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She did not disappoint. Her resting smile turned into a wide grin, and her eyes sparkled as she glanced at him. “Can we race around the lake? Ashenifela is itching for a run.”
Her voice and eyes held a laughing challenge. He found himself smiling back, a long-buried sense of mischief stirring in his chest. He urged his horse into a gallop without waiting for her to call a start.
From behind him, he heard her laugh before Ashenifela’s hooves pounded after him.
As they rounded the bend around the lake, Ashenifela pulled alongside him, and Essie’s wild laughter rang out on the breeze that tossed her red hair. Farrendel found himself watching her more than where they were going as they flashed into the yard at the base of the massive willow tree that formed Lethorel, and only his quick reflexes saved him when he nearly didn’t see a low hanging branch that would have smacked him in the face if he had not ducked.
His horse skidded to a halt, snorting and prancing after the run. He hopped down from his horse, but he was still not fast enough to lift Essie down. Instead, she had swung down and given her mare a kiss on the nose, petting the horse’s neck and crooning to her.
When his family, the guards, and the servants caught up, one of the servants claimed his horse’s reins, then Ashenifela’s. Essie watched the servant take the horse away, looking a bit heartbroken to be torn from her new pet so soon.
“You like that horse.”
She started and turned to him, her smile a bit lopsided. “Yes.”
“Then she is yours.” Farrendel would make it happen. It should not be hard. Ashenifela was one of the horses that his family kept in the town of Arorien. He would simply have to let the rest of his family know that Ashenifela was officially Essie’s from now on. He did not think anyone else had claimed the mare.
Essie’s smile widened, warm and bright in that way that made his head spin a bit.
He held out his hand, trying to sound normal and not like her smile made him tongue-tied. “Would you like to see our rooms?”
Essie clasped his fingers in the elven manner, thankfully, since his family were all but gawking at them at this point. Not that Farrendel cared with Essie still smiling at him. She tugged him toward Lethorel. “Yes, please.”
Farrendel led the way up the spiraling staircase grown into the broad base of the willow tree. As he climbed, something inside him eased, as if the weight of the war and who he had become as Laesornysh melted away here at Lethorel.
Instead of battle and bloodshed, this place was filled with some of his most cherished memories. Long, golden days spent with his dacha. Laughter as Jalissa attempted to teach him archery. The weeks during the summer when his whole family would be here and, for those few weeks, everything was perfect.
Essie gaped as they walked deeper into Lethorel. Trailing branches formed curtains of fluttering leaves all around them, making each room private and cozy. Just like at Ellonahshinel, his rooms were all the way at the farthest reaches of the branches, yet at Lethorel, the smaller set of rooms were tucked into a haven of trailing branches, lit green from the sun glowing through the surrounding leaves.
The small cottage perched on the branch with just a small porch in front of the door. The porch was held up by posts formed of living branches still sprouting leaves.
Essie’s steps staggered, and she gripped him more tightly for a moment. When he glanced down at her, she smiled, her eyes wide and bright. “It’s beautiful.”
Farrendel smiled, and the expression felt more real and genuine than it had in a long time. The smile remained in place, almost painful with disuse, as he opened the door and tugged Essie inside.
The small sitting room was only big enough for a couple of chairs and a small kitchen area formed of cupboards along one wall. Two doors on the far wall led to the two small bedrooms.
Essie waved at the doors across the way. “Is your room on the right and mine on the left like at home or do we switch it up here?”
He opened his mouth to answer, then Essie’s words stuck in his head.
Home. It was a word that he usually applied to Lethorel. And Essie used to refer to the home she had left behind in Escarland when she had married him.
But, this time, she had called Ellonahshinelhome.
Essie’s eyebrows scrunched as she studied him. “What? Is something wrong?”
He could not meet her gaze, his heart beating faster. “You called Estyra home.”
“Of course I did. It’s home.” She squeezed the two fingers that she still had clasped in hers. “I mean it. I love Estyra. I love our rooms there. I love so much of my new life.”
His brain felt like it was fizzling again. She had used the L-word about Estyra and their home and their life.
Did that mean that she…that they…
He hadfeltmore around her, and those feelings had only been growing and deepening.
Would he call them…would he dare use that word when it came to her?
