Episode 105
Missing You
“They’ve been gone for a long time,” Queen Nestraya says as she glances at the door, and Arisanna looks her way.
“Restless without him?” Grandmera asks.
Arisanna almost answers before she realizes Grandmera is speaking to Cerian’s mother and not to her.
“I’m full of restless energy all the time now, it seems. I’d forgotten what it’s like to have the strength to go and be and do.”
Arisanna watches Queen Nestraya pace the room.
“And I feel that pull toward him stronger than I have in decades,” Queen Nestraya continues. “Lorial finds it amusing. I’m sure you do as well, Mera.”
“More sweet than amusing. I’ve missed the vitality of my Nestraya.” Grandmera looks toward the bed. “And my Elowyn. How like you she is. Never one to remain still for long.”
Arisanna feels like an interloper listening to their conversation, but it’s not as if they don’t know she’s here.
Or as if she has anywhere else to go right now.
Cerian seems unlikely to appreciate her wandering the streets of Feressa alone after dark.
Not that she wants to wander anywhere alone in the dark.
“I missed so much of her elfling days,” Queen Nestraya says softly. “Hers and Cerian’s both. Did I do enough? Teach them enough? Prepare them for the hardships they would face? That they will face? Cerian, especially. So unsure of himself. Of his worth. I tried—”
Grandmera glances at Arisanna and clears her throat. “You did everything you could for them. We all did. They will find their way. And Cerian is not alone.”
Queen Nestraya looks at Arisanna and smiles. “He is not. You’re so good for him, Arisanna. I hope you know how much Lorial and I love you already.”
Arisanna nods, unsure how to respond to that. “I...love Cerian. Desperately. It’s real, isn’t it? What I feel for him? What he feels for me?”
“Of course it’s real, my youngling.” Cerian’s mother lowers herself to the bed beside Arisanna and draws her close.
“He’s still Cerian. The heartbinding just helps you see him more clearly.
The parts he hides from the world. His soft heart and gentle spirit.
And I believe he would have fallen completely in love with you even without the heartbinding if he had let himself.
Just because the magic of the heartbinding accelerated the process doesn’t mean it isn’t real. ”
“It feels real. And I can’t stop thinking about him. Wondering if he’s all right. If he needs me. Which is ridiculous because of course he’s fine.”
Grandmera chuckles. “Go. Both of you. I will manage.”
Queen Nestraya glances back at Elowyn, clearly hesitant to leave her. Then she closes her eyes as if she’s concentrating on something. “Tharios is in his room with Viala.” A small smile crosses her face. “I recommend you knock first if you need him.”
Arisanna’s cheeks heat at the queen’s words. She’ll grow used to this eventually. Right?
“I always knock first with those two,” Grandmera says under her breath, and Arisanna glances down at her hands as she wills her face not to flame brighter.
It suddenly occurs to her that Tharios isn’t the only elfling Queen Nestraya can sense with her life magic.
She tries not to dwell on that too much.
“This is lovely, Arisanna,” Queen Nestraya says, and Arisanna looks up as Cerian’s mother fingers the hair behind Arisanna’s ear. “Cerian always makes such beautiful things with his plant magic, though this is a first for him.”
Stars above. Her hair. She forgot he grew his plants into her hair earlier.
She never took it down after her bath.
“He...seems fond of my hair. Which I probably didn’t need to share.”
Queen Nestraya and Grandmera laugh.
“That’s hardly a secret from anyone, my youngling,” Grandmera says. “We all have eyes. Now, off with you both.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose. I swear.”
“Well, I am certain no matter how many vines I send to you, there are still more. What are you thinking about?”
Cerian stares at his father. “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”
Father smiles. “No. But this clearly isn’t working. And you’re growing cranky. Here.” He tosses Cerian an apple, and Cerian catches it easily.
“Forgive me. I—”
“Just eat while I consider our options, my elfling. You’ll feel better.”
Cerian takes a bite as Father looks around the room.
“This is an interesting suite.”
Cerian takes another bite so he doesn’t have to respond.
“Gerault said something about a honeymoon suite, and if my Nunian isn’t betraying me, I believe the honeymoon refers to—”
“Stop. I know what it means.”
Father smiles, but before he can respond, there’s a light knock on the door. Arisanna pokes her head inside, followed by Mother, who immediately starts laughing. “It is a jungle in here. I thought you were exaggerating.”
“Clearly not,” Cerian mumbles. His eyes follow Arisanna almost magnetically as she hurries toward him, and the overwhelming relief that fills him at seeing her again draws out his smile.
