“And my glad tidings?” she asked him. “You will call a council meeting?”
“Yes, yes,” he said dismissively. “Of course. The rise of the seeker.”
But then, out of nowhere, a small girl of no more than thirteen or fourteen appeared in the street. The tidings must have reached her through some network because she came dashing toward them and threw her arms around Lady Cauthorn.
“Grandmother,” the girl said, her black hair cascading down her back in a long, messy braid.
“Isabylle,” Rita gasped. “You are so big.”
“Fourteen last moon cycle,” Isabylle announced. “Please tell me that you have returned for good. No one has let me to the surface to see you in so long.”
“I am. I am here for good.”
Dalwin turned then and spoke swiftly to Quidera during the heartfelt reunion.
“Come on,” Quidera said a moment later. “Dalwin is allowing you to stay while the sun is at its hottest, and we are offering you each a water ration. I will find you accommodations.”
Cyrene glanced at Dean, who nodded his head once.
“We can do no more until the council is called. Getting some rest might do you some good.”
“And what about you, Captain?”
He grinned. “I have other things in mind.”
Her cheeks colored at his insinuation, and she quickly followed Quidera through the winding maze that was the city of Aleut. Every inch of it was as stunning as the entrance. Though the ceilings were more normal height once into accommodations, none of it felt low or as if they were under tons of rock.
“Here, this will do,” Quidera said, gesturing for them to both enter.
Cyrene observed the lodgings they had been given. A small one-bedroom room with two beds. Nothing fancy, but anything would do at this point.
“I will collect you again when the council is called,” Quidera told her.
“Thank you very much, Quidera. We appreciate your hospitality,” Cyrene said.
Quidera nodded once and then closed the door. Cyrene sensed more than heard a lock slide into place from the other side. She frowned. That was not promising.
“Dean,” she said, her eyes still on the lock, “they locked us in.”
“And? Either of us can undo a lock.” His hands slid down her arms. His chest pressing gently against her back.
“Yes, but…” she murmured.
“Are you upset they locked us in or that you are locked in with me?” he asked against the shell of her ear.
She closed her eyes, the move involuntary. His arms moved to band around her waist and pulled her harder against him. His lips found a spot behind her ear that made her shudder.
“I think…they’re hiding something,” she said instead of every other thing that was going through her mind.
He kissed her neck. “They most definitely are.”
“Dean…is now the time?”
He kissed her jaw. “When will there be another time as there is now?”
She tipped her head back against his chest. “I don’t know…sometime.”
“We should seize the moment.” He turned her in his arms, brought his hands to her jawline, and tilted her face up to look at him. “Unless this is not what you want. Unless you do not feel as I do.”
“What happened to, save the world, and we’ll figure out the rest after?” Cyrene begged, unable to say the words he so wanted to hear.
“I realized that I might not survive this. I know what our odds are. And I do not want to have wasted the moment. Wasted our time together.” His hazel eyes were not pleading. They were not demanding. They were just certain. So certain of her.
She stood on her tiptoes and drew his mouth to hers. He reached, trying to pull her closer, harder, more. But she held firm. Held him in her grasp and tasted him. Her Dean. The one who had proposed to keep her in Eleysia and gone across the bridge to earn magic for her.
But also, the one who had blamed her for his parents’ deaths, who had poisoned her and then not remembered her and said such cruel things to her in Alandria. They were both her Dean. Not different, but the same. Just as she was both sides of Cyrene. Good and evil. Not inherently one or the other. But a gray area.
And maybe, just maybe, she could move past what had happened to them. What they had done to each other. Find a new place for him. For the man standing before her—not as the prince of Eleysia, but as her captain. As hers.
Finally, she withdrew from him and smiled. “I do not want to do this as a chance against the odds. Malysa does not get to claim this, too. Our moments are not wasted. They could never be wasted.”
He kissed her one more time. “You just want to break the lock.”
She grinned devilishly. “No one locks me away and gets away with it.”
16
The Youth
Dean had the door unlocked in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t even an impressive feat. It was clearly someone who had underestimated them. Whatever they thought of the rise of the seeker and that part of their culture, they certainly weren’t taking her seriously.
There wasn’t even a guard posted. It was frankly a little insulting.
“Stop looking like that,” Dean said with a laugh.
“What?” Cyrene asked, following him down the hallway.
“Like, how dare they not know who I am.”
“Psh,” she muttered. “I don’t expect them to, but with their distrust of foreigners, you’d think they’d be more careful.”
“I suspect Quidera was doing us a favor. She can say she locked us in. She did her part. It’s not her fault if we escaped.”
Cyrene shrugged. “I don’t know what to think of this place. They have Tendrille and Doma—Doma who fled the fall of magic, I might add,” she told him. “Yet half their water seekers barely have any water magic, and they’re terrified to speak about this Hohl. With this much power, they could be a force to be reckoned with. What are they afraid of?”
“From what it seems…everything.” He checked the next hallway and then turned them right back toward the main common area of the city.
“It’s been a long time since the full-blooded Doma were here. Perhaps the magical line has just been too diluted. Who knows how many even made it out?”
“I’d guess few. I’m sure, like any nation, they are averse to change. Even Eleysia didn’t want Affiliates to come into the country,” he reminded her.
“Creator, that feels like so long ago,” she said as they turned another corner.
“It does.”
“Wait,” she said, stopping him.
“What is it?”
“The Tendrille. Do you sense it that way?”
He shook his head. “Actually, I can’t sense it.”
She jerked her eyes to him in surprise. “But you…you earned your magic from Domara.”
He frowned as if he didn’t want to speak about his time in Domara. He still had never told her what had really happened there. “I did. That does not make me Doma though. I am still human, I think.”
“Oh,” she murmured. “I didn’t consider that.”