Chapter 25 The Lack of You
The Lack of You
Raewyn
It took me several weeks to settle into our new life in Sandy Point.
I kept expecting to see Stellon’s troops riding into the beachfront town or perhaps Pharis showing up to charm and persuade me as he’d done so successfully in the past.
There had been no word from him since he’d transported each of my family members here and immediately bid us farewell, keeping his promise to let me go.
My family was thriving.
The warm climate and humid ocean air seemed to agree with Papa. He spent hours a day on his new favorite pastime, shore fishing, and he was talking about building a boat.
The girls were taking to coastal life as if born to it. They swam in the ocean daily and collected so many seashells I’d had to request they start decorating the garden with them before our house became overrun and we had nowhere left to sit or sleep.
I’d taken over most of the household chores again. During my absence, Tindra and Turi had both grown so adept at executing them that I felt almost obsolete.
But I liked to keep busy, and letting them have a few more years of carefree childhood didn’t seem like a bad thing.
I was hanging the wash out on a line in our yard when Papa walked up holding up a large string of fish, far too many for tonight’s supper.
“A good catch today. We might need to invite the neighbors over for dinner,” he said, beaming with pride.
Or was that mischievousness?
I smiled back at him.
“I suspect you kept throwing in the line until there were too many so we’d have to invite the neighbors,” I said with a wink.
The woman in the house next door was a pretty widow with two young sons. Tindra and Turi played with the boys every day, and many evenings Papa invited their kind mother out for an evening stroll.
Once he’d met Vera, his homesickness for Waterdale and Havendor seemed to have disappeared instantly.
If only I could be so lucky.
My free time these days was spent sitting on the beach, staring out at the Cyan Sea. Its color was so much like Pharis’ eyes, it made my stomach ache.
But it was also nice to listen to the waves roll in and sink my feet and hands into the warm sand.
Often in these moments of respite, I’d close my eyes and pretend I was on the terrace behind Stormcrest, watching the breaking waves and feeling the much cooler breezes coming off the Great Gray Sea, pretending that Pharis would come strolling down the path at any moment to toss me a provocative comment and flirtatious look.
My life here in Sandy Point was peaceful and pleasant. I had the love of my family around me again, and that was truly wonderful.
But I missed the life I had there. With him.
I missed Pharis.
Which was stupid.
No, I couldn’t stand to let him be flogged to death, but I also didn’t think I could stand to be with him after he’d withheld important information from me yet again.
More importantly, he withheld himself from me.
No words I could say would free him of the shame he clung to like it was the very definition of his being. Only he could decide to let it go and let himself feel worthy of the love he wanted.
Instead he’d chosen to send me away. Compelled me to love Stellon.
When that hadn’t worked out, he’d been all too willing to leave me here with my family and get back to his own life at Stormcrest.
There had been no poignant parting words. He hadn’t even asked me to come home with him.
He didn’t want me there. If he did, he didn’t want it enough to let go of his guilt and shame and give us a chance at a real life together.
While Papa walked back to the beach to clean the fish, I went into the cottage and prepared our largest skillet to fry them. Then I took a bit of dough from the starter bowl and added flour and water so we’d have fresh bread tonight for our company.
The cottage door opened behind me, and I called over my shoulder, “Remember to use the doormat.”
I turned, expecting to see two little sun-browned noses and two pairs of perpetually sandy feet, but it wasn’t the girls coming in from play.
Kem stood in the open doorway. My breath left me in a whoosh.
Was Pharis with her?
She looked down at her boots then wiped them on the mat before looking up again to meet my shocked eyes.
“Hello, my lady,” she said. “I met your father as he was leaving the garden. He told me it would be all right to come inside.”
I nodded numbly, trying to make sense of her presence.
“Yes. Come in.”
Then I snapped out of the momentary daze. “Grand Star, yes, please do come in. I can’t believe you’re here.”
Wiping my hands on a kitchen towel, I practically ran across the room and embraced her just inside the doorway.
“I’m so happy to see you, but why have you come? How did you know where I was?”
Pharis had vowed not to tell a soul our location, and I knew he wouldn’t have broken that promise.
Which meant he must have sent her. A flutter went through my chest, quickening my pulse.
But before Kem could answer, another thought occurred to me. A frightening one.
“Is everything okay? Has something happened to him?”
My heartbeat doubled in pace as I took in her grave expression.
“He is not well, my lady,” Kem said. “That’s why I’m here.”
