49
Over the next three days, my brother forbade me from seeing Amlach.
He assigned me a guard who stood in front of my cabin door every night, stopping me from even stepping outside for a breath of air or to cool down my anger.
Whenever I asked Araton about Amlach, he simply told me that he had enough food and water.
I couldn’t bear this distance any longer.
I had to see him.
I needed to touch him, breathe in his scent, get lost in his eyes. I needed to be in his arms. I needed to feel his breath mingling with mine.
Therefore, driven by an unyielding and relentless determination, late on the fourth night, I flung open the cabin door.
The soldier with long brown hair, straight as spindles, spun around to face me, opening his shoulders wide to block the doorway and prevent my passage. “Princess,” he greeted me with a nod.
“Move,” I ordered.
“Highness,” he started, using the same condescending tone he had used for the past three nights. “The prince has instructed me to—”
“You forget that I, too, am your general, soldier,” I hissed. Then I added solemnly, “And I am your future queen.”
Despite the dim light from the hallway lantern and the smaller one in my quarters, I saw him turn pale as he swallowed.
“So, let me pass,” I told him in a nearly feral voice.
The soldier had the audacity to think about it a second too long, then stepped aside, head held high and gaze fixed straight ahead. “Forgive me, Your Grace.”
I quickly slipped out of the cabin and stealthily headed down the stairs.
Standing in front of the small arched door in the hold, another guard snapped to attention and looked over my shoulder, probably expecting Araton to be with me.
When he realized I was alone, concern flashed across his smooth face.
Having confirmed it worked, I straightforwardly said, “Your future queen wants to see the human.”
His amber eyes shifted toward the steps, and for a moment, I expected him to raise the alarm. Instead, he nodded curtly and opened the door for me, standing off to the side with his hands clasped behind his back.
I extended my hand with my palm turned upward. “The cell key.”
“The prince has it, Your Highness,” he replied with a hint of anguish.
I grumpily clenched my fingers, crossed the threshold, and closed the door behind me. A solitary candle near the door illuminated the humid atmosphere, which was saturated with the effluvium of saltwater, stale air, damp wood, and a faint urine stench.
Taking a deep breath, I approached the cell. In the right corner, there was a clean poop bucket. In the back corner, a bucket filled with water had a metal cup floating in it. On the left, next to the bars, stood a low cot with a cushion.
Amlach was sitting on it, with his back against the ship’s wall and one knee raised to his chest. He still wore the crimson robe but had washed away the graphite that Roxior’s servants had smeared between his eyelashes.
“We crossed the borders of the Lands of the East, did we?” he asked in a faraway voice.
His gaze traveled over my navy-blue frock coat, adorned with golden seams and gold-plated buttons.
“You look different.” He observed my hair, now back to its full beauty.
“More . . . ethereal.” His eyes scanned my face. “Distant.”
I didn’t need to answer his question. It was clear from how my blue irises had started to glow slightly again, a sign of the elves’ supernatural nature flowing back through me in all its splendor.
“You didn’t give me the chance to choose,” I said, greatly disappointed, switching to the common tongue.
He took a deep breath and rose to his feet, walking up to the cell door. He gripped the bars and looked down at me with a somber expression. “You would never have chosen me, Elf.”
In a burst of anger mixed with pain, I took a half step forward and hissed, “You don’t know that.”
“Would you really have abandoned your people?”
I recalled the enchanting, illusory future that Roxior had made me envision to distract me from his true intentions. The days spent on the island, between the waves of the sea and the fine sand and the turquoise water surrounded by greenery.
I lowered my eyes. “I . . .”
Amlach abruptly grasped my chin to force me to look up at him. “Would you have?” he asked me vehemently. “For me?”
There was only one answer my soul wanted to scream at him. However, the heir to the throne in me strongly held me back, scolding me for my selfishness.
Furrowing my brows, I replied, “You should have let me choose.”
An emotion flickered in his gaze, but it was so brief I didn’t know how to interpret it.
“I will,” he said in a mysterious tone, releasing his grip on my face with a slow caress. “Next time.”
I hated that he had ended the physical contact between us. “Was there ever a freighter for us to board? Or did you lie to me about that as well?”
“Of course there was,” he retorted. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the news about us to reach your kingdom, but I couldn’t endure staying in that house even a minute longer.” He dragged his gaze away from mine. “I was hoping to meet your brother at sea. Instead, he beat me to it.”
He was hoping to meet him at sea so we could spend more time together, I realized. I felt a pang as my eyes started to burn with unshed tears.
“I’m sorry for this,” I said under my breath, referring to the cell.
He studied me. “Distrust is in the nature of you elves.”
Hurt, I covered his hands with mine around the bars. “I trust you,” I declared, staring intently at him.
He gave me a sad smile and gathered my hands—his were so warm and familiar and rough and reassuring. “It couldn’t last forever,” he whispered.
My pulse leaped as I watched his pads glide over my palms, and his fingers entwine with mine with such an erotic slowness that I almost panted. “What?”
“Us.”
My eyes suddenly returned to his, and I drowned in them.
The thought that I could never see him anymore, that he could never look at me with such passion again, that my father might decide to punish him—or, even worse, execute him—to send a harsh message to the King of Men, seized me fiercely, planting a seed of fear as scorching as lava.
No. I couldn’t allow it. I would never allow it.
Teary-eyed, I squeezed his hands. “Once we’re before my father, all misunderstandings between our peoples will be resolved.”
“Perhaps.” Amlach withdrew his hands, and his face darkened. “But you will never look at me like that again.”
I frowned, feeling confused and distressed.
He gave me another hint of a sad half-smile, recoiling from the bars. “Well,” he then said, in a lighthearted tone, “at least this time there’s a bed.”
He went to lie down, bringing our confrontation to an end.
I took a breath. Another one. Then I sat down on the ground next to the bed, leaning my back against the wall.
Amlach rolled onto his side and rested his cheek on his hand, propping himself up with his elbow on the pillow. “You can’t stay here, Nauriel,” he murmured, gazing at me in a way that made me weak in the knees.
I wrapped my arms around my legs, regarding him back. “I know.”
But I didn’t care. Even if Araton himself came to drag me out of here by force, I would fight to stay.
Amlach reached through the bars to grab a lock of my hair. I sighed, rested my head against the cell, and closed my eyes, allowing his touch and the gentle sway of the ship to lull me to sleep, finally feeling at peace.
Where I belonged.
With Amlach.