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Loric chuckles, likely sensing my confusion. "I hadn't realized how nervous you felt all the time," he admits, "or maybe it's just around me. But I like it."
He flexes his brow, and I can't help the blush that colors my cheeks as I narrow my eyes on him. “I didn’t know mateswere connected like this.” Though, there's something oddly comforting about it.
"Mates share everything: power, healing abilities, even their emotions and feelings. It's what makes losing a mate so heart-wrenching. It’s devastating to have someone just disappear from your life. Even more so when they’re so entangled in you to the point you don’t know where they end and you begin. Not that I’ve experienced it, but I know others who have."
The words hang heavy in the air between us and his eyes darken as he looks away for a moment. I can't imagine the pain he's describing, but I can feel it through him. The overwhelming sadness that floats through our bond brings tears to my eyes, and I blink them away, trying to maintain some semblance of control. But he sees them anyway, and curses softly under his breath.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” His voice is soft as he scoots toward me, gently wiping at my cheeks with his thumbs, cradling my face.
“I think I understand how this works now,” I squeak out, trying to hold the tears in.How the hell is he not crying?
He chuckles, noiselessly, shaking his head. "This is a new experience for me too. I've never done something like this.” He presses his lips into a fine line.
"Why haven't you? You’re what, a hundred and twenty-something years old? You mean to tell me no one has ever swindled you into attending a festival with them?" I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me, and my lips tug into a soft smile.
Loric looks thoughtful for a moment, then shrugs. "No, not really. People have tried I suppose, but never someone I couldn’t say no to. I guess I just never found someone I wanted to do it with."
Until now… He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to. Warmth floods through me as I try to bite back my smile.
"Okay," he says, rolling his eyes. "Don't get a big head about it. I'm notsmitten, but I do love how this feels." Loric's eyes soften as he gazes at me, his voice dropping until it’s just above a whisper, "This last week of being around you has been the first time I’ve felt genuine happiness in I don't know how long.”
His words send a thrill through me, but I’m still trying to figure out if I’ve imagined this, all of it, as he stands up.
Loric pretends to bow, holding his hand out to me. “Milady, there’s still one more thing I want to show you before we go back.”
His gaze finds mine, molten silver and endless. I take his hand and let him lead me away.
"Here we are." Loric gestures to an iron gate.
Hedges as tall as the cottage we’re staying in stretch up to the sky behind the metal spires, like a maze. Bright white blooms that drip some sort of sparkling dew, move and twist and turn within them, like they’re alive. Even their light pulses, making the hedges appear to be some living entity–the pulses its beating heart.
“What is it?” I ask, cocking my head to read the sign.Garden of Tyche.
“You’ll have to see for yourself. Don’t you trust me?” Loric asks, a mischievous glint in his eye as he tugs me toward him, beckoning for me to enter.
“That depends.”
He chuckles. “On what?”
“Is something going to swallow me up in there?” The phrasing takes me back to sitting on the bed in the cavern, how he comforted me when I felt out of control. I told him I was terrified of dragons, that I thought one would swallow me up the moment it found out I was the king’s daughter. Little did I know he was one. He even knew thatIwas one and all he did was smile, said nothing.
I shake my head.
“No dragons present, Chaos. If there were, they’d be more scared of you than you are of them,” he says, holding a hand up like it’s a solemn vow. “Not even ours are here.”
My heart skips as I quickly look around, worried someone heard him, but the streets are empty. Everyone is at the village center.
Loric tugs my hand again, his tongue sliding between his lips. “I can still taste you, you know.”
The blush hits hard, and I’m starting to believe he just wants to get a rise out of me. Regardless, I cave. As I follow after him, he walks backwards, smirking at me as we enter the secret garden. It is a maze, the paths carved out by the towering hedges, but it’s not boxy. The paths curve like a spiral. Wrapping around what, I’m not sure.
The hedges are covered in intricate flowers of every color imaginable, their fragrance sweet. And instead of cobblestone, the pathways are made of soft moss, such a bright green that it almost glows in the darkness. Still, if it weren’t for the flowers having some sort of bioluminescent ability, we’d never see more than a foot in front of us. The floating orbs wouldn’t be enough.
Loric's hand is warm and steady in mine as he leads me through the garden, our fingers intertwined. We wind deeper into the labyrinth by the second, the atmosphere growing more enchanting with each step. Until finally, we reach the heart of the spiral – a cement fountain standing tall in the middle. Theorbs, the ones floating in the sky like bubbles rise out of the well, trickling up from the water’s surface.
We step closer and the water shimmers with an otherworldly light, sending projections of the rippling waves across the hedges. I watch Loric as he digs in his pocket, his features cast in a bright blue light, fighting against the shadows on his face.
He holds something out to me, dropping it into my palm. My eyebrows scrunch together as my gaze drops to find a crystal gem of some sort. I roll the tiny glass ball in my hand, my eyes sliding to the fountain where dozens of these little orbs rest underneath the water.
