“Do what?”
She laid beside him and stared up at the cotton clouds, relishing the tickle of grass on her arms and feet as it shaped around her. The soft grass, temperate breeze and floral symphony made her feel like they were carefree lovers, not two leaders with dozens of lives hanging in the balance.
Roderick popped the knuckles above him.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“This.” Anya tried popping her knuckles, but nothing happened.
“It helps me think when I’m nervous. The sound, the sensation. It helps.”
“You’re nervous?”
“Any man would be nervous lying next to you. You could kiss me, or kill me. I find it rather thrilling.”
Yesterday had certainly tipped the scales closer to kiss than kill. And it was only going to get worse as the moon tilted to full.
Then there it was.
That damn whisper. It was almost like Roderick was tugging on a thread from the center of her chest. Each word disappeared under the chirp of birds and brushing strands of flora. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the words.
He’s right there…
Right there…
Your—
Roderick stood, and the voice evaporated. “We should move while it’s still daylight.”
They decided to head south, following the creek through the grassy hills and dodging chunks of ice that jutted from the earth.
As the morning gave way to afternoon, the terrain slowly changed.
The creek morphed from a little thread winding through the landscape to a tremendous river that joined a body of water that could fit the Lupus Star twenty times over—but there was still no sign of the ship. Or any ship, for that matter.
In a few short months, the Lupus Star had become her home, and she hadn’t taken even a moment to appreciate everything that made it so.
She wanted to celebrate the dry land. But all she could think about was how every step brought her closer to being back on Eteross; how she’d never truly be home again.
Anya frowned at her reflection in one of the shiny chunks of ice. It was a little distorted, but she could still see the mess she’d become. Her hair was down and tangled, dress sea-stained with patches of mud on the skirt. She felt the same on the inside too. Mucky. Tattered. Lost.
“Ah!” Anya reeled back as Roderick’s distorted figure appeared on the other side of the ice, neck long and eyes the size of dinner plates. He flashed his fangs and hissed.
“You scared the daylights out of me!”
“Smiling is how you show fear?” Roderick stepped out from behind the glacier and chuckled to himself. “I’m learning new things about you every day.”
Anya pressed a hand to her face, feeling the heights of her cheekbones.
She was smiling.
“You needn’t make the journey miserable, Anya.” He extended a hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’re allowed to smile once in a while. It’s a piece of advice I’m trying to take to heart.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Anya brushed pollen off her dress.
“Yes. I am. But I’m also used to it. My whole life has been nothing but anxiety.”
She looked down at her feet as they walked. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not afraid to talk about it. But it does feel strange. I suppose that’s to be expected. My world changed overnight all those months ago.”
A flock of herons took to the sky as they waded through a patch of tall grass.
Roderick plucked a lupine flower and started picking at the petals one by one. “Maybe you can help me get used to it. Ask me anything.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
Anya thought for a moment, claw to her lip. She wanted to ask the indulgent questions festering in her mind. Do you have a lover? What do you look for in a mate?
She settled on the safety of her most academic curiosity.
“Why don’t you have red eyes?” she asked. Roderick tossed a petal in the air. It floated toward her as he tossed another one up. The breeze swept it right under her nose and out into the field.
“I appreciate you starting with an easy one.” Roderick rolled the stem between his fingers.
“It isn’t magic, or herbs. I wish it had been.
I think a lot more would have survived. I was always told that Centarians rarely took a mate outside our kind—that the bonding exchange of blood was precious, something we could only experience with each other.
I assume that’s how carmine eyes stayed so prevalent. ”
The tomes Anya read hadn’t said anything about Centarians not taking mates outside their kind. Her guts twisted at the thought. Roderick had options aside from Millicent now. Folk he could truly bond with just as he said.
She felt like a fool. Of course he wanted a Centarian mate. Why wouldn’t he? He took great pride in being Centarian. His people may see their hero taking any other kind as a mate as a slap to the face. She loathed the ache in her chest that grew the more she thought about it.
And yet, she journeyed deeper into her questioning.
“Are both your parents Centarian?”
Roderick nodded. “Yes. But both of them had a parent, and grandparents, that were mated to humans. That is how I got this winning combination.” He gave her a crooked grin and pointed to his eyes and fangs.
She bit her lip for a moment, then asked, “Do Centarians look down on those who have a mate that isn’t Centarian?”
After plucking the last blue petal off the lupine, Roderick thought for a moment, twisting the stem into a bow. “I’m honestly not sure. There are hardly any refugees living in Petorus. But Millicent is happy with Ellis, and my grandparents loved each other. I think that’s what matters the most.”
“Oh. Yes, yes, I agree.” Anya’s steps lightened as they went deeper into the thick forest of birch and maple trees. She took a deep, steadying breath of woodsy air. This was digging deeper, and she was scared of what she would find—within him, and herself—but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“So what would make you happy?”
