“He’ll never let me forget it.” Astar rubbed his ruddy cheeks, contemplating that with resignation.
“It’s good for a ruler to have companions who know his human side, and who can call him on his mistakes. That’s what keeps you from becoming a tyrant.” She relented and sent some warmth his way, too, sliding her arm in the crook of his elbow and turning them back to reverse their path on the cliff walk, back toward the inn. “You are only human, Willy. That’s all right, too.”
“I’m sorry, Nilly,” he said, patting her hand on his arm, “that I’ve been so selfish. I’ve been so caught up in Zephyr that I didn’t give any thought to how you must feel.”
She sighed mentally, annoyed with herself for putting a taint on his perfect happiness, something he’d waited so long to have. “I didn’t want you to be thinking about me, to be worrying about me. This bloom of first love—you only get it once. I want you to savor that. You and Zeph both. Moranu knows the circumstances are difficult enough as it is.”
He was quiet a moment. “Do you think you… with Jak?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I gave you a hard time back there, but it honestly never occurred to me that I might want something like this.”
Astar made a hmming sound, and she caught the words he nearly spoke, but he swallowed the thought nearly as loud as if he had spoken—that Jak had said he was in love with her. Good on her brother for deciding not to reveal that, even if the much-less-tactful Zeph already had.
“I think it would be all right just to enjoy some flirtation,” she continued. “Test the waters, as it were,” she added, amused to be quoting Zeph. To try to be someone who wasn’t always on the fringes, cringing from strong emotions, always on the defensive. The thought niggled at her. Before she could draw it out, though, a ripple on the water far below caught her eye. The lake creature’s head rose from the water, stately, terrible, and as glossy black as the water itself.
Clutching Astar’s arm, she gasped. “Look!”
He tensed, hand going to his broadsword. “What? What is it?”
She pointed. “The lake creature! Do you see it?”
He squinted along the line of her arm. “No?”
Jumping up and down in her excitement, she jabbed her finger at the spot. The creature’s head had to be several man-heights above the water, loops of its body bumping out of the still surface for easily ten times that in length. “Right there. It’s the only thing out there.”
Astar shook his head slowly. “I only see the water. Not even a ripple.”
Stella could swear the lake creature was looking straight at her, that it inclined its chin in a grave salutation before it sank below the surface of the water again. Gone as suddenly as it had appeared. “How can it be that I’m the only one who can see it?”
“Didn’t Jak say something about that back at Elderhorst, how only the pure of heart can see it?” Astar had a teasing smile on his face, and he hugged her arm to him. “That’s you.”
“I’m hardly pure of heart—if there even is such a state of being.”
“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” Astar mused. “That magical lingo is usually vague that way.”
“Well, if it’s a metaphor for sexual innocence, then I might have a good before-and-after test soon,” she commented. Just a last nip on her brother’s busybody tail.
He winced. “Please don’t put that image in my head. I’ll try to stay out of it, but…”
“My growly, protective brother.” She squeezed his arm. “I can respect that boundary.”
“Besides,” he said after a moment, “Gen didn’t see the lake creature when she was right there with you, and she’s complained about her virginity enough that I know about it. So it can’t be that.”
Stella nodded, keeping Gen’s changed circumstances to herself. Knowing Astar, he’d probably want to go back and call Henk out for being a cad. Moranu knew, she wanted to. “Oh well,” she said instead. “We’ll be leaving the lake behind today anyway.” Part of her felt sad about that, and she sent a mental farewell to her lake creature.
“On to Castle Marcellum,” Astar agreed.
“In the heart of the Northern Wastes,” she said with a shiver, even though she wasn’t actually cold anymore.
“Only the eastern edge of them,” he corrected with a smile.
“Practically tropical, then.”
“I do love you, Nilly.”
“I love you, Willy. Nothing will ever change that.” Other things would change—and soon—but not that. Never that.
~ 10 ~
Jak occupied himself with checking the harness on their two valiant steeds. The inn staff had repaired the equipment perfectly, and a night of rest and excellent feed had done the horses good, the pair prancing in the traces in good spirits, their breath puffing warm and fragrant of hay in the swirling snowfall. Stella had healed their wounds so nothing showed of the battle from the previous day, and they both seemed sound. She must’ve calmed them too, because neither acted skittish or afraid of the carriage as he’d anticipated.
If only she could do the same for him. Well, if only she were inclined to. Stella might be just as happy to see him stewing with anxiety. Ha! Some suave and cocky guy he was now. At least working with the horses was a good exercise in maintaining his cool, as horses tended to be sensitive to nerves. Running forms for a couple of hours at dawn had helped, too. He wasn’t in anything close to a meditative state, but he also wasn’t quite crawling out of his skin either.
Still, how long would this conversation take? Astar had steered her out to the cliff walk—despite the blustery weather—foiling Jak’s half-serious resolve to attempt to eavesdrop. Probably Astar had suspected Jak might try such a thing. His mother had been a decent spy after all, and he’d learned a few tricks. Not that he’d have gone against Stella’s decision, but he’d have liked to hear how Astar framed the question. And the exact wording of her reply.
Then he considered that maybe he didn’t want to know what they said about him. There were all sorts of cautionary tales along those lines, warnings that knowing people’s innermost opinions about you could sting more than you’d expect. Though Stella had no insulation from that. She’d always know what everyone around her thought about her, what they felt.
She was going to say no to being courted. Of course she was, and he was braced for that. Hadn’t she told him as much to his face? Yes, there had been that intensely intimate interlude between them in the carriage—and she’d been tempted, he’d felt it in his bones—but she was also determined to wall him out. To wall out all the world, come to that, to live her life alone, the inscrutable sorceress in her remote tower.
“Fuck that shit,” he muttered viciously under his breath.
“Jak,” Astar said from behind him. “A word, please.”
Sometimes he really hated Astar’s honorable and polite gentleman mien. He’d call it a noble façade, but Jak knew as well as anyone that Astar strove to be exactly that. Sometimes it would be easier if Astar could be a genuine asshole, now and again. More like the rest of them.