Episode 165 You Should Sleep
You Should Sleep
Once the door to Cerian’s room is closed, he sets his knapsack down.
What is Arisanna thinking? What is she planning?
What was she hinting at?
And does he have the energy for any of it?
“You should sleep,” she says quietly. “I’ll join you after I wash off this grime.”
He frowns, unsure how to respond to that. Did he read more into her words than she intended?
Perhaps he should sleep. That’s probably what he needs most.
With a sigh, he sinks onto the edge of the bed and nods, and he barely looks up when she disappears into his water closet.
Then he frowns and swings his gaze toward the door as it closes behind her.
She’s going to monopolize his water closet? It would be nice to at least brush his teeth before sleeping.
Not that he can’t go in there while she’s bathing. Would she want him in there?
He could always use her sink. That would be silly, though.
She’ll be cold when she finishes. He should light a fire. At least that doesn’t take much from him. He quickly arranges kindling in the hearth and lights it up with his flames.
He could stand to bathe, too, but she didn’t invite him to join her. He’ll just wait for morning.
After digging his toothbrush from his knapsack, he steps toward the closed door. Should he knock?
They haven’t done this much—the normal living-together parts of being bound. Tharios and Viala make it look like an art form.
This just feels awkward.
It was probably awkward for them at first, too.
Before he can decide if he should knock or not, the door flies open, and Arisanna startles at his presence.
Neither of them says anything as they stand there staring at each other.
She’s wearing his dressing gown again.
“I thought...I thought maybe I was too subtle,” she eventually whispers.
Subtle?
“Though you have your toothbrush,” she adds. “So just ignore me.”
What is that supposed to mean?
“I’m really confused now. Am I not supposed to brush my teeth in here?”
She bites her lip. Then a moment later, she covers her face and groans. “Too subtle. Far too subtle.”
“I’m still confused.”
“Of course you are. I am a very confusing person.”
He goes through her words in his head again—all of them. And he almost laughs.
Sanna. His Sanna.
“Give me one moment to set this down.” He stores his toothbrush away before turning back to her with his arms crossed. “That wasn’t subtle, Sanna. That wasn’t anything at all.”
“I know. I’m not sure how to...”
She clearly needs help finding the side of herself that took over after they re-enacted their wedding.
“Like this.” He pulls her into his arms and buries one hand in her hair while the other slips around her waist beneath his dressing gown. Then he kisses her, and he doesn’t hold back.
“That’s much clearer,” she whispers against his lips when he comes up for air. “I should have done that.”
“No more talking. I’m tired of talking. I’ve talked too much lately.”
“I assumed as much. Hence the bath. And I was going to help you breathe. I had it all planned. But—”
“No more talking.” He reaches for his shirt, tossing it on her pile of discarded clothes. The rest of his clothing and his dressing gown soon follow.
“Did you really think I meant for you to sleep?” she asks as she clings to his neck in the now-steaming water.
“You’re still talking.”
With a smile, she finds his lips instead.
Once Uncle Quilian is settled and Tharios has examined him and worked enough pain relief to make him sleep until morning, Tharios rises from the bed to face Viala. “I should stay with him.”
“Nonsense,” Grandmera says from the doorway. “You need to rest. I’ll watch over him while you sleep.”
Tharios wants to argue, but memories of what happened with Jonas and Taliel fill him, and he bites his tongue and nods instead. “Find me if anything changes?”
“Of course.” She draws Tharios close and presses her forehead to his. “I am proud of you. Your grandfather would be proud, too. How sad I am that you never met. Kindred spirits, the both of you.”
She’s said as much before. It’s a thought that always makes him feel like he can do more. Be more.
“I’ll experience his essence someday.”
It’s not a day he looks forward to. The day Lostariel falls on his shoulders when he delivers Father’s ashes to the Tree of Memories.
Hopefully, it’s a day far from now.
Grandmera lets him go, and Viala links her arm with his as they wander to the royal wing. The sight of two of Rominy’s guards reminds him he forgot to check on Jonas’s wound.
“Have you seen Jonas?” he asks them.
They both fight smiles.
“Yes, Your Highness. He told us not to bother him tonight unless someone is dying.”
Tharios barely holds back a laugh. “I’ll leave him be then. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Your Highness.”
Tharios wraps his arm around Viala’s shoulders as they continue to their room. “Apparently, Jonas wants to be left alone tonight.”
“He’s already half in love with her,” Viala says. “I am convinced.”
“Perhaps he’s just tired.”
