even though he certainly could. It wasn’t even that she could see that those rivers that ran through him were now full of Fadaire, sparkling, laughing, delighted to course through a soul that had been born to their power. Nay, it was none of those things.
It was that he, an elven prince from a house of elven kings, had wanted her to stay with him.
It was also possible that she was still trying to breathe normally after having been faced with a doom she now knew she couldn’t avoid, but perhaps that was something better left for examination at another time.
She watched Ruith approach and found it in her to scowl. He might have wanted her to keep him company for the moment, but that wouldn’t last. The world would discover that he was alive, and then he would have scores of princesses falling over themselves to be first in line to court him. He would spend his days in glittering elven palaces, taking tea with other princes and princesses, exchanging royal pleasantries with kings and queens—if he lowered himself to do so.
She had no illusions about the elves of Tòrr Dòrainn, for Franciscus had taken particular pleasure in telling her their tales. They were an exclusive lot, finding themselves superior to the inhabitants of Ainneamh, surely, and especially to the other elves and half elves Franciscus had told her about who lived in the east and were dwindling in number in the north. Nay, once Ruith stepped back out onto the world’s stage, he would have no use for her, which meant she would be wise to escape whilst she could—
“Oh, nay, not this,” Ruith said, catching her.
He had to catch her because, she realized, she was in mid-bolt through the bower.
He turned her to him and looked down at her gravely. “You promised to stay.”
“I promised to stay the night,” she managed, never mind what sort of unwholesome agreement she’d come to with the trees just a handful of moments past. “The sun is up.”
His expression didn’t change. “And what must I do to win another day?”
Deny your birthright and let’s go hide would have been the first sensible thing she’d said in two months, but that was as impossible as the thought of his even looking at a mortal woman, which she most definitely was.
Do elves ever marry ordinary gels? she had asked Franciscus one evening in her youth as she’d sat at his worktable and watched him sort lavender from the widow Fiore’s garden.
Some do, he had conceded. But never the elves from Tòrr Dòrainn. Their king, Sìle, is particularly adamant about that.
He’s not much of a romantic, is he?
Franciscus had laughed. Nay, gel, he isn’t. He’s proud and protective of his family and so gloriously elvish, a body can hardly look at him without his eyes catching fire.
She hadn’t thought to ask him how he possibly could have known that, though now she wondered why not. It wasn’t possible Franciscus had known Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn himself ... Then again, she’d never considered it possible that Franciscus might be some sort of mage, but now she knew differently.
And she was looking at Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn’s grandson, who was almost leaving her eyes catching fire himself.
Or, rather, trying not to look at him. Because it hurt her to do so.
“Your sight bothers you,” he said quietly.
She nodded, because it was easier than giving him the list of all the things that bothered her.
He reached out to pull her into his arms, but she stepped backward so quickly, she almost tripped. She turned away from him because she honestly couldn’t think clearly when she was looking at him. She was almost to the point where she was seriously considering marching back up to that horrible keep and demanding that Soilléir put back whatever he’d ripped off her eyes. She was finished with seeing too much.
She stopped at the edge of the circle of trees and looked down into the city. The trees were quieter than they had been earlier, as if they too held their breath.
Sarah felt rather than heard Ruith come to a stop behind her. He freed her hair from the collar of her cloak, then ran his hand lightly over it.
“Will you answer one question for me?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t want to, but she supposed the trees would drop a branch on her head if she didn’t, so she sighed heavily. That was as much an assent as anyone could expect from