Chapter 30
Royal City
The ride is, for the most part, uneventful. I manage to quell my rising panic—now is when I decide to play the optimist, I suppose. It’s impossible to know how much time has passed in Gale, and dwelling on it won’t change a damn thing. At this point… I can only hope luck is on my side.
After all, Sanctuarian time might as well be luck’s partner. Both are indifferent to sense or reason.
We take breaks here and there to relieve ourselves, to snack and drink water, but we do not loiter for long.
It’s obvious everyone is tired and restless—and sleeping in a palace bed rather than a tent cot or the hard forest ground will motivate anyone.
Riding a veilmane is more comfortable than riding a horse, yes, but legs should not be held in this position for so long.
I consider sitting sidesaddle for a length, to ease the cramping in my thighs, but think better of it when I realize Brynn would have to all but cradle me in his arms.
Once dusk arrives, the forest is even more soundless.
It reminds me of traveling through the void of Mavick’s passageway.
Dense, oppressively quiet—as though swimming through still waters.
Glo offers to keep a flame lit in her palm, for comfort’s sake, but Brynn tells her to save her energy.
I shared with him how I sensed our ambush and it appears he too has taken to watching the lead veilmane’s backside for any signs of disturbance. But Moon remains unbothered.
Brynn and I take turns dozing here and there.
I let him rest his cheek against my shoulder again, once the stiffness in my legs overrules the stiffness in my back.
I get the sneaking suspicion that he does not rest though, as he never allows his full weight to press into me.
He is more like a sponge, soaking up every second he’s permitted to touch me.
I can’t say I mind it.
We talk, too. Asking random questions of each other here and there to pass the time.
“What are you thinking about?” Brynn asks after a particularly long bout of quietude.
I had been fidgeting, braiding Shadow’s mane, most recently thinking maybe he had somehow managed to fall asleep resting against my shoulder, strong arms curled around my middle, and—
Your breath. On my neck. Our bare skin buzzing on contact. How warm and heavy your arms are. How your every touch makes my thighs tense in a peculiar, super friendly way—
—And trying to think about anything else.
“Charles the horse, actually,” I lie, blushing.
Brynn sits straight in the saddle, his hands stopping at my waist. “Charles the horse has your heart racing like that?”
“You clearly don’t know Charles the horse,” I deadpan.
“Horses are those creatures that look like veilmane, right?” he asks.
Confirmed… Sanctuary has no horses.
“Yes.”
“You know, I can tell when you’re lying,” he sighs, exasperated.
“Can you? Because horses are those creatures that look like veilmane. Not a lie.”
Against his better judgment, Brynn chuckles.
“I was thinking of the time I fell from Charles’s back during riding lessons,” I lie again—well, partially. It did happen. “I broke my arm.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He huffs. “I thought it would be something more… profound.”
I bark a laugh, and Shadow’s ears twitch. “You wanted something more salacious, you mean?”
“I said profound,” Brynn says. His hands squeeze at my waist reflexively. “I just… want to know you.”
“Well, Charles didn’t. It took less than five minutes for him to buck me off.”
Brynn sighs. His fingers tap again at my sides. Though I have come to enjoy the sensation a bit too much, I know it is a physical manifestation of his anxiety. I wonder if it’s because I would not share what the shadows offered me last night.
His paranoia is not misplaced. The guilt again roils in my gut. To soothe myself, I do something utterly selfish. I lean back into him. He stills for a heartbeat. But the way Brynn’s confident hands eventually slide down my hips, my thighs, to take over the reins has me sucking in air.
“There is little to know,” I whisper, winded for no reason.
“My life up until this point has been very boring. But… if you must know me… When I was a child, I would sort books not alphabetically, but by how they made me feel. I enjoyed a twisted game of hide and seek, where I wished to never be sought.”
Brynn tenses behind me, quietly listening.
“Even now as an adult, I often spend my time alone in hiding spots—shirking my duties. Most days, I rather no one sees me at all,” I continue.
“Speaking of—I do not enjoy mirrors. Not that I dislike the way I look or even really care for vanity… just that I do not like thinking in static images of myself. I like to believe I’m always changing, always becoming something new. ”
I breathe for a spell, giving Brynn the opportunity to speak. He doesn’t.
