I read the entire afternoon in my room. Then Lance insisted that I take a break to have dinner. After which, we had both looked through his other ancestors’ paraphernalia with the same degree of curiosity. His people certainly kept a lot of records.
I couldn’t stop myself from studying Lance as well. Dantilian aside, he seemed to have a strangely determined will to attain an end disparate from his blood. He had absolutely no interest in the readings about the relic. He didn’t care that someone in his dungeon might truly possess the highly sought-after artifact. He wasn’t concerned about it at all. This was definitely a first.
Perhaps he already had all the power he wanted. Perhaps he was content with everything he had. Maybe all he wanted was to change—change history.
“To change my blood. To make atonement.”
I cast him a glance as he had not spoken the words. This desire in him was so strong, his thoughts, his very essence screamed amends.
Headstrong, unbendable, I observed, increasingly stubborn. So very Dantilian, but so very not.
He met my gaze and I looked back down at what I was reading. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile.
Fighting my blush down, I cleared my throat. “Uh, where is everyone else? It’s so quiet around here.”
His smile faded. “My family are my men and my house wards. Unfortunately, I am the last heir of the Cephiron Kingdom, which is well in some aspects, of which I’m sure you will agree. The tainted blood will die along with me.”
“You…are all alone?” I asked, sympathizing with him, and was going to add that I knew how he felt when he said it for me.
He met my gaze. “Yes. We are.”
I don’t remember how I ever got to sleep on the soft bed but I was asleep when I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. I moaned groggily as I turned to see who it was.
“Shh, wake up. Let’s get out of here before anyone suspects anything,” he whispered hoarsely, leaning over me.
I tried to wake up enough to recognize him. Dark hair, green eyes… My eyelids fluttered, trying not to sink back to sleep. “Josh…” I whispered.
He was so close I felt my breath against his cheek. Josh stopped short, surprised at my use of his name and he met my gaze in the dark for a moment, his forehead creasing as his face hovered above mine.
A commotion outside made both of us snap to attention.
He whirled around. “Oh shoot,” he cursed and shook me awake. “Get up. Get up. We gotta go.”
I sat up, starting to heave in the startle. What? Go? Leave here? I looked back at my door, panicked. I was supposed to stay for as long as I wished. Then again, I was supposed to guard the relic. I was supposed to—aargh! I didn’t know what to do!
Josh was keeping a lookout on the balcony. He waved me over. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
Eyes wide, I swallowed and started to stand up slowly.
Lance would be alone again. I had to help him make his amends. But Josh had the relic. I had to watch over its safekeeping. I looked around once more. This was Dantilian’s home. My Dantilian.
The disturbance outside sounded louder, closer.
“Come on!” Josh called. “You come on or I’m leaving without you,” he warned, starting to turn away.
Dammit! I groaned aloud and cursed under my breath before I heard myself yell, “Wait!”
Josh paused in mid-stride and waved me over again. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Gasping, I went to grab some of Dantilian’s scrolls to take with me and with a flourish, tore off my old necklace to leave on the pillow.
I took one last look at the room, a room so very mine, before I whirled around to catch up with Josh.
He scooped me up off the floor and leaped off the balcony into the trees.
After a staggered landing in the bushes below, we made a break for it and ran as quickly as we could toward the forest at the end of the kingdom to get as far away as possible.
***
We stopped to camp out in the forest for the night. Josh was trying to make a big show of ignoring me.
But I didn’t notice since I was curled up under a tree, reading more of Dantilian’s journals in the firelight.
Everything had just happened too fast—learning about Dantilian and Lance.
And I was strangely wishing to relive the past that had once again become fresh in my mind. Too fresh.
Josh stoked up the fire, looking around furtively every so often for any sign of danger. He paced back and forth, seeming to be deep in thought as his forehead was creased, but he didn’t say anything.
I was so deep into my reading that I jumped when he finally cleared his throat and I looked up at him in question.
He pursed his lips before he blurted out, “Are you okay?”
I blinked, having trouble reintegrating myself into the present time before nodding a “yes.”
“Did they—what did they want from you?” he asked with a slight scowl.
I paused, looking distant. I was hesitant to tell him about what I had found out and what Lance had offered me. Josh was obviously very put off by him. It wouldn’t matter how nicely I painted the picture.
“Nothing,” I fibbed. “And you were right, they didn’t know about the relic at all. He wasn’t even interested in it.”
“Yeah well, what the hell was he interested in?”
I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to understand his mood. “Are you worried about me?” It was mildly astonishing to note his concern since between the two of us, I was the mystical being, hardly the one in need of protection.
He met my gaze for a moment before looking away with a huff. “No. I just want to know what the hell happened.”
“What are you getting so angry about? We don’t even know those people.”
He pointed disdainfully back to the direction of the castle. “That was the Kingdom of Cephiron,” he told me. “If you knew anything, you’d probably know that they’re the most notorious kingdom in the whole of Arcadia. They’re deceitful, they’re greedy, they’re rude, you name it.”
I glared at him. First of all, I did not not know anything. Second of all, he didn’t even know what he was talking about. He was there for all of a day and he wanted to pass judgments? I frowned in remorse at his prejudice and his harshness.
I knew I should’ve stayed behind. I wanted to hit myself over the head. Way to make the wrong decision, you stupid forest nymph.
I shot him a mocking look instead of responding and just turned my back to hunch over my reading again.
He threw his hands up, shaking his head in exasperation as he turned and walked away.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’m getting some firewood so that your highness doesn’t get cold,” he called out in reply, not turning back.
I rolled my eyes and let him be.
Besides, I was just getting to the good parts in my reading, the parts where Dantilian had begun starting every paragraph with the word ‘she’.
“She is in my thoughts even when I am away from the forest. Her smile haunts my every waking moment. There has to be some cruel magic at work in this. Cruel, as it may never be. We both have important duties to fulfill and each one cannot coexist…”
“I think I may be in love with her…but she has a greater love for this forest than anything or anyone else… A deeper love that not even I may be able to match.”
“This conflict is consuming me. I may be unable to make a decision but I can rely on noone else to make it. I foresee this conclusion, bleak, coming close. Time is no longer an ally. Even as I ponder it, I cannot construe a better way. This, my decision, may bring about further loss for which I yearn to be ever forgiven. She will not understand. In time, perhaps…”
I frowned over the scrolls. What bleak conclusion was coming close? What decision did he have to make? What was I supposed to understand? To forgive?
I balled up my fists in frustration. Tell me why, Dantilian. Why?