Chapter 27
Aeliana stood in a field of daisies. At her feet, a little girl hunched over, her back blocking Aeliana’s view of her hands and face.
“What are you doing, Daisy?” The voice that came from Aeliana’s lips was young and male, reminding her that this was Gaeren’s memory and not hers.
The little girl didn’t turn. “Nothing.”
“Your mother told me that always means you’re up to something.” Gaeren leaned forward and tugged on the little girl’s elbow, forcing her to turn and allowing Aeliana to see black and purple marks running across the girl’s face and arms. Gaeren gasped. “What did you do?”
Aeliana recognized her own face from the memories Gaeren had shown her before. Her toddler self lifted her chin, exposing more marks down her throat. “I want to be pretty like the sailors who come in town.”
Gaeren’s high laughter floated across the field until it cut off as Aeliana pulled her hands from his. His captain’s quarters came back into view along with Iris sitting on the bed, mending one of Holm’s oversized shirts.
“I did not draw tattoos all over myself.” Aeliana’s horror warred with the humor of the memory, and her face heated as the adult form of Gaeren echoed his childhood laughter from his place on the desk.
The nailed-down furniture left him far closer than she wanted, and she shoved his knees away until he slid off the desk and gave her the space she needed.
“You did.”
Were those tears forming in his eyes?
“And you used the dyes your mother had for ceremony fabrics. They were the brightest colors you could find, and they lasted for weeks.” Fresh chuckles bubbled up, making his sentences break up.
“The high priestess was especially embarrassed by a voluptuous Sayhleen tattoo you’d copied from a regular worshiper whose trade route crossed Celanoft every moon. ”
Aeliana shoved his arm, making him nearly fall into Iris.
She glanced up from her mending, but her fingers kept moving. Her eyebrows rose and the corner of her lip lifted, which made Aeliana’s face heat even more.
“I think you’re making it up.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“Memories don’t lie.” Gaeren’s laughter settled into a smile.
No, it was definitely a smirk this time.
His ability to get under her skin gave him power over her, and he knew it.
He seemed to enjoy driving her crazy when they trained, and instead of hating him for it or even ignoring him, she found herself rising to his challenges.
She looked forward to their banter more than she’d ever looked forward to Lukai’s interest, which had all but disappeared after his betrayal.
“The tattoos were real, love,” Iris confessed, her eyes shining with mirth. “Your mother threatened to keep you indoors for two moons if you ever did such a thing again. Especially after you tried showing a visiting priestess how the Sayhleen could swim if you moved your arm just so.”
This time, Iris and Gaeren both burst out laughing, and Aeliana gave in to the ridiculousness of the image, shaking her head and smiling.
It felt good to let down her guard, even if that meant inviting more of Gaeren’s teasing.
At least she could trust these feelings to be real.
When she’d regretted her anger over Lukai’s betrayal, she’d wondered if the bond was forcing her to be too forgiving.
When she’d felt sorry for the way the bond had driven a wedge between him and Kendalyhn, she’d felt a flare of jealousy that she hadn’t wanted.
Could that kind of confusion ever grow into a bond truly centered on love? Was it even worth trying when underneath the bond, Lukai loved someone else?
It was one more thing she didn’t have time to examine while chasing after starbridges and beating Mayvus back home. Her focus needed to remain on identifying and breaking whatever curse bound her mother to Mayvus.
“I thought you said you could alter the memories shared with your classmates,” Aeliana pointed out. “Couldn’t you have altered yours just to trick me?”
Gaeren’s smirk fell. “Both are difficult, but altering someone else’s memory is far easier, because it’s been passed on to you rather than being an intrinsic part of your own past. Altering my own memory would require illusion on top of a memory, which is more of a theory and a skill I don’t have.
” He leaned against the desk and pulled out a small knife, balancing it on his knuckles before letting it spin back to his hand.
“Besides, then I would have given you a memory of Iris with the tattoos.”
“Oh, stop.” Iris tossed a pair of Holm’s pants at Gaeren, then shook her head, her smile as big as Aeliana’s.
“I wish I remembered it myself,” Aeliana admitted.
“I wonder if you could,” Gaeren said. “Over time, as your skills grow, you might be able to tap into memories you’ve forgotten.
You were young enough that it’s possible the memories are truly gone, but I suspect some of your time with Arvid and Vera caused you to lock them away.
Almost in self-defense out of fear that you would lose them. ”
“Is that even possible? To lock memories away?” she asked.
His face grew serious, and he studied her too closely. “It is. I’ve done it. I kept my memories of you locked away for many years. Not necessarily to protect the memories, but to protect you.”
Her previous irritation with him was replaced with a warmth she couldn’t define. At one time it had felt unwarranted, but the more she saw of their past, the more she appreciated it.
“I knew there was something important about you even when I was a child. Toddlers don’t make daisies grow, not even the royal family’s toddlers who all have ridiculously high levels of starblood.
” He tilted his head in thought, making Aeliana aware of the fact that they still had no explanation for that, especially if they’d gotten her spoke wrong.
“I was afraid one of my instructors or fellow students would find my memories of you, even accidentally, while training.”
She glanced down at her hands, grateful for all the ways he’d protected her, but she didn’t like when he looked at her like she was a sister or a child.
She told herself it was because they’d barely agreed on friendship after their families’ history as enemies.
