Elowyn looks on in horror as Rominy slips over the edge of the deck into the water.
Whistling wind. Did he faint?
Without stopping to think, she jumps in after him just as he surfaces, sputtering and gasping for air.
Wrapping her arms around him from behind, she buoys them both with her water magic to give him a chance to catch his breath.
“It’s all right,” she says softly. “I’ve got you.”
He coughs a few times and takes a series of deep, wheezy breaths.
When he seems to be breathing all right, she directs the water to guide them back to the boat, which has drifted away. They both grab hold of the ropes crossing the side of the hull, and she turns to face him as he looks sheepishly at her.
“Can we pretend that didn’t just happen?” he asks.
She tries not to laugh, but her mirth bubbles from her despite her best efforts to stop it. “I wanted to go for a swim today, anyway.”
“Not in our clothes, though,” he jokes alongside her. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Of course. It was my turn to be heroic.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t die.” He glances at her, and the warmth in his eyes tightens something in her stomach before he clears his throat and looks away. “Do you want to stay in the water or get out?”
“I love water. It’s soothing to my magic. We’re not really dressed for sea-bathing, though.”
“I’ll try to remember to change into a bathing costume before I faint into the ocean next time.”
Laughing, she flicks water at him, and his eyes grow large.
Then he splashes her back, and she instinctively reaches out with her magic to protect herself. The seawater freezes in a wall of water droplets between them.
She releases the water back to the sea as she nervously searches his face. Hopefully, she didn’t frighten him.
“That was amazing,” he breathes, and her heart warms. “What else can you do?”
“You really want to know?”
“Of course I do. I want to know everything about you.”
Their eyes meet briefly before Rominy looks away, awkwardly scratching his brow where seawater glistens on his smooth skin in the bright sun. Did he mean to say that? And does he really feel that way?
“So...water magic.” His words pull her out of her thoughts.
“Right.”
Mustering her magic, she creates an underwater current to lift him in the air above them.
The water spout holds him aloft as his eyes turn into saucers and his heart races.
His simple white shirt clings to the muscles of his chest, bringing back memories of when she ran her hands across his bare flesh the other night.
Gently, she lowers him back to the waves, and he clutches at one of the nearby ropes. His eyes are still wide as he looks at her with parted lips. “That was astounding. Terrifying, but astounding. I think I need to recover now.”
“You need to breathe.” She gently brushes a sodden lock of hair from his face.
What is she doing? She pulls back her hand, and his heart pounds.
“Breathe.” She demonstrates for him, and as he joins her, his heart rate slows.
She needs to keep her hands to herself until he invites her to run her fingers over him.
Whistling wind. Where did that thought come from?
Suddenly, his heart is racing again, and his wide eyes latch on to something behind her. The breeze has picked up, whipping strands of her wet hair against her cheeks, and when she glances over her shoulder, terror freezes her heart.
It’s a storm, dark on the horizon as swirling water rises to meet black clouds. The waves are already growing around them in anticipation. The sails on their boat flap in the wind, and panic clutches at Rominy’s face.
“We need to get to the hatch,” he calls out over the wind that seems so much louder than it did moments ago.
Elowyn looks back at the rapidly approaching storm, and Rominy hurries to pull himself onto the wooden deck, holding his hand out to help her climb up beside him.
“Elowyn, come on!”