AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Or a stubborn rider.
Or a placating dragon. I traced my fingertips over Seren’s scales.
It was inevitable—our separation.
I know. For now, we’ll just enjoy the snow.
FORTY
His presence swept up behind me. I felt his light, even if he didn’t want me to. I couldn’t help it. A warrior didn’t let people sneak up on her.
“So she’s gone?” Caedryn asked.
“Yes. Seren left at daybreak.” The gray cotton-balled sky hadn’t changed since morning, since I watched Seren fly into it.
“Are you going to stand in the middle of the courtyard all day?”
I hadn’t moved. Snow carpeted my body. I frowned into the distance, with my chin lifted to where I last saw Seren. I had become a rigid statue they’d have to cart away and stow in an out-of-the-way closet before birds landed on me. Before I froze over.
“I know how difficult this is for you,” he said.
My eyelashes blinked back snowflakes. Tears weren’t going to fall, but I couldn’t move. Seren was well into the highlands. The snow had not begun in the south. The barren, harvested patchwork of fields just enhanced my somber mood.
The world was ugly.
I missed Gorlassar.
“I don’t know anymore why I came here.” Because I wanted adventure. Because I wanted to see what no one else had. Because I wanted to know the secrets of the mortals. “Do you think this world is evil?” I was afraid to ask a man who had lived here his whole life. He didn’t have Gorlassar for comparison. “I was told Bryn was evil.”
“Evil is in the eye of the beholder. As is beauty. Bryn has both.”
“Do you feel it? When you close your eyes? I tried to ignore it. I tried to see the beauty this world has.”
“Niawen, come inside,” Caedryn said.
“Just a few more minutes.”
“Then I shall stand here with you.”
I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t close my sight to Seren’s cross-country flight, but Caedryn slipped beside me, staring off into the distance. I was glad he didn’t look at me. Glad he didn’t goad me.
Just two statues in the courtyard.
His presence was an odd comfort.
FORTY-ONE
I abandoned my vigil. My nose and cheeks had frosted over. For some reason Kenrik flashed into my mind as I stood there. He cursed the cold and rubbed his red nose. I would have laughed had I not been mourning Seren’s departure. At least the vision of Kenrik convinced me to wipe the snow from my face.
Caedryn didn’t say a word as I turned and headed toward the keep. He didn’t brush the snow from his body as he followed me.
After a sweet-onion beef stew and richly buttered bread, I was too overstimulated to sleep. Caedryn excused himself with an eye full of concern, but he didn’t pry.
I wandered back into the storm, to the outer wall where I had gazed over the city the other day—the day Caedryn stalked away from me after our discussion about his age.
The wall fortified the citadel while allowing a place for archers to shoot through gaps in the stone. As I walked along, making trails in the snow, I glanced through each opening until I stopped in front of one on the north side. The world was a blanket of white. Individual snowflakes crisped together, meeting their brothers on the wall around me.
I leaned through the gap and peered down. I might have been forty feet up. An alley below was bereft of footprints because the city was in slumber. I brushed the snow from the ledge and climbed onto it. Bracing myself against the higher wall on each side, I draped forward, extending my arms behind myself.