But her bond mark twinged as if it was because she wanted something else entirely.
“I was going to have you try giving that memory to Iris,” he said, “but since you blurted it out, I’ll have to pick something else. Otherwise, I’ll have no way of knowing if you succeeded.”
She snorted. “Not to spoil the surprise, but I wouldn’t have succeeded.
” They’d been sailing for over a week, and her noetic skills had hardly grown.
The progress was even slower than it had been before, probably because her magic had weaned to a more normal amount.
Her light shields were barely more than a flicker, and her ability to heal had been reduced to surface cuts and minor ailments.
“At this rate, I’m not sure I see the point in practicing.
I seem to do better when I use it by accident. ”
He waved away her concerns. “That’s how it is for everyone when they’re first learning.
Don’t let Sylmar tell you otherwise.” He held out his hands, and she took them, fully aware of the irony that she’d grown so used to touching him.
She was more used to holding his hands than Lukai’s, and with that thought, her bond mark flared.
A knock on the door prevented them from returning to their training, and Aeliana snatched her hands back to her lap. The door opened, and Erech’s head popped in, his youthful zeal always a welcome sight.
“Is it that time?” Gaeren stood, his eagerness matching Erech’s.
Erech nodded. “Yes, Captain Elanesse.” He glanced at Aeliana before ducking back out from the cabin, face pink.
“Time for what?” Aeliana’s voice betrayed her disappointment, and Gaeren’s grin widened.
“There’s something I want to show you.” He led her out on the deck and steered her to the starboard side.
Her breath caught as she took in the view of the coast. They’d mostly stayed farther out to sea, where she could catch glimpses of the shimmering barrier now and then. But for some reason, they’d traveled closer to the mainland today, allowing her to see small towns and ports.
Gaeren stood behind her, bending down so his cheek was nearly lined up with hers, and he wrapped his arm around her so he could point and direct her line of sight toward a barren ridge. “Do you see where the bluff hits its peak?”
She nodded, the warmth of his breath on her cheek making it difficult to pay attention.
“You can barely make out ruins before it slopes back down into the valley beyond, but that is Celanoft. That’s where your parents meant to raise you, and that’s where you and I first met.”
Her shock chased away any confusion over his nearness, and she leaned forward over the ship’s edge, ignoring the spray that caught her blouse. “That was my home?”
Instead of answering, he passed her a spyglass. She fumbled with it, mixing up the front from back until he gently guided it to her eye, showing her how to bring the distant coast into focus. “That’s where the Sungazer was, isn’t it?”
He hummed his confirmation, and her chest tightened. It had been completely razed, maybe not by Mayvus herself, but on Mayvus’ orders. The remains were little more than a foundation of stone, but they seemed well cared for, like the people in the surrounding area still honored the site.
The area was too barren to match glimpses from the memories Gaeren had shared, but the lines of the various paths—down to the beach and out to the forest—were a perfect fit.
Most of their time had been spent on the other side of the ridge where she knew a creek flowed through the valley and out to the sea.
She relished the way seeing it now made the memories feel more certain.
Even the salty breeze dancing through her short hair made the memories feel more alive.
“I wish we could stop and see it.” She passed him the spyglass, and he took a turn studying the land that had once connected them.
“We’ll come back sometime.” He said the words almost too casually, like he was testing out her response, or maybe testing out the promise for himself.
“I’d like that,” she said. They stood side by side at the ship’s edge, ignoring the bustle of the sailors around them as they sailed farther south and Celanoft grew smaller.
“I don’t mean to keep you from your duties,” she murmured when she realized how much time had passed.
“There are times I take full advantage of being a prince.” Gaeren’s words held mischievousness, and his sly grin returned. “Larkos is the only one on this ship who’ll ever tell me I’m being lazy, and even he picks and chooses when—”
“Gaeren!” Larkos’ voice carried across the deck.
The smile on Gaeren’s face disappeared, and his eyes widened like a schoolboy caught cheating on a test.
“I shouldn’t have to send Erech to hunt you down every time it’s your turn to be at the helm,” Larkos continued, his voice growing louder. “What kind of captain shirks his own duties? You owe me at least three shifts for all the times I’ve covered for you on this voyage.”
The clomp of the older man’s boots grew closer, and Gaeren scanned the extra sails and food tied down, crouching as if he might crawl between them and hide.
Aeliana’s laugh gave them away, and Larkos rounded the mast, glaring at them and making Aeliana grateful it was Gaeren he was after, not her.
“I should probably get back to training.” Aeliana bit her lip to hold back a second laugh when Gaeren shook his head, his eyes pleading with her to stay.
He caught the sleeve of her shirt in his fist. “At least be my alibi. Make sure he knows Sylmar wanted us training together.”
“Somehow I don’t think that excuse will change anything. After all, aren’t you captain of the ship, not Sylmar?”
His eyes narrowed, giving her the impression that she’d managed to get under his skin this time, and she found that knowledge rewarding. As Larkos began railing at Gaeren, she gave him a mock salute and yanked her sleeve from his grasp, turning to head back to his quarters that she’d stolen.
The satisfaction stayed with her as she returned to the room, and when Iris was nowhere to be found, she decided to take advantage of her stolen time.
She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.
As she reached for the tether tying her to Durriken, she wasn’t sure if the smile lingering on her lips was because of her remembered time with Gaeren or the time she anticipated having with Durriken.