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Clare realized they were not in the stables. She’d followed Numair blindly, which was worrisome in and of itself, and now they stood at the edge of a frozen lake, his dark eyes looking down at her with concern.
“I…don’t know.”
“I meant it when I said we could go. Say the word and we will.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to go.”
“But you aren’t okay.”
How was she supposed to explain? “You just grew up like this?” She couldn’t define “this”. How did she define something so totally opposite of her own experience?
“Sometimes. A lot of the time, when I was younger.” His voice softened. “You didn’t.”
It wasn’t a question, not really, but: “Never.” She stared out at the lake. Everything was so placid in winter, so suspended. Numair didn’t push her, he just waited. “I understand the rules in Veralna,” she said finally. “I know what I’m supposed to do, even if I don’t always do it. I don’t understand the rules here.”
“There aren’t any. You don’t have to make yourself into someone you aren’t here. I don’t want you to. Just be honest. They might not understand you, but they will accept you. They’re good people.”
Something tight lodged in her chest. “I’m not.” And she didn’t want to be. Good people…well, nothing good ever happened to them in her experience.
“We might have to agree to disagree on that.”
She blew out a breath. “And what if I don’t know how to be honest? What if all I ever am is what I think people want me to be?”
“Is that who you are with me? Whoever you think I want you to be?” Buried underneath it was another question: Has everything you’ve ever shown me been a lie?
She could fix everything, she realized, by saying yes. Maybe he would believe her and maybe he wouldn’t. But she was certain it would hurt him enough that he would let her walk away. And then she wouldn’t have to feel him pulling away from her ever again, like he had the last few weeks, because she would have done it first, and more cleanly.
That was how she would avoid being trapped like Alys and Lina had been by Geoffrey. That was how she would ensure she never felt again like she had when she’d woken in his room as he’d come home.
That was how she would avoid ever living a single moment of the life she had wanted to build. The life she didn’t know how to build because her old one still had its hooks sunk deep into her chest, and no matter how hard she pried, they never came loose.
Maybe…maybe this was how they started to. “I’ve never pretended with you.”
He exhaled heavily, like he’d been holding the breath. “Then let’s go back, and not pretend.”
She started to move away with him, then stopped. There was one more thing she wanted to know. “Your name. No one pronounces it right in Veralna, do they?” His aunt and his cousin had said it as the child had, three syllables rather than two.
He shrugged. “Everyone in Veralna speaks the Common tongue. They use the Common pronunciation of the name.”
“Does it bother you?”
“It used to. When I was a child. Now… Now, in Veralna, I’m Numair.” Two syllables. “Here, I’m Numair.” Three syllables. “I prefer it that way.”
She understood that need for separation. But it bothered her that all this time, she hadn’t truly known his name. “And what do you prefer I call you?”
“You,” he said slowly, holding her gaze, “can call me anything you want.”
She had no good explanation for why she suddenly felt hot when she was standing next to a frozen lake. She shook her head and started back the way they’d come. “I suppose I’ll save the one for special occasions, then.”
His soft laugh curled around her in response.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Dishes
Life in the small village did not grind to a halt simply because the second prince of Faelhorn had arrived, and she suspected that was another part of its allure for Numair. If anything, rather than slowing down, everyone seemed to be in a fervor of activity.
She simply observed it for a while as Numair went through the barn, whispers of magic flowing from his fingers as he scratched the neck of this or that horse, rubbed the muzzle of another, checked feet and legs for soundness. An anxiety Clare hadn’t realized she carried eased when she saw Kialla and the mare gave her a soft nicker in greeting.
