“I don’t,” Eldas says, just as soft. I have to strain to hear him over the creaking carriage.
“You don’t?” I look over to him, but he’s still turned toward the window.
“If things were different, you wouldn’t have been you.” He finally looks back to me. His once icy eyes are now tepid pools as inviting and warm as the creeks I would strip bare and swim in underneath the redwood trees deep in the forests around the temple. “And I’ve found I’m very fond of exactly the woman you are. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t. I peel my eyes away from his and look to the window. Eldas returns to his journal. And I silently thank the carriage for being noisy enough that I think it’ll hide my racing heart.
“Luella,” Eldas whispers. “Luella, we’re here.”
At some point I dozed off. With how exhausted the throne has made me, I can’t seem to sleep enough these days. I blink slowly and near darkness greets me. Eldas must’ve pulled the curtains because they are now shut tight. What light sneaks through is honey colored and dimming. The copy of the journal Eldas made me is in my lap, mostly unread still.
And my head…
I straighten quickly. “Sorry,” I mumble. At some point I slouched in my sleep and my temple ended up on his shoulder.
Eldas gives me a wry smile. “It’s all right.” That’s all he says and yet I find myself trying to read between every word.
Get yourself under control, my mind commands. But I’ve already discovered my heart is a poor listener.
The king knocks on the door and it swings open. He steps out first and then turns to assist me. I take his cool hand, noticing that his touch is no longer bitter and icy. Perhaps something has changed in him. Maybe I’ve become accustomed to his magic. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve come to want those cool fingers against my skin.
“Where are we?” Gravel crunches under my feet as I step down.
The carriage is parked at the apex of a wide arc of a lane. Tall hedges round all sides and continue along the edges of what I assume is all a single piece of property. They stretch down one side of a tree-lined road.
In front of us is a quaint cottage. The thatched roof is in good condition and the wide porch in front has been freshly sanded and repainted. There’s the same tang in the air that the temple has every midsummer when the Keepers spruce it up before celebrations.
“This is yours,” Eldas says, guiding me forward. As we walk away, the footman gets back in the driver’s seat and spurs forward the horses attached to the carriage. “There’s a town only about an hour’s drive away,” Eldas answers my unspoken question. “The footman will stay there since there’s not room for him here.”
“I see…” No servants. No attendants. Alone with Eldas in the middle of rolling hills and creeping forests nestled against the shade of a mountain that almost reminds me of home.
“Go ahead,” he encourages, motioning to the door as we walk up onto the porch. “It’s yours, after all.”
“You keep saying that.” My hand hovers on the doorknob. “But what do you mean?”
“This is the queen’s cottage.” Eldas smiles proudly. “It was gifted three queens before you as a private escape for Her Majesty. Close enough to Quinnar that you can make the trip within a day. Far enough that it feels like an escape. And, as I mentioned earlier, no need to depend on a king’s Fadewalking to get you here. However, myself and past kings have put up strong wards around this place, so even though it is away from the castle, it is just as safe.”
I open the door and behold the most adorable cottage I have ever laid eyes on.
It’s like the oil paintings I would see sometimes in the Lanton markets of idyllic countrysides, promising a world most people never know. Wide beams stretch across the ceiling. I see hooks for drying herbs lining each of them, begging for greenery. The downstairs is split by a center staircase. To the left is a kitchen of large brass pots and ruddy tile; the right is a living area with seating framing a large hearth.
The wood of the banister glides smoothly under my fingers as I head upstairs. The second floor is smaller