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I stared at him, surprise evident on my face. “Really?”
“Yeah, not the good pieces, though,” he jeered with a snicker.
I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks.”
The smile melted away from his face until his features looked gaunt in the flickering shadows of the firelight. “I see her everywhere.”
“Tell me about her.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Really?”
“Yes. Distract me from everything. I want to know all about her.”
“It isn’t some great love story, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“Tell it anyway.”
There it was again, turning the squeals of sows and bartering voices into an orchestra worthy of a king. A laugh that ceased the world’s turning for a split second. I wasn’t angry anymore, not after hearing that laugh. A flash of blonde hair was swallowed by the crowd, and I followed. What was I doing? I was a new soldier, unranked, without two silvers to rub together. But I didn’t stop. Instead, I dodged people to keep her in my field of view as she bobbed and weaved through the market square.
She was with a friend, a sister perhaps, each with a basket hanging from the crook of an elbow. A horse and cart passed in front of me and she was gone, taken by the crowd once again. Damn. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
I turned back and resigned myself to the fact that I’d lost her. Who wasn’t to say her laugh was the only beautiful thing about her? Who wasn’t to say I’d’ve had a chance with her anyway?
“Pardon me, soldier,” a small, teasing voice sounded as a tall blonde woman stepped around me. She whispered something to her friend and laughed, my veins singing with the music of it once again.
“Hey,” I called after her without thinking. The two women turned to me and her eyes met mine, piercing blue — the color I imagined the ocean would be when the sun shone on it. I couldn’t have told you what her friend looked like in that moment. I couldn’t even have told you what day of the week it was. I was captured in the light of her stare. It was all I could see. No feeling I’d ever had in my life came anywhere close to this. I didn’t even have a name for it. All I knew was it made me want to leave my life behind and spend the rest of my days living in her gaze.
She raised a brow as I stared. I could feel my mouth hanging open like an idiot, but there was nothing I could do. “Yes, soldier?”
“Just…” I stammered. “Hello.”
She smiled with closed lips, something mischievous and sly about it, like she was delighting in watching me flounder. “Hello.”
A hand closed around her arm. It was her friend dragging her away. She obliged, but her head stayed turned toward me for an extra second, eyes narrowed as she watched me watch her. And then she was gone.
“I made sure to be at the market the next day,” Miles said, absentmindedly toeing the dirt. “She wasn’t there, of course. She wasn’t there the next day, or the next day either. I was buying fruit and bread I didn’t need and damn sure couldn’t afford.”
“Didn’t you say you were a new soldier then?”
“I was.”
“So…shouldn’t you have had training sessions to attend?”
He let a slight smile turn up his lips. “I did. Ran a lot of extra laps in those days. Scrubbed a lot of floors. Missed a lot of meals. It was worth it, though, because I saw her again.”
“Following me, soldier?” I turned from the cart of honey apples I’d visited four times this week, and there she was, cloak hanging over pronounced collarbones, those eyes the color of the ocean on a sunny day. She peered out from behind a thick fringe of lashes, as if they could hide her from my stare.
“Following you?” I stuttered. “No, I–”
“He’s bought honey apples from me four times this week,” the small, stout woman behind the cart chimed in. “No one needs that many honey apples. Of course he’s following you.”
My teeth gnashed together and my eyes widened in embarrassment as I shot daggers at the woman. I turned back to the ocean before me, giving her what I knew was the most sheepish smile she’d ever seen. “I’m sorry, miss.” I shuffled past her, trying to hide the shame in my face, but she caught me by the arm.
“I was hoping I’d find you here. What’s your name?”
I froze. What was my name? I scrounged every corner of my mind for the only piece of information in this life I was obligated to know. “Miles Landgrave.”
“Hello, Miles Landgrave. I’m Cielle Andyr.”
