Chapter 27
Caspian
“Idon’t understand,” Keira said, retreating another step. “You’re engaged?”
“When I returned home- to Northall, I was supposed to sign the final papers.”
She was looking back at him, expression pained and utterly struck. “What papers? Caspian, what are you talking about? Engaged! To who?”
“Her name is Priscilla- Lady Priscilla of Redfield,” Caspian explained. “She’s from a powerful family. There are formalities before the engagement can be announced, property matters…” He stopped himself. It was clear she was no longer hearing him. It didn’t matter anyway.
Keira shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. She was still shirtless and clearly uncomfortable. Caspian averted his eyes. “Were you going to tie knots?”
Caspian let out a hot sigh. She was slipping away from him. He couldn’t stand it, especially not over this. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he insisted.
Keira shot him a burning look. “You were planning to marry her!”
“I’ve only met her a few times. We’ve eaten together twice.”
“And you were going to marry her?”
Caspian pushed a hand through his hair. He understood how this must look.
Taking Priscilla as his wife was one thing, but tying knots bound the fates of two people forever.
It was a union of souls undertaken only by those who wanted the deepest of connections.
When the ceremony was over, you would be closer to that person than any other, their happiness your own.
He’d always dreamed of having a bond so deep with another…
“You were gone for years, Keira. Everyone was pressuring me to get married,” he tried to explain. “I have lands now and people to take care of. If I don’t have an heir then-”
“A what?” Keira’s voice sliced through the air, echoing off the stone walls. She shook her head, backing away from him to grab her coat from the cave floor.
“Keira, I was trying to do the right thing for-”
“The right thing!” She shot up, emerald eyes wide and burning. “The right thing would have been to tell me!” Keira shoved her arms through the sleeves.
“I did,” Caspian said- and instantly regretted it.
Rage flashed across her features. Keira raised her hand and a cloud of ice conjured in her palm. She launched the icy mote at him. The snow hit his bare skin, freezing.
She hurled another and another.
“Keira, stop!”
Her hand stilled, her chest heaving with anger. Worse was the wound that was obvious in her eyes.
“Please, just listen.”
Keira shook her head, biting her lip as tears filled her eyes. Before him, her form melted away until he was looking at an eagle with brilliant green eyes.
“Don’t go,” Caspian said, “please.”
The eagle screeched at him before taking wing and flying out of the cave.
“Keira!” he shouted after her.
She was gone, disappearing into the night.
Caspian kicked his discarded shirt, frustration burning under his skin too furiously to be contained.
What was he supposed to have done? She had been gone for so long, and he had no way of knowing she would ever come back.
Of course he’d break off the engagement now, if that’s what she wanted…
Caspian leaned against the wall, sliding to the ground.
He hadn’t lied to her. He’d told her as soon as…
as soon as he knew he couldn’t go any farther.
He hung his head. He’d let her go pretty far without saying a thing. All he’d wanted was to pick up where they’d left off, as if the last three years had never happened. But the past couldn’t be so easily rewritten, and the present not so easily ignored.