“You’re right. We got lucky.”
“This time.” His voice is strangely small. “Two more moons…”
His meaning sinks in. In two more moons, he’ll come of age.Storms, I’m not ready, but I have to set him free. He needs a life beyond what I can give him. He deserves that.
“Then you can choose your path. Set out into the world. Leave the ice behind and find what you love. I’m sure you’ll find some great guy or girl who will love and accept all of you, and keep you safe.”
Somehow, that makes him look more miserable. I’m making a mess of this.
“Or if you need us, we’re always here for you. You can always come back for the full moons. You know that, right?”
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
I stop walking, forcing him to stop with me. Katja throws a look over her shoulder at us, but keeps everyone else moving.
“Mika, you want to stay?”
He nods his drooping head.
“I thought you’d want to go out on your own, finally. You’ve always helped me so much with the young ones, but it’s not your job.”
“You stayed,” he says.
“I did.” Thinking back on that decision at the orphanage feels like a lifetime ago. “I was too afraid to do anything else at first, but I have no regrets. Not when it means I got to keep all of you together for as long as we could. I’ve relied on you, and I want you to have your own life. But listen to me when I say this, Mika. You willalwayshave a place with us. I willnevermake you leave. No one is kicking you outeveragain. We’re your family. You’re mine. No matter where you go, you’re not getting rid of me, you hear me?”
He doesn’t need to speak when his eyes are shining with all that emotion.
“Come here, you big lug.” I open my arms to wrap him in as big of a hug as I can muster (which doesn’t quite reach all the way around him). “All you had to do was say so. How long has this been weighing on you?”
His shoulders shrug while he wipes an eye, and I know he doesn’t have the words right now. I guide us after the others, my arm around him, happy to never let go if that’s what he needs.
The clearing where we often rehearse our plays opens ahead, bathing our troupe in pale light, and my gaze shifts forward through the morning mist. The princess is a silhouette betweenAili and Helkki, walking tall and proud with Eevi still strapped to her chest. Snatches of their voices drift back to me on the breeze.
Lumi floats above her companion’s head, shining like a secret too long hidden. After our heart-to-heart over my broken leg, and seeing her moon with her, I’m having trouble thinking of Princess Talvie as Val again. Too much of her real life has emerged for me to keep pretending she’s just my fiancée. She almost confessed to me. I nearly confessed in return.
I should have told her.
Then.
Before.
Now.
Just like I told Mikael not to keep his worries bottled up, I should trust her with mine.
It was selfish not to tell her from the beginning that I’ve known who she is all along. Just because I needed her help with the sentry and didn’t want her to run…
I owe her the truth.
And I trust her. I trusted her from the start, sharing my Lyslander heritage with her. But now she knows Mikael’s secret too—a much more dangerous truth—and I still have faith that she won’t tell anyone. Maybe I should trust her to stay, even if she knew I can see her true self. Even if she knew I’ve been lying this whole time.
I want to believe she would stay.
I’ll tell her soon.
Chapter 28
Lark
