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“And the woman who exiled you?” I asked.
“She rules. Still.”
“She makes no demands on you? She hasn’t challenged your leadership?” I was astounded.
“Listen to you with your questions. We’re worlds apart. What the empress does in her realm is no longer my concern. Saying this saddens me, but I don’t have the military strength to fight a country full of dragon riders.”
“So Nimue has posterity too?”
“She does,” he said.
I shook my head. “This is so much to take in. I can’t even fathom.” A country full of dragons—in the mortal world. My father would be outraged.
Caedryn stood. “Come. Stop your mind from wandering. Allow me to show you around my citadel.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“So what do you think? Do you think you can make Islwyn your home?” Caedryn asked.
We had concluded the tour of the citadel and its grounds. Caedryn insinuated, with every turn, what a splendid place he had—that he had plenty of stores for the winter, that he had many men who served him. Rolant was a welcome place, for outcasts. His home might seem meager, but the realm thrived in trade. The river supplied many fresh foods, even in the bitter winter.
The rooms were abrasive and cold, with the minimum amount of tapestries to insulate the stone walls, but the negative ambience also might have been from the dreary, overcast skies lending their harshness. No sun shone into the rooms, and candelabras did little to dissipate the gloom.
“You and Seren arrived just in time for a long winter,” Caedryn had said.
As if a winter storm could keep a dragon shut in, but Caedryn was eager. Every step he took during our tour was exact. He stood proudly, but his eyes always stayed on my face, calculating.
More than once I glanced at him as I surveyed each room. More than once his gaze caught mine, and I looked away.
It bothered me that Caedryn was keen for me to call this place home—that word splintered me. Where was home? Home was Gorlassar. Home was filled with family and friends. I almost felt that way with Sieffre and his people. I liked them. I trusted them—until I realized they would all die on me.
My grip tightened on the parapet, and I leaned my head against the stone. Caedryn and I stood on the outer wall around his citadel. Houses covered the ground below us, crammed together like kittens in a basket, spreading out in the distance.
Caedryn leaned casually against the wall, studying my reaction with confidence. “I know my home needs a woman’s touch. I’ve turned down the head housekeeper’s efforts to make the place more cheery. I suppose, before, I didn’t see the need.”
My brows knit together with confusion. The need would arise if a woman demanded added comforts. No bachelor would care. Caedryn implied that I should be that woman.
I thought of Owein and his joke that he should marry me.
Caedryn laughed. “I’m a bit stodgy. I’ve lived here for more than a few years.”
“Exactly how long?”
“Oh, here we go. You’re really asking my age. If Siana left Gorlassar over three thousand years ago, then how old could I be?”
I glared at him as I shifted my lower jaw from side to side.
“You know that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s not easy to judge an emrys’s age unless you’re staring them in the eye, is it? How many ages has my soul seen? How much wisdom is behind these eyes?”
I inhaled sharply. The age of an emrys didn’t matter. The topic irked me to no end. Some of us were more spiritually or mentally mature than others. On an eternal timeline, we all evened out to some degree or another.
I shrugged. “Once we mature in our lights’ ability and our physical self stops aging, I don’t see why the difference in years should matter.”
Caedryn’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Deep down this bothers you, or you wouldn’t want to know.”
Who said I wanted to know? He’d brought the topic up.
Caedryn was gauging me carefully, not diving with his light, but noticing every flinch of my body.