She glances up at Tharios. “Sure he is. Are you tired?”
“I’m sure I’m just as exhausted as he is.” Tharios steals a kiss, and Viala pokes his side.
“I’d better put you to bed then.”
“Is there a double meaning in that statement?” Tharios pulls their door open and gestures her inside. “I actually am pretty tired.”
Not that he wants to admit it.
“I know you are. But hearing you confess it makes my heart do strange things.”
He rests his hands on the leather covering her hips and tugs her close. “If I would have known you find my exhaustion so attractive, I would have told you sooner.”
Laughter bursts from her. “I don’t believe that for a moment, elf prince.”
He shrugs. “Care to curl up with this tired elf so he can sleep?”
“Sounds perfect.” She meets his lips with a gentle kiss. “I love you.”
“I can’t imagine why, but I’m sure glad you do.”
“Let’s get you to bed. You can sing my praises tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.”
“And tomorrow, I’ll show you the rest of Windhaven,” Elowyn says from the water closet.
When Rominy doesn’t respond, she pokes her head into the main room. He lies facedown on the bed in his leathers and boots, his chest gently rising and falling. His heart beats slow and steady.
He must have been exhausted.
Should she leave him like that? He’d sleep better without all that leather.
Gently, she rolls him to his back.
“Elowyn?”
“Shh. Just sleep.”
She unties his boots and tugs them off, setting them aside before reaching for the fastening on his trousers.
“I can’t imagine sleeping through you undressing me,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t stop her and only blinks a few times before relaxing again.
When she climbs over him to remove his jacket, he shrugs out of it for her.
“I think I’m tired,” he whispers.
“Sleep, my love. I’ll meet you in the heartlanding.”
He doesn’t argue as she draws the covers over him, and soon his breathing evens out once more.
Will he remember any of that in the morning?
He’s so trusting. So good.
So easy to love, especially after everything he said before he kissed her outside the stone shelter this morning.
As she crawls into bed beside him, he pulls her close in his sleep. She curls up at his side, listening to his heart beating as the rhythm pounds in her own chest.
“I love you, Rominy. I’ll see you soon.”
It’s her last thought before sleep takes her, too.
Blinding wind scrapes Elowyn’s cheeks, and rain pelts her body. It’s not a gentle rain like the kind she likes to play with. It’s a downpour that quickly soaks her to the skin.
Another storm in the heartlanding?
Waves toss their little boat to and fro as their sail hangs in tatters from the mast above. When the hull crashes into the trough between enormous waves, she grabs at the rigging to avoid being launched overboard.
Rominy. Where is Rominy?
“Elowyn!”
She turns toward his voice as the boat lurches, and he slides along the deck, grasping at anything he can get a hold on, but it’s not enough.
“Rominy!” she screams as he disappears over the edge, and she doesn’t even think.
Water. She calls to it, begging it to answer as she searches the waves for him, wrapping him with her magic and keeping him aloft. The sea fights her, the strength of its fury too much to hold back for long.
She just needs to get him to the hatch so they can escape below.
With a growl that the wind swallows, she wraps her water magic around him and pulls him toward her, back onto the boat.
Just as her magic gives way, he lands in a heap at her feet, coughing and sputtering.
Her grip on the rigging slips, and she collapses beside him before the world darkens in pinpricks of light and shadow.
Strong hands grab her and drag her toward the hatch.
Thirsty. So thirsty. The rain helps, but it’s not enough.
She fights to stay conscious.
“Elowyn, love, stay with me!” He wraps something around her waist. Rope?
“Thirsty...”
He coughs. “The hatch is stuck.”
Does it even matter? Perhaps they should let the waves take them. Wake back at Windhaven.
“Elowyn!”
Something is being shoved against her lips, and she almost chokes.
Water. Fresh and sweet.
“Drink, love. Please.”
She pushes past the fog to swallow, though how much ends up in her mouth is hard to say. She’s soaked from the storm.
Rominy keeps pouring water into her mouth as the rain lashes at them. The ropes he tied them with hold them in place as the boat rises and falls.
“I have begged for everything I can think of,” Rominy yells above the storm. “The only thing the heartlanding will give me is more water for you to drink.”
She nods as the raging thirst fades. “Can we open the hatch together?”
“I don’t know. I pulled on it as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t budge.”
She blinks against the rain, and something glints above them in the swirling storm. “What is that?”
He follows her gaze. “You can’t be serious. No. No, no, no.”
She squints, attempting to focus as water stings at her eyes.
Whistling wind.
Scales.