Episode 108 Brave Like You
Brave Like You
Cerian flies past the treeline toward the tiny clearing where he planted his first patch of daisies and almost falls on Arisanna.
Whistling wind. She’s curled up in the decaying flowers with her face hidden as she hugs her knees and rocks back and forth.
“Arisanna.” He drops to the ground and reaches for her, pulling her into his arms and cocooning her with his heat. “It’s all right. I’m here. You’re safe.”
She doesn’t cry, but she’s terrified. That much is evident as she scrambles onto his lap and clutches at him, almost strangling him.
No wonder her heart was pounding.
“I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you.” He runs his fingers through her hair and rubs her back, whispering every reassuring thing he can think to say.
“I got off the train,” she eventually says against his neck. “I followed you the way I said I would. Though it took me a little while to be brave like you.”
“Brave like me?”
“When you leave our suite.”
She thinks he’s brave? He feels like a fool when he stares at the door, willing himself to move. Not brave. Never brave.
But he just holds her closer. “You were so brave. And I’m here now. I was trying to find you. I don’t know why the heartlanding separated us like that.”
“I think maybe it was testing me. To see if I really would follow you anywhere, like I said I would.”
He presses his lips to her temple and pushes more heat into her. “Maybe it was trying to teach us both to find each other and cling to each other when hard times come.”
Either way, the lightning has stopped, and the wind has died down. The woods no longer feel threatening, at least not to him. And both their hearts have slowed.
She’s still latched on to him with her face buried against his shoulder, but he won’t complain about that.
It’s unlikely she wants anything more to do with this forest, though. Even if it’s growing less frightening by the minute.
Where would she wish to go? Where would she feel safest? Will the heartlanding even let them leave this forest?
Perhaps the heartlanding will be more amenable now that they’ve passed whatever test this was.
He wishes for the mountain chalet, and to his relief, their surroundings transform around them. He sits in the snow now, but he doesn’t complain. The cocoon of warm air he’s surrounded Arisanna with will soon melt it.
She doesn’t notice the change, and he just holds her. Comforts her. Slowly, her tension fades until she’s relaxed against him.
Then she gasps. She must have opened her eyes. When her arms tighten around him again, he smiles. He must have got it right.
“Thank you.” Her words are soft but full of emotion.
“Do you wish to go in the water? Just to relax?”
“Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
As if he has any intention of letting go of her.
When she nods, he helps her to her feet before scooping her up and carrying her to the stairs and onto the platform. He wishes for the elven small clothes she wore last time.
“I’m not sure I need these anymore,” she whispers when her clothes transform around her.
“Well, I wouldn’t complain if they disappeared.” He steals a kiss as she smiles, but he carefully controls his thoughts. Let her decide what she wants.
He lowers her to the side of the pool before wishing away his leathers and dropping into the spring. When he reaches for her, she eagerly comes to him, and as soon as she’s in the water, she must wish away what she’s wearing because she’s decidedly less clothed as she clings to him.
He definitely won’t complain.
They sit on the underwater ledge together, talking and laughing and snuggling until she’s her usual, smiling self again.
And when the heartlanding fades around them, Cerian opens his eyes and smiles as he tugs her into his arms beneath the covers in their honeymoon suite.
She nestles against him, and a contented sigh slips past her lips.
“That was worth getting off the train for,” she says softly. “I just wish I would have followed you right away.”
“You were brave in the end. That’s what matters.”
She rolls to her back to look up at him, sliding her soft finger along his cheek and playing with his hair. “Brave like you.”
“I’m not brave,” he whispers as he glances away.
“You, my elven prince, are one of the bravest people I know. It’s not an absence of fear that defines the courageous. It’s pushing past the fear because something else matters more. Your mother. Your sister. Me. You do hard things every day, Cerian. And I see you.”
Then she pulls him into a kiss before pressing her forehead to his.
“I love you,” he whispers, unsure what else to say as her words wash over him. Whether she’s right or not, the fact that she sees him that way does something to his heart.
“How is your fire magic?” she asks.
“I’m managing.”
