and meeting up with some of the others. Kara, no doubt seeing my frown, leapt off the deck of the fishing boat and, landing on the dock before me, bowed deeply. “Don’t worry, Your Highness—it sails far better than it appears.”
“I know,” I replied, tearing my gaze from the ship, which seemed to list ever so slightly to one side. Should it do that? “I asked a few of My people to verify,” I added.
He smiled, a narrow and humorless slash in his dark face. “You still don’t trust me?”
“I believe in being thorough,” I replied. “Though I do trust you, if only because Con does. Can I charge you to do your utmost to make sure he survives this mission?”
Kara’s smile twisted into a grimace. “You can ask, and I can promise—but we both know Conrí follows his own path. I tried at Cradysica, you know. Or maybe You don’t.” He hesitated. “Conrí is a man possessed by a powerful idea.”
“I know that.” And I did—and it wasn’t something I could change. “I also realize it’s brought him this far.”
“It’s brought all of us this far,” Kara corrected gently. “Without Conrí … well, I don’t think we’d be in a position to attempt this at all.”
“There’s something to be said for being bullheaded,” I remarked with a rueful smile, an expression Kara reflected.
“Talking about me?” Con asked, catching me around the waist and speaking into my ear.
I managed not to jump, but just barely. For a big man, he could move as silently as a cat—and now that I’d seen his surprisingly playful side, I knew full well that he enjoyed sneaking up on me. “As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “However did you guess?”
With his hands on my hips, he turned me to face him. “I seem to recall you were likened to the other bull in the small pen we occupy.”
“I never denied the metaphor,” I replied. “Brenda has a gift for them.”
I looked him over, seeing he wore the court clothes that I’d had made for him—the black with silver trim—though he’d forgone the crown and wore a sword instead of the rock hammer. “No crown is a good call,” I noted, as Anure wouldn’t appreciate the Slave King pretending to actual royalty, “but I’m surprised you gave up your rock hammer.”
He scowled in disgust. “Blame Sondra for that. She thinks the sword is more ‘impressive gentleman’ and not so ‘escaped-slave-from-Vurgmun.’”
“She has a point.”
“I left it in our rooms,” he confided. “So you can keep it for my return.”
I blinked back tears, moved by this small gesture that meant so much. Never mind the bitter voice that whispered he’d be more invested in returning for the rock hammer than for me. “I will.”
With the excitement of taking action, the sheer glee of going after his long-held goal sparkling in his eyes, Con looked taller, charismatically imposing, vividly and fully the man I loved. “I have a favor to ask,” I said. “Keep Vesno with you.”
He raised a brow. “You want me to bring a wolfhound into Anure’s throne room?”
“Yes. It’s not so unusual that the guards will balk, as well-behaved as Vesno is. And I’ll be able to watch, perhaps.” The one advantage of being a witch queen: I might be confined to my island, but I had ways of looking beyond it.
He nodded, considering. “I’ll do my best to keep him with me. You look amazing,” he said in a lower voice. “Like a golden goddess.”
“Thank you.” I tried to think of something else to say, but all that came to mind were cautions and questions. Not how you sent off a hero who charted his own course through the raging seas of doubt and stacked odds.
He seemed to be searching for words, too, also coming up empty. “I love you, Lia,” he finally said, and I understood in that moment why people liked to say those words to each other. They held a wealth of other, unspoken and unspeakable thoughts and feelings. A kind of a gift, a token that symbolized so much more.
“I love you, Con,” I told him, infusing the simple words with all my hopes and wishes for good luck. He smiled, dimple winking into existence like the first star of evening.
Then his gaze lifted over my head, looking beyond me. “Everyone is assembled, ready for Your Highness to address them.” For once he employed the honorific with total sincerity.
I hadn’t meant to make this farewell that sort of