“I missed you,” she whispers.
“Cerian, you’re doing it again.” Father leans back against the table, shaking his head and smiling, and Cerian groans.
“It’s not on purpose.”
“So...no. We haven’t made much progress,” Father says as he tugs Mother closer. “I don’t suppose First Nestraya has any brilliant ideas about how to get rid of all these vines?”
“Have I been demoted, my king?” Mother asks, and Cerian tries to focus on his apple rather than on the fact that his parents are flirting right there in front of Arisanna.
“You will always be my First. My queen. My Nestraya.”
Yes. They’re definitely flirting. Fates save him.
“Maybe we should let them have the suite,” Arisanna whispers in his ear, much to his shock.
“Perhaps if Cerian and Arisanna weren’t here, that would solve the problem,” Mother says as she takes in the room again.
“Or create a new set of problems.” Father grins, and Cerian tosses his apple core toward the hearth.
Right past Father’s head.
“Sorry,” Cerian calls out.
“Did that apology sound sincere to you, my love?” Father asks, and laughter bursts from Mother as Cerian rolls his eyes.
“Perhaps we should leave the vines for now,” Mother eventually says. “If he’s anything like his father, he’ll just do it again tomorrow.”
Cerian looks at the ceiling. “Running. The urge is filling me again.”
As his parents laugh, Arisanna buries her face in his shoulder, her own shoulders shaking, and without thinking, he wraps his arms around her, but she doesn’t pull away or stiffen.
“In any case, it’s growing late, and we’re making no progress here,” Father says. “We can try again tomorrow. Leave that sign on your door for now, and hope no one from the hotel sees this before we can figure out how to clean it up, all right?”
With a sigh, Cerian nods, and his parents head for the door. Their hands are linked. They’ve always been affectionate, but Mother’s health was at the forefront of Father’s mind in the past.
That clearly is no longer the case.
It’s comforting somehow, though—seeing them love each other so completely.
Comforting and mortifying.
Soon, they’re gone, and it’s just Cerian and Arisanna again.
“Your parents are quite fond of each other,” Arisanna says softly.
“That is an understatement.”
Arisanna looks up at him, amusement in her eyes, and he draws her toward the chair they shared last night while they talked. She crawls onto his lap without hesitating, and he wraps his arms around her.
They say nothing for a while as Cerian holds her. Breathes in the scent of the berry shampoo clinging to her hair.
“I have questions about Tharios and Viala,” she finally says.
“I anticipated as much.”
“The fact that a magic rope ties them to each other seems like something someone would have mentioned.”
Cerian chuckles at that. “It just exists. We’re all used to it. I guess it never came up.”
“I’ve seen them apart, though. When he helped me find you, she was nowhere near.”
“It lengthens when they both feel safe. But it’s still there, binding them together.”
“Not like our bond, though?”
“No. It’s different. It’s more...transactional. Tharios vowed to devote his life to her protection. In exchange, her people let Elowyn go.”
Arisanna’s gaze snaps toward him. “They what?”
“It’s another long story.”
“But he loves Viala. I don’t understand.”
“He adores her. But he didn’t always. And when he bound himself to her with the magic of the oathbinding, it was in a moment of near panic because the Lothlesi wished to take Elowyn to New Valderi, which probably would have killed my mother as well as Rominy.
Perhaps Elowyn, too, to say nothing of you and me.
But Tharios didn’t know what their intentions were, and he couldn’t explain what would happen in case causing harm was their desire all along.
So he did the only thing he could think of and sacrificed his freedom to protect everyone else. ”
They don’t speak as Arisanna digests his words.
“Perhaps you can tell me more soon,” she eventually says. “For now, I believe I promised to finish what we started earlier.”
When she looks tentatively at him, his heat is already building.
“Catch me with your magic, my plant wielder,” she whispers in his ear before she climbs off him.
Perhaps it’s a good thing they left the jungle in their suite tonight.
He doesn’t toy with her for very long this time before he lets his vines wrap around her legs.
Neither of them speaks as he approaches and unravels her hair from the plants he wove through the glorious strands earlier. She looks up at him with a heat in her eyes that makes his fire magic difficult to hold back as her hair falls in loose waves down her back.
He reaches for her shimmeron gown, and her heart pounds.
“Yes?” he asks softly. One of his vines slips along her soft flesh, and her breath catches as her eyes slide shut.
“Yes, my elven prince,” she whispers.
And this time, they don’t stop.