Chapter 27
ONCE WE STEPPED OUTSIDE THE tree line, I took a huge, relieved breath.
Farrah danced over to me, staff in her hand. “Hold still,” she said, reaching up and tugging on my hair. “Here,” she said, holding out a small pink flower. “A souvenir from our harrowing experience.”
I laughed. And immediately handed it to Aven. “For you,” I said, offering the flower with a flourish. “For bravery in the face of a ghost.”
Aven took the flower with a thin press of their lips.
“Come on,” they said, clearing their throat. “I want to cross the river before we camp, so we don’t have as far to travel tomorrow.”
Sometimes I didn’t know when to stop teasing. “Admit you just want to be as far as you can from the Haunted Forest before you sleep tonight.”
Rylan raised his hand. “I admit it.”
Zig shook his head. “I mean, we did almost get eaten at one point. I don’t think Aven has a monopoly on wanting to be as far away from it as possible.”
Aven gave a half-hearted smirk, but I could see there was no humor in it. “See? Everyone agrees. For once.”
“I don’t,” Farrah said, raising her hand. “I don’t think it’s haunted. I think it’s misunderstood.”
I bit down on a laugh.
Shaking my head, I brushed past the group. “Anyway. Let’s cross the river.”
Compared with previous experiences of crossing rivers, this time was surprisingly easy. We found a spot to camp on the other side, in a meadow at the base of a small hill. Aven volunteered for the first watch and disappeared shortly after in the dark.
The three others were busy recounting their harrowing journey in the forest for Rylan’s song. So I ducked away to find Aven, wanting to apologize for my teasing and make sure they were okay.
I found them leaning by a spindly tree, near where we’d tied the mounts, the leather journal in their hand.
They carefully opened the pages and slipped something inside, though I couldn’t make out what because of the turn of their body.
But the leather cover matched the one they’d saved from Lord Ethan’s camp.
“Hey,” I called softly.
Aven startled, their shoulders jumping. They snapped the journal shut and tucked it away. “Oh, hey.”
I joined them at the apex of the hill, where we could look out at the area surrounding us.
We’d been traveling across flat plains as we moved inland, away from the coast, but once we’d left the forest, the land had become hilly as we approached where the map showed a potential waterfall.
If everything went according to plan, we’d find the Elder Beast sometime tomorrow and the quest would be done.
With little time to spare, as the marks would tick down to seven remaining.
“Writing down our latest adventure for the king?” I asked. “And how the forest wanted to, and I quote, ‘kill us and eat our corpses as they sink into the ground’?”
“No.”
Aven took a breath and squeezed their eyes shut, as if preparing to face down a knight in a joust instead of talking to me.
“I have to tell you something,” they said, clenching the journal in their hands. “But first, I want to apologize for today. I shot that arrow and almost killed us all.”
My heart skipped a beat. Were they going to tell me the secret? I swallowed down the tightness in my throat. If it was going to change my perception of them, then I didn’t want to know.
“Well,” I said, pulling at a loose thread on the hem of my tunic, “it was your turn. I think the last almost-life-ending mistake was when I started a whole forest fire trying to retrieve a map.”
Aven opened their eyes and stared at me. “What?”
“Before that, we almost all fell into a boiling river. And before that, we almost got killed by a feral faery.” I shrugged. “But who’s keeping track?”
Aven’s brow furrowed. “I almost pulled you into the river. I was the one who told you to wait for Rylan to fix the cave-in with magic, which led to the kidnapping. I shot the arrow that made Lord Ethan stumble and drop the torch, and I almost just got us killed now because I was frightened of a ghost dog.”
“Look, neither of us can be blamed for that cave-in fiasco. That is solely on Rylan’s great-grandfather. And the fire salamanders was—”
“Farrah,” we said in unison.
“The rest was all circumstance.”
They shook their head, strands of their black hair hanging in their face. “Don’t make excuses for me, Ellinore.”
“I’m not! Seriously. I never would have made it this far without you.” I threw up my hands helplessly. “Everything I’ve accomplished on this trip has been due to luck and timing.”
They rubbed their forehead. “That’s somehow even worse.”
“Oh, come on. You saved Zig in the cave-in. You kept your head when we lost the map and pulled me back from the brink. I would’ve died in that fire. Ancients, I would’ve died at least three times during that fight alone.”
“It’s not good enough.” They crossed their arms over their chest. “I’ve worked so hard to overcome the Pointless Princet mantle. To prove myself, and I just… It’s never enough.”
My heart hurt to hear it. Because I knew the truth about my success, the deception of it all.
They didn’t, so they were holding themself against a false metric.
The truth tasted awful as it sat on my tongue, and I wanted to spit it out, to tell them.
But I couldn’t risk it. Not when we were so close to the end.
But maybe… when we were done, and I was retired again. And I had a place to flee afterward.
So I settled for a different truth. “You’re the best person I know.”
“That’s not—”
“It is. It is true.”
“You must not know many people.”
“Truthfully, I don’t.” They huffed in weary amusement.
“But I do know that for all the people in that castle, you’re the kindest, most gracious, nicest even when you don’t have to be.
