“Why?” Nevander asks.
“I believe it will benefit Summer’s Edge.” Gevain looks away. “And on a personal note, I quite liked Queen Haelwen.”
That wouldn’t be rare. Fae have ever been attracted to power. Nor was it a hopeless desire—Haelwen was hardly chaste over her centuries of rule.
Yet Gevain appears embarrassed. “I’m feeling Sevastia’s mead. I should let Daffodil put me to bed.” That courtly smile returns. “Do help me arrange an audience with His Highness. He must learn to throw a proper party, and you’re hardly up to the task.”
As he leaves, Nevander recalls the wooden comb in his carryhold. Carved with summerstars and a falcon in flight.
Too many threads. Nevander doesn’t know how Haelwen managed them all.
Except she didn’t, in the end. And perhaps it’s unfair to wrap so many threads around his prince’s throat.
19
An Empty Yearning
SerensquirmsasHarmonyslips behind his neck. Her fluffy tail is the softest thing Seren’s ever felt, and it tickles. Tiny paws brace against Seren’s shoulders, and he remembers arriving in Summer. The sudden peace. The delusion that he could belong here.
After their first trembling meeting, Seren had anticipated slowly coaxing his new pet. But all Harmony needed was healing and a few berries to regain the boldness inherent to squirrels. A quality that holds true in both Prima and Summer.
“Are you happy here?” Seren asks, holding up a finger.
She sniffs it, finds nothing to eat, and slinks into the swaying honeysuckles. Sweetness fills the night air. Lantern light reflects from curious moths and the barely-there shimmer surrounding the balcony.
“I don’t know if I am,” Serenconfesses.
The shimmer is a protective ward. Absurd to think someone would… shoot an arrow at Seren? A curse? A cursed arrow? Seren is used to being nobody. Not lounging on his private balcony. The floorboards are unnaturally clean and warm beneath his bare feet. Even his toenails are strange. Iridescent, like soap bubbles.
Nevander’s shirt brushes his skin with every shift of breeze. Seren should give it back, especially since he can only wear it at night, when nobody can make assumptions. But of all his perfectly tailored new shirts, Nevander’s is the most comfortable.
A book sits on the bench beside Seren:The Life and Times of Our Great King Baralas, Long May He Reign. It’s about the man who took the throne after the First Queen vanished. Haelwen’s grandfather. Seren’s ancestor.
Flattering title aside, it appears more rumor and scandal than fact. Seren has only reached the part where Baralas fails to wield Summer’s magic. Implausible hijinks ensue until Lady Lysandra forges him a crown. The ancient history feels too close. Too fragile. That fabled crown sits broken the next room over.
Seren isn’t sure why he’s reading this. Everything he learns leads to new unknowns. He’ll never catch up.
Certainly not tonight. Too tired to read but too unsettled to sleep. Instead, he’s talking to his squirrel.
Edith would have scolded him, demanding to know who he was talking to. Now Seren understands her anger. She hated any evidence of his nature. That didn’t make it right to yell at him, but Seren understands.
At least he’d felt her emotions, so he could adjust his behavior.
“What do you think about Nevander?” Seren asks wistfully. “I wish there was a book that would teach me about him.”
A reply seeps into his mind. Not from Harmony, and not in words. A breath of concept, so subtle Seren might have imagined it. Except under Primrose’s tutelage, he’s become keenly aware of the difference between self and other.
Cheerful confusion. Something like,Why?
The honeysuckles are talking to him.
Seren’s too tired to explain everything. The way Nevander pays such close attention to him, yet Seren can’t glean anything in return. “Because he’s infuriating.”
This shirt is the worst of it. Nevander gave it to Seren at the moment Seren came closest to winning Nevander’s approval. Yet after passing Primrose’s trials, Nevander became even more distant.
The honeysuckles seem to laugh. They don’t understand, but they’re happy. They don’t understand anything, and the world is still good. Seren envies their contentment.
Harmony emerges from the honeysuckles. Her tail twitches, like she’s about to launch herself at Seren. Then she cocks her head and scurries inside.