My mouth went dry, my ears ringing with my increased heartbeat.
“Pharis is sick?”
I had learned that Elves weren’t susceptible to human ailments, but they weren’t impervious to all harm. I had seen Pharis terribly ill once, on the verge of death.
Had someone poisoned him? Had his wounds from the flogging become infected?
“No, not sick in the body,” Kem said, shaking her head. “But in his heart, yes. I fear it will be the death of him. We’re all very worried about the Prince.”
I invited Kem into the sitting room.
“Would you like some tea or water?”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay long or I’ll be missed. It wouldn’t do for him to know I’ve come to you.”
So Pharis hadn’t sent her.
Battling a sinking sense of disappointment, I took a chair and invited Kem to do the same.
“Very well. Tell me what’s going on.”
Kem nodded intently. “He’s in a bad way, my lady. He sleeps half the day and only gets up to drink more wine and pass out again. He hardly eats a morsel. He doesn’t leave his room. His temper’s as foul as a wild boar.”
I frowned in confusion. That didn’t sound like Pharis.
“I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m not sure what you think I can do about it.”
“You must come home,” she said in a tone that said it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.
Home. Did she think of Stormcrest as being home for me?
“We’re all at our wits end.” she said. “Things can’t go on much longer like this.
The servants talked about it, and we all agreed I should go to you and ask for your help.
So while he was passed out, I snuck into the Prince’s chambers and used his charmed mirror.
That’s how I knew where to find you. And then I used my Evanescing glamour to get here. ”
“My help,” I said, confused. “I’m not a healer. I don’t know what to do for overindulgence in wine, and you have Elanor there.”
“It’s not the wine he’s dependent on,” Kem said. “It’s you. Don’t you see? His heart is broken. None of us has ever seen him like this over anyone or anything. He needs you.”
For a second my own heart stopped. Then it resumed beating in a mad new pace that made it hard to catch my breath. I cleared my throat and swallowed, trying to alleviate the lump that had formed there.
“I… I’m not sure what to say.”
Kem wasn’t aware of all that had passed between Pharis and me, that I’d tried to give myself to him, that he’d rejected me when I’d practically begged him to bond with me.
Immediately afterward, he’d taken me to Seaspire and urged me to marry his brother, even using his Compelling glamour to force the decision on me.
“Say you’ll return to him,” she urged.
It was obvious the young maid was sincere, that she and apparently the other staff members were worried about the man they served.
But contrary to their assumption, I wasn’t the answer.
“My family needs me. I have to stay here and take care of them,” I told her, although it was more than apparent they’d gotten on quite well without me.
“And I suspect that the Prince’s… melancholy has less to do with me than you think,” I added.
Kem shook her head, but I went on with my assurances.
“Prince Pharis went through something very difficult in Merisola. His relationship with his brother is broken. But he is resilient. He has many… friends who value him and would come if you sent for them.”
And no doubt many women like Lady Glenna who’d be more than happy to fill the gap of female companionship. The thought sent a rush of bile up my throat.
“You don’t understand, my lady,” Kem said.
Her fingers twisted together in her lap, and her expression was deeply troubled.
“Elanor swore me to secrecy, but I hope that in this case, it’s not a sin to break a promise…”
“What is it?” I asked.
Looking like she was about to burst, Kem began speaking rapidly.
“When you first arrived at Stormcrest and you were so badly injured, Prince Pharis hardly left your room. He stayed at your bedside all day, talking to you, reading books to you. We’d find him sleeping on the floor of your room at night.
After a few weeks when you still hadn’t awakened, he sent the chef out to find some fireweed and bring it back. ”
I nodded, remembering Chef Korbin was human and therefore unaffected by the plant that was so deadly to Elvenkind.
But why would Pharis have wanted it? Did he think it might somehow heal me?
Kem went on. “He sat in the chair by your bed with that jar of poison in his lap as if he was ready to…”
Her speech faltered as she began to cry.
And I began to understand. My hands came to cover my twisting stomach as she continued.
“Elanor said there wasn’t a doubt in her mind he would have used it to end his life if you hadn’t recovered,” Kem said. “And last night, she found him sitting in the dark, staring out the window of his room, clutching that jar to his chest.”
“I fear the lack of you will kill him.” Her voice choked with tears. “He loves you, my lady.”
My heart squeezed to the point of pain, and my eyelids closed as I fought tears of my own.
A voice from deep inside me rose to the surface of my mind, demanding to get out.
I love him too.