He was so kind—so kind and caring and chivalrous—and he deserved more.
That was all Lyana thought as the rest of the week passed, and her feeling of suffocation grew, while his affectionate smile never wavered.
He deserves more than me, she thought, in his library for the third time that week. Xander leaned over a table, mind deep in the scrolls he’d unrolled, while she stood off to the side, staring out the window at the town below—a town that called out to her, whispering her name, urging she open the window, spread her wings, escape the castle, and join them in the streets below.
Or maybe not more, she corrected, idly rubbing the glass pane with her fingers. Just different. A girl who will stand beside him, not across from him. A girl who is content with being safe and secure, not always dreaming of adventure. A girl who… Her gaze drifted down, down, down to the raven all alone at the far side of the practice field, visible even from this distance. A girl who isn’t staring at his brother, remembering the way his magic sizzled beneath his skin, the way he watched her through firelight.
Lyana jerked away from the glass as if it stung her and spun, squaring her shoulders and facing her mate, determined to find a common ground.
“What are you reading?” she asked casually, stepping to his desk and pressing her palms against the worn wood to keep grounded.
“Huh?” He glanced up, surprised. “Oh, um, nothing really. It’s, well… I’m not actually reading per se, just reviewing some old maps of the isles.”
“Maps?” Lyana leaned over to peek.
Xander tilted his head as if perplexed but turned the spine of his book so she could see. Lyana touched the smooth parchment, following the contours of the mountains, the lines marking where land gave way to sky. But all she could think was, Why? Why sit in a tower and stare at old maps, when everything on that page was waiting just outside the window?
“Hmm.” Her murmur was half a sigh, half feigned interest.
Xander latched on to the latter. A rush of color flooded his cheeks and he leaned closer, their shoulders and wings brushing as he put his finger next to hers on the page. “You see this, here?” he asked in the animated voice of a scholar. “You see the edge, there, on the other side of the isle? Not where the castle is, but on the more uninhabited part. You see how it juts out? Now…”
He pushed the book a few inches away, grunting as he reached with his left hand to grab another heavy volume. Lyana moved to help, but he drew his breath in sharply, so she stopped, gaze darting to his right arm and the rounded end covered in black silk to match his coat. She dropped her hand gently back to the tabletop. As though nothing had happened, Xander hastily opened the cover and began sifting through the pages, searching for something, and there! He stopped with the book open on another map.
“Now,” he said, breathing out before drawing her attention to the illustration. “Look here, that same spot as the previous map, except the edge of the isle is now concave. The two edges don’t line up at all.”
Lyana knitted her brows and looked up at him. “A mistake, surely?”
“I thought so too at first,” he agreed, but pursed his lips, eyes sharp and focused. “Though that’s not the only difference. The others are just subtler. I’ve compared maybe a dozen maps from different cartographers across all different ages, and no two perfectly match.”
“What do you think it means?” she asked, genuinely confused about what he was suggesting.
Xander lifted his brows as a jovial smile widened his lips. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. But either our island has been getting smaller and smaller, slowly enough for no one to realize it, or we are in dire need of new mapmakers.”
Lyana leaned back. “Are you teasing me?”
“No.” An almost comical, horrified look passed over his face, sincere enough to make her trust his response. “No, not at all. I’m being serious. I noticed it before the courtship trials. I even put in a request with the House of Wisdom for access to their records, which should be far more accurate in size and scope than mine.”
“The House of Wisdom?” Lyana’s chest filled with a familiar sort of anticipation. “But they don’t lend their archives.”
“No, no, I’d have to make a trip, which shouldn’t be a problem now that the courtship trials are over,” he told her offhandedly, attention returning to his books.
Her reaction, however, was anything but casual. Lyana gasped and seized his forearm as her eyes popped, mind spinning with every sliver of information she’d ever heard about the great libraries of the owls and their underground maze of a home. “A trip! When? How soon? Have you been before? Oh, can we go, Xander? Can we?”
He started laughing before she’d even finished speaking. “Are you so eager to get out of here?”
Although his tone was playful, there was just enough honesty in that question to make her pause, and a dimming of his eyes made her wonder if her unenthusiastic attempts at being a proper princess had been shamefully transparent.
“Of course not,” she hastily responded.
Xander reached across the table and took her hand in his, gently grazing the tops of her fingers with his thumb, a yearning sort of touch that made her lift her chin to look at him, but his eyes were cast down. Before she could say any more, he pulled his hand away and walked to the window. Lyana followed with her eyes but felt stuck to the spot as she cradled the fingers he’d just abandoned to her chest, unsure why they tingled.
“You’ve been very patient with me, with my family, our customs and our plans this past week,” he said as he touched the window latch.
A wry grin appeared on her lips—patient was not a word that had ever been used to describe her—but she kept her mouth shut, almost afraid to interrupt as he turned the handle and slid the glass pane open. A gust of wind blew into the room. Invisible arms wrapped around Lyana’s waist, tugging her outside. She stumbled closer, unable to stop herself as her skirt flared and her feathers ruffled.
“I think maybe it’s time I return the favor,” Xander said, glancing over his shoulder before taking a single step back and leaping through the large window.
Lyana ran to the opening and stopped at the edge, certain this was a trick.
Xander hovered, onyx wings slick in the sun, eyes sparkling in the bright daylight. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Don’t we—” Lyana broke off before she could finish the sentence, shaking her head with disbelief. They were supposed to be meeting with the queen in half an hour. But if he didn’t mind being late, neither did she. “Yes!”
She dove out the window and snapped her wings wide, blood pumping as her body began to sing.