A melancholy smile crept across his face. “Happiness, the future. My life was always planned out for me. I followed orders. Between watching my back and climbing the ladder, I never had much of a chance to think about such luxuries.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You first.”
“Pardon?”
“You. First,” he repeated. “What would make you happy?”
Surprisingly, her first thought wasn’t being Queen. Or even being at the palace. Or Eteross. Or even Valeria. It was this. Sailing uncharted waters, exploring with the earth beneath her bare feet, sparring till her lungs burned—and in her mind’s eye, Roderick was the one she did it all with.
The vulnerability of the realization made her heart pump in double time. It was the first time she imagined a future where she didn’t follow in her parents’ footsteps.
But such a dream meant leaving Valeria in Cyrus’s hands. That couldn’t happen.
Which meant this couldn’t happen.
The thought of being forced back into her gilded prison by duty alone sent her into a spiral.
Shallow breaths sliced through her. She tried to slow them, but her body wouldn’t obey.
Keeping them quiet didn’t last long when she heaved a big breath to stave off the lightheadedness swirling on her periphery.
“Woah, hey, hey, hey—” Roderick stepped in front of her and tipped her chin up. “Look at me. Look at me. You don’t have to answer. I didn’t mean it to be so deep. You look like you’re about to burst.”
“I—”
“Don’t speak.” He squeezed her hand. “Breathe through your nose. Imagine a fireplace bellows.”
She clamped her mouth shut and followed Roderick’s instruction. The burning in her throat eased. She pictured her lungs filling with air, then pushing it out slowly. It was working. Slowly, but working.
“Good. Good.” Roderick smiled, giving her a teasing scratch behind the ears.
But damn it, it felt incredible.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Roderick brought a hand up like a puppet, speaking in a high-pitched voice. “Gee, Roderick, how did you become an earl so quickly?”
He answered himself. “Wow, that is a great question, Anya. I would love to tell you.”
A smile tugged at Anya’s lips.
“Oh, sir knight, please do!” Roderick made puppet Anya exclaim. “Regale me with your story!”
Roderick straightened his collar and held his head high. “It was about three years ago now. The trade routes between Eldenkeep and the Region of Clarion needed to be repaired and rerouted due to deep wagon ruts and sinkholes, so Duke Ferrington increased the monthly tax rate on the trader’s guild.”
A low branch crossed their path. Roderick lifted it up for her to pass beneath, causing a cluster of maple blossoms to fall around them.
“The guild was livid. They wanted the Duke to spread the cost across the yearly regional taxes instead. But the Duke refused. Since the traders were the ones chewing up the roads with their wagons and horses, and the primary group to benefit from repaired roads, he deemed it inequitable to force the everyday folk of Eldenkeep to shoulder the cost.”
Anya had always found Duke Ferrington to be a wise, no-nonsense leader of his region. He was among the few nobles that didn’t spout selfish nonsense at the Council sessions.
“One thing led to another, and the Duke refused to budge. All seemed fine for a couple months. But when the third payment came due, and the Eldenkeep Trader’s Guild didn’t pay up, the Duke insisted on seeing them himself to discuss it.
He was never one to go straight for punishment, see, and many of the traders had families.
So I accompanied him, along with Octavio, who was a squire in my unit then.
The Duke didn’t want to make a show of things, see, and risk upsetting the residents of the city. ”
Anya nodded. She knew where the story was going. She’d read this part in the reports from Eldenkeep around that time. But she was eager to hear it from Roderick’s perspective.
“We came to the front door of the guild and knocked. Two eyes appeared in the sliding peephole, telling us to go around the back before he slammed it shut. I didn’t like it, but the Duke agreed, not wanting to make a scene.
On our way through the alley, guild members surrounded us.
We fought them off, but one burst through a window and went straight for the Duke.
Before I knew it, my body went in front of the Duke, and my sword went through the man—but not before he got a jab in.
” Roderick tapped just to the left of his heart.
Anya gasped. “So that scar—”
“Ah, so you were looking back there,” Roderick said with a smirk, bringing heat to her ears. “But yes, that is how I got my biggest scar. The rest are from monsters, sparring, or horses.”
Horses. A shiver rattled her spine. If she hadn’t been trampled all those years ago, would her parents had ever caged her?
Or had it only been a matter of time? Her mind began to slip toward the fear that always accompanied the memory—but the memory vanished when Roderick’s deep voice filled her ears again as he walked ahead of her.
The path became less traveled, with more brush and dead leaves piled up, a stark contrast to the budding birch branches around them and the bunches of tulips bursting from the ground.
“It was the closest to death I’ve come, ironically, not at the hands of the Church.
When I woke up, the Duke threw a feast with all the nobility in Eldenkeep.
You can imagine that was the last place I would want to be—until he rewarded me with a fief and a title.
One moment I was prey, the next I was reveling among the predators.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you’ll mind my idiom. ”
Anya chuckled. “I’ll let it slide.”