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“Open yourself to me.”

This time, unlike the last, he didn’t ask if I was certain. Instead, Rowan stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Seemed to stop breathing as he stared at me. His nostrils flared, Rowan’s lips parting, as if he would speak.

But he said nothing.

I waited.

“I wish you had my ability to sense emotion,” Rowan said finally. “And could feel mine too.”

The gentle hum of voices, of glasses clanging together, of merriment and camaraderie, surrounded us. It was the sound of Thalassaria, of joy. It wrapped me like a warm current, or perhaps it was Rowan doing that to me.

“You could tell me,” I ventured.

“I do not need to say it aloud, Nerys. Doing so will only…”

He either could not, or would not, continue.

Will only cause us both more pain later.Rowan didn’t need to say the words for me to know the truth of them.

“Could it…” I started, but then stopped.

Nay, Nerys. You’ve said enough.

“Could it what, Nerys? Ask me your question.”

“Could it… could we…” The words refused to form.

“Could we be possible?” he asked for me.

I didn’t confirm that was my question, but neither did I deny it. Rowan looked as if he would be ill. Nay, not ill. Sad. Immeasurably so.

Of course we could not be possible, for so many reasons. I should not have asked.

“As much as I would wish it, no. I do not believe we could.”

25

ROWAN

One truth, and it all came tumbling down.

And while I’d not have lied to Nerys, telling her that it was somehow possible for us to be together, that truth had cost me everything. Though she attempted to pretend otherwise, a budding hope shattered and Nerys’s mood with it.

We opted to return by canal, our conversation stilted. Every time I thought to discuss it, words escaped me. Without being able to tell Nerys the full truth, how could I explain that if my presence wasn’t needed in Estmere as The Keeper, the answer would be yes? That if she believed her people would accept a human king, and despite the challenges which immortal and human relationships presented, we would find a way beyond them? But not one vision of the future, thus far, showed Nerys and I together.

If not for our respective roles, could we be possible? She had reservations, valid ones, about my mortality, but if she could accept it, I would forgo my life in Estmere. Except I couldn’t. The Keeper lived among their own. There were just too many obstacles between us.

“There is an eeriness about the palace this eve,” Nerys said, echoing my own thoughts as we headed toward my bedchamber.

“The hour is late,” I said. “But there are fewer about than usual.”

In Aneri’s courtyard, we’d discussed the possibility of Nerys being watched more closely. If the queen truly did suspect Nerys planned to challenge her, coupled with the knowledge that at least one of her inner circle had been apprised of my purpose here, we had to assume Carys was not the only threat.

Opening myself to our surroundings, but blocking Nerys, I sensed nothing.

“Can I open myself to you?” At her look of suspicion, I clarified. “By blocking you, I am able to sense less,” I whispered.

Our footfalls the only sound in the empty corridors, Nerys’s “aye” echoed.