“I often have panic attacks. I am afraid of failure. But not for the obvious reasons—disappointing my father, what have you—but because failure becomes your legacy, even after death. No one remembers your successes if you fail hard enough. Oh, and spiders.”
His chuckle is soft, almost inaudible.
“I often wonder if the world would even blink if I were not a part of it… if I simply slipped into the ether.”
Brynn shifts behind me at this. My rambling clearly causes him discomfort.
“And I believe faeplum is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” I finish lamely. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to live without it after this.”
After a weighty pause, he says quietly, “I will ensure you never have to.”
I exhale and relax into him, my stomach fluttering. He adjusts to me automatically. We do not speak for a long while. It’s not until nightfall has settled in full that Brynn raises the subject of his family.
“You’re going to meet my father,” he starts, his tone flat. I swallow, my throat suddenly too dry. “High King Kerron. And my stepmother, Queen Larnie—she’s harmless, but she did unfortunately spawn Asan, my half-brother—you know, rightful heir to the kingdom.”
“Wow, maybe we should turn around?” I jest, though the crack in my voice betrays me.
Brynn chuckles anyway. “There’s nothing to fret over. Father will grant us permission to go to the Royal City Gatekeeper, and we’ll be on our way back to the mortal realm. I assume that’s what you want, still? To put the search for Mavick on hold until we check on your father?”
I give a small nod, again pushing down the unease that fills my chest.
“Though…”
“Oh no,” I say, sensing terrible news.
“Queen Larnie loves to throw a party. She might subject us to that. To welcome me and my new friends back to the city,” says Brynn. His tone is casual, but something else churns beneath the surface. “Not a full-blown ball, if we’re lucky—”
“A ball?” I repeat, peeling myself from Brynn as I straighten in the saddle. I will not pretend to know what all a Sanctuarian ball entails when I do not even know mortal ones. I always dreamed of hosting extravagant parties at Castle Gale, but they never happened. Not once.
“If this does happen, I will not allow them to delay us more than a day. I promise,” he says.
I nod stiffly. “But it means that the counsel we seek about breaking a bargain will come to us. The High Mage, Frigo. I imagine Jasmeen will wish to speak with him, too. It will be easier to gain an audience with him at a party.”
“I hope you have something nice for me to wear,” I mutter.
“I have plenty of tunics you can borrow,” he says, boldly hooking his arm around my middle so that I have no choice but to lean into him again.
I elbow him in the ribs as my cheeks redden. “I will not reward you with a response.”
But with my touch? I am too weak to pull away.
“That’s fair—but I definitely didn’t mind the view,” Brynn confesses, the smile plain in his voice.
“You jest, Brynn,” I sigh. I shake my head but am unable to suppress the upturn of my lips. “Stop it.”
“Is that a command?”
“Of course not,” I say, my smile faltering.
“Good, because I will not stop—in fact, I have thought of little else since. I don’t think you could command it out of me.”
Speaking of views, no warning Brynn gave could prepare me for the view of Royal City as we approach in the dark.
If it weren’t for the glow of the massive city, we would be riding in pitch black night.
The city lights shine so bright that the scarce stars and crescent moon are all but lost in their presence.
Never have I seen a city so grand. It lies at the base of a large hill, not quite a mountain, but the towering buildings seem to lean into the land beyond it.
It’s unclear whether they grow out of the hills, or if the hills flow out of them.
The flickering of candleflame and faerielight alike reminds me of the blinking of a million lightning bugs.
The city sits at least a mile out and yet feels like it has already swallowed us whole.
If it was daytime, we would surely be engulfed by its vast shadow.
Brynn must sense my awe, because he leans forward to get a glimpse of my face.
His finger slides under my chin to gently close my gaping mouth.
His warm laugh echoes. Glo and Jasmeen glance back at us, and they too can’t help but grin.
“This? This is your kingdom?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“Well, no, I mean—the whole of Sanctuary is our kingdom. But this is Royal City, its capital. That’s the palace.
” His finger, pale in the muted light, points at a building to the east. Now that I see it, there’s no mistaking its majesty.
It’s hard to tell in the night, but it appears to be made of gold.
It sits perched up on the tallest hill, at the far end of the city, and the round dome of it reminds me of…
a gilded, larger than life, fantastical birdcage. My stomach lurches.
“You… grew up there?” I ask, biting back my panic.