“Good.” She pulls him into another kiss—a hungry kiss—before crawling on top of him.
“Not quite...that well,” he mumbles, his voice hitching at her touch. Whistling wind. That escalated fast.
She pulls away. “Sorry. I—”
But he presses his lips to hers to quiet her in a more tempered kiss before looking into her eyes. “Promise we can finish this later? With water?”
She bites her lip and nods.
For a moment, he glances at the bathtub. Then he sighs. They woke later this morning than they did yesterday, which is probably for the best. Arisanna needs more sleep than she’s been getting.
“We should check on Elowyn and Rominy. That’s what you’re thinking.” Arisanna’s smile doesn’t fade, and he traces her lips with his finger. “Your finger is quite warm, Cerian.”
“I don’t believe it’s just my finger.”
Her smile grows. “No. But I’m cold, and I’m not complaining.”
He floods her with his heat, and she melts on top of him, which doesn’t help his magic.
“We should get dressed,” he whispers near her ear. “Before your mother comes searching for us.”
She stiffens at his words. “Yes. Let’s avoid that.”
He steals one more kiss before they rise to start another day.
When Tharios wakes, the bed beside him is empty, and he frowns. It wasn’t empty when he fell asleep last night.
He rubs his bleary eyes and searches the room until he spots Viala gazing out the window, wearing only his shirt. Queen Yalisa would faint. He just smiles and tugs on the cord connecting them until the slack is gone.
Viala turns in surprise before lifting those playful brows of hers, but she doesn’t resist as he pulls her back to the bed.
“Humans don’t usually stand near windows while dressed like that,” he says.
“I definitely wouldn’t make a very good human.” She leans down to kiss him, and he threads his fingers through her glossy golden hair. Out of habit, his magic reaches for her flame in case her own magic takes on a mind of its own.
“Will you extinguish it for another day?” she whispers against him. “Please? Just a day?”
He sighs. Perhaps time without it will give her a much-needed break from this burden.
“Yes,” he says softly near her ear.
“And tomorrow?”
He lies back and looks up at her. She’s breathtaking. All her people are beautiful, of course. But she outshines them all.
At least in his eyes.
“Can we take it one day at a time?” he asks.
A soft smile graces her face, and she nods. “Thank you for not saying no.”
Like he did last night, he wraps his magic around hers, cutting it off from the world.
And once again, the simple act makes his body long for her touch.
Now is not the time, though. He needs to get up. Check on Elowyn and Rominy as well as Mother, who is still not at her full strength, though she hides it well from everyone but him.
“You’re running down your ever-present list of things you need to do, aren’t you?” Viala asks as she leans over him and trails a finger along his brow.
“I may be doing that. I didn’t mean to sleep for so long. Mother needs to rest.”
“Now, Tharios, remember you love me, all right, my elf prince?”
He frowns as she caresses his other brow. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is midmorning. No one has come for you, and you needed your sleep. I couldn’t bear to wake you.”
His eyes swing back to the window, where the sun hangs higher than he realized, and he curses under his breath as he rolls to the side of the bed and swings his feet to the floor.
“Even the Crown Prince of Lostariel needs sleep,” Viala says, and Tharios collects his clothes from the heap at the foot of the bed, where they ended up last night.
She’s right. Of course she’s right.
Even if he doesn’t like it.
“Thank you,” he says. “I probably needed it.”
Where is his shirt? He searches the floor and the chairs before looking up at the sound of Viala’s laughter.
Right. She stole it.
Not that he’s complaining. Not at all.
“Looking for this?” She tugs it over her head and tosses it to him, and he easily catches it.
“You are cruel, faerie.” He slides his arms in the sleeves as he attempts to think of anything but her, sitting there, begging him without words to join her back on the bed.
“Cruel was not the word you used last night, elf prince.”
“Well, it wasn’t the only one, at any rate. Do you wish to come with me or stay here?”
“I think I’ll take a shower. Join you later?”
He can’t stop the groan that fills him at the image that creates in his head. “You torture me. But I have to go.”
He steals one last kiss before slipping from the room.