Rayne nodded and started to turn toward his desk but stopped suddenly. Eno waited. There was something on his mind, but he was still working out what he wanted to say.
“Do you think I should be worried about them?” Rayne asked slowly.
“Why?” Eno said and then the direction of Rayne’s thoughts became clear. “You mean the kiss?”
Rayne nodded. “Now is not a good time for Caelan to be distracted.”
“Caelan is focused on his duty to Erya and the godstones,” Eno stated. “I think this was a heat of the moment thing. He thought there was a good chance he’d die so why not steal a kiss?”
A strange smile spread across Rayne’s face, loaded with hidden meaning that Eno couldn’t read.
“What?” Eno demanded.
“It was not a sudden, ‘heat of the moment’ kiss,” Rayne replied, a hint of laughter in his voice. “Caelan has had a crush on his best friend for years. It was likely he was afraid to die and didn’t want to lose his last possible chance to kiss him.”
Eno could only stare at Rayne with his mouth hanging open. Caelan had feelings for Drayce? No! How could he not have seen that? Almost every time he was with Caelan, Drayce was right there. How had he missed it? They acted like good friends, nothing more.
“I’m more accustomed to reading the things that Caelan doesn’t say. It’s how I’ve managed to steer him from trouble over the years.” He paused, his smile falling into a frown. “Drayce is a little harder to read. There were times when I thought he might have feelings for Caelan as well, but then he also flirts shamelessly with nearly every beautiful woman who crosses his path. His ranting about the kiss seemed more like shock. If he were to reject Caelan right now—”
Eno closed the couple of feet separating them and tapped Rayne on the tip of his nose. “No.”
“What?”
“No meddling in this,” Eno warned to Rayne’s look of surprise. “You need to let them figure this out on their own. Our job is to keep them alive and on target.”
Rayne directed his frown at him before nodding. “Yes, you’re right, but I could do without this timing.”
Eno nearly laughed in Rayne’s face. Instead, he stole a deep kiss that left Rayne leaning into him. “And I wish I had done this years ago, but life is what it is. We make the best of it and pray those fickle gods give us more time.”
“Very true.”
Eno slipped out of Rayne’s cabin, forcing his mind to focus on his duties to king and kingdom, but his heart waited for later that night when he’d get the chance to replay these moments with Rayne over again. He didn’t want these to be their only memories together. He wanted them to make others in Stormbreak, when their world wasn’t crumbling into death and war. He wanted to sit in the sun with Rayne in his arms, letting the world pass them by for a few hours.
But first, they had an empire to crush and a throne to save.
7
Caelan Talos
Four days at sea and they weren’t nearly as close to Stormbreak Point as Calean had hoped they would be. Drayce had managed to escape his seasickness for up to two hours on his own, but he required regular intervention from Caelan and his power from the Life Stone if they didn’t want him to crumple again. The only problem was, the constant pull of his powers was draining Caelan to the point that he could barely stumble around the ship.
All three of his companions had tried to put a stop to it, but Caelan refused.
Which resulted in a lot of loud arguing and slamming of doors.
In the end, Drayce had locked Caelan out of his bedroom for Caelan’s own good. That night Caelan had stood on the deck, gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles had turned white. Drayce had just reached the outer limit of his two-hour window, and the seasickness would be turning his stomach right at that moment.
“Caelan,” Rayne started as he came to stand beside him, but Caelan was already shaking his head.
“I’ve lost perspective, haven’t I?” he asked in a voice that barely rose above the crashing waves and the rush of the wind. “I’m sacrificing myself for him over something small and relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I’m putting us all in danger.”
Rayne’s hand came to rest on his shoulder and lightly squeezed. “Drayce is your friend, and you hate to see him in pain.” Rayne paused and sighed softly. “This is also something in your control, something you can fix, in a world where everything feels so out of your control.”
“But if I’m weak, I put us in danger. I slow up our journey home. I need to keep my eye on what is most important—bonding with the goddess, saving Thia.”