Kingdom of Sea and Stone (Crown of Coral and Pearl #2) - Mara Rutherford Page 0,89
I could shut out my emotions for once. Every time I tried to imagine Ceren as I’d seen him in our last face-to-face encounter, bloodied and raging in the crypt, all I could visualize was Ceren as a child, sitting alone in a room full of broken toys.
“Talk to Talin, Nor. Tell him what you’re planning. Going behind his back and making secret deals with his mother will only drive a wedge between you. If you love him as much as I think you do, trust me on this.”
“I’m not even sure he wants to talk to me,” I said. “We fought the other night, and I’ve barely seen him since.”
She touched my arm gently. “Nor, people fight, and the people we love the most fight the hardest because they care the most.” She took the last pebble from my hand and dropped it on the ground. “Which is why I will fight you tooth and nail before I let you do something foolish tomorrow.”
I shrugged away from her touch. “I have no idea what you mean.”
She took my face in her hand and turned it toward her. “I have known you since you took your first breath. Do you really think I don’t know when you’re scheming?”
I batted her hand away, but it was half-hearted. “If I tell you, you’ll never let me go.”
“You think I’ll let you go if you don’t tell me? Please, Nor. If you’re going to do something foolish, at least one person should be in on it. Otherwise, there won’t be anyone to help you when the whole thing goes awry.”
We glared at each other for a long moment before I finally broke. “Oh, very well. But you have to promise not to tell anyone. Especially Talin.”
* * *
Zadie and I had talked for over an hour, and by the end of our conversation, we were both in tears. But we had a plan, and, admittedly, it was a better one than mine had been. Still, Zadie made me swear to tell Talin that I was going to see Ceren, and because she didn’t trust me, she arranged the meeting herself.
The library was as deserted as the rest of the castle, the furniture covered in dust sheets, the leather book bindings cracked and dry. I ran my fingers over the spines absently, my mind too focused on what I’d say to Talin to appreciate the titles. A clock chimed ten times somewhere, and I began to fear he wouldn’t come. I paced the length of the room, worrying at my lip with my teeth.
“I thought I told you to be gentle with that lip,” Talin said from the doorway.
I grinned at the memory of our time on the road together, before I’d left New Castle. We hadn’t kissed yet, but we were both anticipating it. I’d been anxious about finding Sami at the port market, but Talin knew who I really was, and though there were still many secrets between us, I had trusted him.
He approached me slowly. He had shaved again for the first time in days, and his hair had been properly washed and combed.
My stomach fluttered, as if we really had gone back in time and were near-strangers to each other. In some ways, we still were. There were so many years of memories we hadn’t shared, all the experiences that had formed us as people before we met. How could I expect him to make any decisions based on my desires when we’d known each other for such a short time?
“I was told to meet my men in the library,” he said, gently folding a cloth covering one of the couches to keep the dust from flying. He gestured for me to sit. “But I’m afraid I see only you.”
“Afraid?”
He sat down on the sofa, leaving enough room for another person between us, and fixed me with a meaningful gaze. I had to force myself not to fiddle with the lace at my cuffs. It was absurd how nervous I felt, when Talin and I had been through so much together. But in the past week, a distance had grown between us that wasn’t just physical.
He smiled and moved closer to me. “I could never be afraid of you. What did you want to talk with me about?”
“You’re still planning to attack New Castle, I take it?”
He took my hand. “I know it isn’t what you want to hear, but this is the way it has to be.”