When you probably shouldn’t be. I… admire that about you.
” I shuffled awkwardly, looking around the landscape so as not to meet their eyes. “So there.”
“Thanks,” they said quietly.
“You’re welcome.” The silence stretched, an uneasy tension building between us, as Aven shifted, their eyes darting between the dark landscape and my boots.
The strain was unbearable, but I… I didn’t want to leave.
I wanted to bask in Aven’s presence for a while longer, no matter how uncomfortable it became, because the next day it could all change.
I scuffed the heel of my boot in the grass. “Now that’s out of the way, are you going to show me what you’ve written about me in that journal?”
Aven paled in the low, flickering light. “The journal?”
“Yeah. I assume it’s the notes you’re going to tell the king.”
Aven’s fingers flexed around the leather cover. They licked their lips. “I… the king…”
“What?”
“The king didn’t really send me. There’s no royal order.”
I stilled. “What?”
Aven winced. “I heard about the quest. And I came of my own volition. I made up the story about the king because I couldn’t tell you the real reason I wanted to join.”
“Ah. So that’s the secret Farrah has been teasing you about.”
They nodded. “She knew I lied. As you said, the king and queen are ruling an entire kingdom; a random quest isn’t high on their list of concerns, even if it involves Ellinore the Brave.”
Aven’s reveal was a little underwhelming.
I mean, I was hiding a whole dragon. What’s a little white lie to join someone on a quest?
Except, well, having Aven along did influence my decision-making—thinking about their perception of me the whole time, trying to live up to the stories in real time.
But I wasn’t wrong earlier; Aven had saved me several times.
And without them, there was no telling what would’ve happened with Lord Ethan or if I would ever have found Rylan or the map.
“So… what’s the real reason you came? To prove yourself?”
Aven released a breathy laugh. They ran their hand through their hair, then tugged on one of their earrings. “I came because I had to see you again.”
Oh. That was… not what I was expecting. “What?” I asked weakly.
“Are you upset?” they asked, far too timid for themself.
“Upset? No. I’m confused.”
They made a high, indignant noise before flipping through the journal, landing on a page, and thrusting it at me.
“Here.”
The leather cover was worn, smooth as if it was frequently handled, the pages made of stiffer parchment than a scroll. I stared down at the paper in bewilderment.
“It’s a flower.” A single yellow flower, perfectly pressed and preserved.
“Yes.”
“Okay?”
Aven fidgeted. “Flip the page.”
I did as I was told, the thick edges of the leaf digging into my fingertips. It was two flowers this time—blue and white.
Still confused, I went to the next. The flower from the tree in the Haunted Forest was pressed between the pages, still fresh, the crush of the petals fragrant.
“What?”
“You’ve handed me a lot of bouquets over the years.”
I snapped my head up.
They shrugged nonchalantly, but it didn’t quite cover up their nervousness. “I know you meant it as a joke most of the time. All of the time. But you gave them to me, so they’re special.”
What?
“You accused me of only coming on this quest because of the king, which wasn’t true,” they hastily added.
“But…,” they continued in a voice so quiet, I barely heard it over the hoots of the owls and the chirp of frogs, “but I just… when you retired, I realized I might not see you again. And I had to see you again, Ellinore. Even if it was one last time. Even if I couldn’t convince you to return for the summer tournaments. ”
“You… you kept the flowers?”
Aven frowned in exasperation. “That was several sentences ago, Ellinore. Please keep up while I’m trying to tell you about how much I like you.”
“I literally said you were the best person I knew, like, ten minutes ago, Aven.”
“So?”
“So if that was not the biggest signal in the world to kiss me, then I don’t know what would be!”
Without hesitation, they swooped in, pressing their lips to mine, their fingertips nervous and trembling as they slid along my jaw. My heart pounded. My mind went utterly blank. Aven kissed me! I was kissing Aven! Our mouths were touching in a romantic way!
Before my brain could even process, Aven pulled away.
The journal slipped from my hands, and I gripped the front of Aven’s tunic and brought them close. They leaned in, and we kissed again.
I wasn’t very experienced with kissing, but I could say that our second kiss was better than our first. And our third kiss was probably the best kiss in the history of kissing.
Until our fourth, when Aven dropped their hands to my waist, and then again until our sixth, when I looped my arms around their shoulders and sank my fingers into their hair.
After our ninth or tenth, honestly, I began to lose count, because once we started neither of us made a move to stop. But at some point Aven gathered enough sense of responsibility and paused our kissing.
“I dropped the journal,” I whispered.
“I’m supposed to be standing watch.”
I blinked. Watch. Oh! Questing! The quest thing. Yes. That.
“Right.”
They smirked. “You forgot, didn’t you?”
“Shut up. No, I didn’t.”
“Admit it. The world disappeared while we kissed.”
“And you call me arrogant.”
“It’s not arrogance when it’s true.”
“Yes, it is, and for the record—”
They kissed me again.
And yeah, they were not wrong. The world indeed ceased to exist beyond us, beyond where their lips touched mine, and all my worries about the quest, about my lies, about my life beyond the moment, faded away.