Speaker and Calligrapher | Vida Cruz-Borja #4
“My hand is injured, not my legs,” Lin replied with a smirk as he tenderly stroked her head.
Verda knew his reasons were sound. That didn’t mean she had to like it. She glared down at the open notebook, pages tainted with a spill of red ink and her shaky scrawl over that. “I could use a speed spell on myself. Then—”
“You should save the ink for the freezing spell, you know that. Plus, even if you had enough, a speed spell would be put to better use on me.”
Silence. Lin tenderly tilted her chin toward him.
“Are you worried about me, Verda?”
She closed the gap between their mouths with a hard, quick kiss.
“Someone has to, you idiot,” she said sullenly. In response, Lin pulled her toward him in a one-armed embrace. Her head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck; she breathed in his scent and closed her eyes, wishing they could stay like that.
“I appreciate it,” Lin mumbled into her hair.
* * *
After her initial shock and dismay over her own impropriety, Verda realized she’d really enjoyed the kiss.
It helped that Lin was very good at it – but she would rather be buried under Mount Elhas’ ashfall than admit it to him.
Still, when he asked her – in complete sobriety, after days of clawing back a sense of professionalism from over whelming awkwardness on both their parts – if she wanted a more informed opinion on kissing minus the haze of alcohol, she didn’t refuse him.
And they’d been periodically recreating the fiery kisses from that night in Lin’s quarters in between meetings to discuss ink ingredients and spell layouts – wine optional.
(It was hard to say whether Agreha would have approved if she’d known, but Verda wasn’t willing to find out.)
On one such evening, Lin was busy in his study concentrating on the third of Verda’s spells, one that would help the caster determine the physical locations of writings containing a specific symbol of their choosing.
She’d been wandering his quarters, admiring his taste, when she sighted a stack of letters atop a lone chair that seemed to function as a table.
So many questions raced through Verda’s mind: were they love letters from his admirers?
No, they were all written by Lin – then, was he placating others he thoroughly kissed for a few nights each week?
Had he duped her into being part of his ‘stable’ without her knowing?
But nothing beat how she thought she would go into cardiac arrest when she spotted a letter addressed to Agreha.
Luckily, it was short; her eyes skimmed over it and caught on the signed name at the end: Ordoher, Agreha’s fiancé who owned a perfume shop in town. What was going on here?
That was when Verda thought to test the second of her proposal spells, the one revealing the writer’s thoughts. They would echo in her own mind, but in their voice. She pulled the folded spell from the notebook she carried around with her and activated it.
That’s trite, but I’m not getting paid to improve that.
Paid? So Lin got paid to write this elegantly flourished letter from Ordoher to Agreha?
Maybe I should add that as a service? But on second thought, that feels like a lot more work.
So he was able to afford his furniture by also writing love letters for others? Interesting. Verda was resolved to tease him about it later.
Wonder what the Sun Court would think if they knew that their youngest prince was still alive and moonlighting as a calligrapher of sappy love letters to make a little extra?
What?
“I see you’ve discovered my other profession,” Lin said into Verda’s ear, making her jump.
She whirled around and stared at him; clad in just tunic and trousers, ink staining his fingertips, he seemed amused.
“Didn’t mean to hide it from you. It just never came up.
But I swear I get more fun commissions from wealthier patrons too—”
“You’re a Prince of Quarendell?” Verda blurted.
Lin’s face fell. He spotted the spell in Verda’s hand, tucked behind the letter to Agreha. “Ah. Good to know the spell works.”
“‘Lin’ is short for ‘Lindrion,’” Verda said slowly, recalling a bit of news she’d heard. She backed up two steps. “You’re the prince who left Quarendell during their succession war and went down with a ship during a storm.”
She couldn’t say she was too surprised. The first time she ever saw Lin, during a morning jog on the beach two years ago, he was just a body lying face-down on the sandy shore among broken planks and other bits of debris, clothed only in the torn and sopping remains of a tunic and trousers.
No shoes, no identification, no nothing.
Even then, she’d thought him exceedingly handsome – too much so to be an ordinary person – and she’d wondered what genre of tale she’d unwittingly walked into: an adventure or a romance.
Either way, a distraction. She’d decided then and there that in her quest to become Head Librarian, she had time for neither.
And so, while she’d pumped seawater from his chest and lungs and ran away to notify the Library’s Health Office, she’d been putting distance between them ever since.
“All right, it’s true,” Lin admitted with a sigh, scratching the back of his head. “Was true, anyhow. I told my brothers I didn’t want the throne, but I don’t think they believed it even after I left. It’s better that they think I’m dead.”
“And were you ever planning on telling me?” Verda asked.
“One of these days, I was. But you know, I’m not the only one hiding something here,” Lin said, stepping close to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me the truth,” he all but pleaded, hands on her shoulders. “You’re the one who saved me, aren’t you?”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
“First thing I saw when I woke up on the beach was all this silvery hair. And then golden eyes. They belonged to the coldest, most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
I thought it would be all right if I died then, if death was as lovely as you.
” Lin said it all so simply, so unflinchingly, that Verda felt spellbound.
The tale she’d been avoiding could not be avoided for much longer. “I’ve loved you ever since.”