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“Just go, Jak,” she said, sounding exhausted. She drew up the covers and turned her back to him, coolly dismissing him, just asshe had for most of her life. A thorough walling out he’d thought was long past.
Knowing he’d never sleep in this state, Jak flung himself out of the room, snarling at the guard to stay on the door as long as necessary. He needed whiskey. A lot of it.
~ 4 ~
Stella sighed inrelief as Jak stormed out of their bedchamber, slamming through the outer doors entirely, and at last gave way to the storm of tears she’d been withholding. She didn’t understand herself. Not why she felt so emotionally turned upside-down—though the barrage of Jak’s storm-tossed sea of rage and regret hadn’t helped—nor why she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just ruined everything.
It had been the right thing to do, setting Jak free of his obligations to her. She hadn’t spoken a single untruth, unlike him. His misery was a tangible thing, his doubts about their future together so apparent that they’d begun to actually affect the futures she glimpsed. At one time, she’d been able to see them sailing away, the visions holding the clarity of truth. Lately, however, those futures had begun to blur, and she’d had to seek them out among the crowds of more likely futures.
Jak leaving Windroven in a blizzard of heavy snow.
Jak off on theHákyrlingwithout her.
Her alone, living a solitary existence away from the battering emotions of others. Not that tower she’d dreamed of for so long and with such dread. Those futures had died with the intelligence. But she did recognize the place. That isolated tower they’d found when they traced the intelligence to its lonely home. A sterile, empty world it had been, but filled with books and knowledge, and all the time and peace in the universe to study them. Stella hadn’t told anyone—not even Jak, not evenAstar—how much the total psychic silence of that place had soothed and comforted her.
There was an appeal, still, to the prospect of living her life in that solitude. Cloistered away from the travails of the world. Free of emotion. Free from arguments like this. Even as much as she loved Jak and the mind-shattering passion he brought to their relationship, he was also devastatingly distracting. Shethoughtabout him all the time, whether she wanted to or not. He didn’t even have to be in the same room for her to think of him with desire that made her shiver with unexpected heat, her body going slick as if readying for his immediate presence, let alone when he touched her, or slid her one of those devastatingly wicked grins. If she felt like this now, what would it be like being married to him?
He’d consume all of her attention, that’s what. And she couldn’t decide how she felt about that. Being alone would be so much… easier.
Well, now she’d done it. She’d driven him off, cancelled the wedding, and now only had to tell her mother. Oh, joy. With a groan, Stella buried her wet face in the pillow and sent out a flick of her magic to snuff the candles. When Jak returned for another round of arguing, he could fight his way through the dark.
Only Jak never returned.
Stella woke in the early morning light, aware of her swollen eyes and the cold emptiness of Jak’s side of the bed. Also, it felt colder all around. Slipping out of bed, she pulled on her robe. It was too thin for the chill in the air. She’d have to see if her mother had her winter robe packed away somewhere. Going to the window, Stella moved aside the ancient tapestry that covered the narrow slit. Windroven had been built for defense, not to take advantage of the startling views, so the unglassed gap in the deep stone wall of the tower showed only a wedge of the world beyond.
Snow blanketed the sky, falling thickly and shifting rapidly in the changeable winds off the coast. All the signs of a full Mornai storm. Despite the bleak weather—or, rather, because of it—Stella’s heart fluttered with joy. If the storm settled in enough, no one would be able to travel to Windroven for the wedding, which meant it would have to be cancelled regardless. And, more important, Jak wouldn’t be able to leave her.
The realization flooded her with relief, even as she mentally saluted her own hypocrisy. She’d deliberately driven Jak away, broken their engagement, and enraged him to the point where he’d not slept in their bed for the first time since they’d begun sharing one. And now all she wanted was to ensure that he couldn’t leave her.
In the literal cold light of morning, she could recognize the extremity of emotion from the night before that had led her to think living on that sterile world in an empty tower was a good idea. It was a terrible idea, through and through. No wonder Jak grew exasperated with her. He was right: she was far too moody and brooding. She needed to meditate more, to gain some control over the emotional input of a castle crammed with people, to govern herself better, to not take it out on him.
Fortunately, Jak loved her enough to forgive her. She’d find him and apologize. It was the wedding that had driven a wedge between them. A stupid party with political ramifications that had nothing to do with her and Jak.A huge state wedding is not the same as getting married, and getting married isn’t the same as being married, Jak had said, and he’d been right. She’d been too angry in the moment to listen. Another of her failings. She didn’t have much of a temper, but when she lost it, she lost it fully. She could fix this, though. Jak had always forgiven her moodiness, understanding her mercurial nature better than she did herself. Everything would be all right, she consoled herself.
The only problem was, Jak was nowhere to be found.
“What do you mean he left Windroven?” she asked in disbelief. Of course, it just had to be her mother who delivered the news, practically pouncing on Stella as she entered the smallish hall where the family gathered for breakfast. Given the size of her family, it couldn’t betoosmall. Everyone was there, the long double row of her sibling’s faces and their keen curiosity focused on her. Only Jak was missing, his usual chair accusingly empty.
“Sit. Eat,” Ami instructed, her beauty astonishingly rosy against the ivory-furred collar of the pale velvet gown she wore. Stella felt peaked and rumpled by comparison, sinking into her chair more out of lack of energy to remain standing than out of obedience. “Exactly what I said,” Ami continued, signaling a servant to make a plate for Stella. “Young Jakral left last night, after cutting a swath that included drinking a prodigious amount of whiskey.”
“Never knew one man could drink so much,” Ash commented in his broken-glass voice, propping his head on one hand as he studied his breakfast plate. “I kept him company for a while, but he quickly outpaced me.”
“I can help with the hangover,” Stella offered. Her healing magic would take care of his headache easily.
“No you won’t,” Ami ordered crisply. “Serves you right, Ash, for pretending you can keep up with a wild young man like that. Jak is a product of both his parents’ unfettered ways. He also challenged numerous persons to various games of chance—”
“Including me,” Ash inserted with a wry smile. “Took all my coin.”
“Which also serves you right,” Ami said without missing a beat. “Then Jak announced that he had things to do and he was leaving.”
“And no one thought to stop a drunk man from going out into a blizzard?” Stella asked incredulously, her temples throbbing, and not just from sensing Ash’s hangover headache.
“It wasn’t snowing then,” Ami answered with a sniff. “Also, I’m not in the habit of confining my guests to the castle, particularly not my daughter’s lover.”
There it was. Jak had been demoted from fiancé to lover. Now he wouldn’t be even that. Feeling sick, Stella pushed her plate away. There was no way she could eat. Jak was out in that storm—and she had sent him into it. “Did he at least take a horse, or a carriage?” she asked, a bit desperately.
“He refused, Nilly,” Ash said with quiet regret in his apple-green eyes. “I did try to convince him—and I tried to dissuade him—but he said a great deal about being his own man and not hanging off your skirts. I think his pride was sore abused.”
Stella nodded, pressing her fingers to her eyes. Jak had always been a bit prickly about her providing for him. He wasn’t as domineeringly male as most Dasnarian men, but he had his moments. Ash didn’t need to elaborate further—she could just hear that particular rant of Jak’s. But where would he have gone? On foot, no less, in a Mornai storm. Maybe she could use sorcery to locate him, if he hadn’t frozen to death already. Or she could shapeshift into one of her winter-hardy forms and fly a sweep pattern until she spotted him. But then what—have Windroven guards drag him bodily back to the castle? That wouldn’t end well.
