Chapter 29
A gilded carriageawaits us in the long tunnel that stretches underneath the castle and through the mountain range surrounding Quinnar. Eldas informed me when he came to collect me that we would be riding by carriage. “I want you to know how you could get there without me,” he explained when I questioned why we wouldn’t just Fadewalk.
It only made me more curious as to where “there” is.
I’ve brought only one bag with me—a piece of luggage I found in my closet. My single bag is loaded by the footmen onto the back of the carriage on top of several others.
I cast a look Eldas’s way but hold comment until we’re in the carriage. “Do you think you packed enough?”
“I suspected you would pack too little. So I was certain to have the servants pack extra for you, just in case. You can thank me when you’re appropriately dressed in Westwatch.” Eldas settles into his seat and I stifle a laugh at his playful smugness. The carriage looked large enough on the outside. But, somehow, our thighs are still touching on the bench within. There’s another seat opposite, but he chose to sit next to me.
I try and ignore the solid presence of him at my side. The effort becomes easier as the carriage jostles forward, plodding down the long tunnel and emerging into the sunlight at the far end. I push aside the heavy velvet curtains, pressing my nose to the glass as we emerge along the winding road between the fields I’ve seen for weeks from the windows of my room.
“Here,” Eldas says. He leans over me and what was once the touch of his thigh is now half his body. I press against the far wall and windows, pretending to focus on the scenery more than his dexterous hands tying back the curtains. Eldas shifts back in his seat and retrieves a worn journal from the small satchel he brought into the carriage.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He chuckles. “I thought you were more interested in the scenery?”
“I’m most interested in you.” As soon as I say those words, I contrast them with a sudden jerk of my head back to the windows to hide the deep scarlet blush rising up my neck, rounding my ears, and painting across my cheeks. I wait for him to make a smart remark back. But he spares me. Though I do hear the soft huff of a chuckle that turns my midsection to jelly.
“Would you believe me if I said that the queens aren’t the only ones to keep journals?”
“I’d believe it.” My face is starting to cool as I’m distracted by the meandering landscape. Fields line up against pastures with farmhouses wedged between them. In the distance, I can see the land rising up into hills. There’s the faint silhouette of a keep on the crest of one in the distance.
“My father impressed on me the importance of cataloging my thoughts and keeping journals,” Eldas continues. “I’ve actually been comparing the journals of the kings against the queens to see if I can glean anything important for our research.”
Our research. Not mine alone. Not anymore. He really has committed to this mission. I bite at the insides of my cheeks and wait before speaking for my stomach to untwist itself.
“So, what I hear is that you’ve been holding out on me?”
He laughs again. I have never heard Eldas laugh so much before. As the gray and hollow castle shrinks behind us, it seems the empty void in his chest—the cold and bitter pit that I couldn’t traverse when we first met—is vanishing to nothing.
“Yes, Luella. I have been holding out on you. After all I have given you I thought it would be good sport to deny you something now.”
“I knew it.” I shift in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position after bumps in the road jostle the carriage and nearly place me in Eldas’s lap. “Why have you given me so much?” I ask softly.
“Hmm?” Eldas’s pen has stilled. I’m amazed he could write anything at all with the swaying.
“I never expected you to be the doting husband.”
“And that is the true crime in all of this, isn’t it?”
I’d meant to make him feel better with the remark. But his sour and tired response has me looking for his eyes, his face. What expression was he wearing when he said that? Whatever it was, I missed it. I was too focused on my skirts and now Eldas is looking out the windows of the door at his left.
“Well, this isn’t exactly a normal situation.”
“Not for you,” he admits. He’s been training for this his whole life. Though, little good that seemed to do in actually preparing him for a Human Queen.
“No, not for me…” I bite back a sigh and look out my own windows. If only the throne hadn’t been trying to kill me. If only I hadn’t been at the end of a three-thousand-year line of queens. If only I had been stronger, or more prepared, or was still able to wish to be queen like someone trained for this from a young age might. “I wish everything was different,” I whisper aloud.
I hadn’t meant for him to hear. But, with those long ears, I should have known better.
“I don’t,” Eldas says, just as soft. I have to strain to hear him over the creaking carriage.
“You don’t?” I look over to him, but he’s still turned toward the window.
“If things were different, you wouldn’t have been you.” He finally looks back to me. His once icy eyes are now tepid pools as inviting and warm as the creeks I would strip bare and swim in underneath the redwood trees deep in the forests around the temple. “And I’ve found I’m very fond of exactly the woman you are. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”