I blinked at that. “You did?”
“Yes,” he admitted, voice quieter now. “I couldn’t find you. And it’s busy here. Loud.”
He glanced down, noticing the sea lily in my hands. His expression shifted slightly.
“Oh, it’s a sea lily. Only bloom during mourning tides and all that,” I said, holding out the lily for him to look at.
“That suits you, Princess.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m sad and stubborn?”
His lips almost twitched. “Because it’s…it’s tougher than it looks. Kind of like someone else I know.”
The air grew heavy and silent, and my gaze was fixed upon him.
He stepped closer and offered his arm. The gesture was quiet, steady, without expectation.
I accepted, slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow, my fingers brushing the fabric of his sleeve. The tension in my chest eased just enough to let me breathe again. Together, we started toward the quieter paths that wound along the edge of the town, where the stone met the sea cliffs.
We didn’t speak for a long time.
The streets thinned, and eventually we walked side by side through a narrow corridor of wind and water. The sea stretched out before us in endless blue, the horizon bleeding gold and violet where the sun kissed the waves. Gulls circled overhead.
I didn’t ask where the others were. I didn’t want to know.
Here, it was just us—silent and still.
After a while, Erindor said, “I don’t like this place.”
I glanced at him, surprised. “You don’t?”
“Too loud. Too many people pretending to be what they aren’t.”
I laughed softly before I could stop it. “Since when do you share your thoughts so freely?”
He gave me a look, faintly amused. “Don’t get used to it.”
We paused at the edge of the stone path, where a small overlook jutted out over the sea. We both sat down on a bench carved from driftwood.
“I felt invisible in the market,” I blurted. “And yet, too seen at the same time.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s because they saw your face, but not your heart.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t meet my gaze. He didn’t need to.
He was here.
“I don’t know where I fit anymore,” I whispered. “Not with the people I’m supposed to rule, not with these strangers, not with—” I almost said you, but I caught the word just in time.
“You don’t have to fit,” he said. “You just have to keep walking.”
I leaned my shoulder against his.
For a moment, the silence held us in its grip.
A slow, deliberate breath escaped, the sound heavy in the quiet. In a voice barely above a whisper, “I used to run with Riven. A long time ago,” he confessed.
