Page 29 of A Simple Truth (the Freckled Fate #2)

28

GIDEON

I promised myself that I would not gawk at her all night. A reasonable task, one would think, yet one I had terribly failed.

Though, to be fair, I had no business making such commitments in the first place. From the moment she’d walked in the room earlier tonight, I had known I would be incapable of keeping my eyes off of her.

Xentar and Lord De Villiar stood next to me, buried deep in conversation, their male voices nothing but a background noise to my stalking. I observed Finnleah as she browsed the large bookshelves lining the walls. She tilted her head, reading the sides of the spines, her unbound hair flowing down her back. She’d occasionally pull a book out, read a few snippets, and carefully place it back, then she’d repeat the motion again. Her alluring silhouette stretched or crouched as she reached for different shelves, looking for nothing in particular.

“So, what do you think of that, Gideon?” Lord De Villiar asked, catching me off guard.

“Think of what?” I asked, not paying even the slightest bit of attention to the discussion.

“We were talking about the Elves?” Xentar raised his brow in question.

“Yes, Elves, a very important component,” I threw out some nonsense, my eyes returning to the cause of my distraction. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” I politely said, already crossing the room, finally giving into the urge to stand near her.

“Find anything of interest?” I asked, startling her a bit as she turned sharply.

“A few things.” She returned her eyes back to the De Villiars’ personal library.

I clasped my hands tightly behind my back as I hovered over her, fighting the urge to run my fingers through her hair.

“This one is the best though.” The corners of her beautiful lips tugged upwards, delighted, as she pulled out a large, heavy dictionary. She passed me the book and I flipped through some pages.

“An Elvish dictionary? I took you more for a fiction kind of a reader, not dictionaries.” I elbowed her gently; she rolled her eyes, but smiled.

“That is a work of fiction,” Finnleah countered, taking the book back from me. But at my confused glance, she sighed and added, “It’s a book that claims to be an Elvish Dictionary. But whoever wrote it might as well have made up their own language, because this is anything but actual Elvish.”

“And since when are you an expert in Elvish?” I tilted my head, soaking in her delightfulness.

“Since I grew up speaking it,” she nonchalantly answered, putting the book back on the shelf.

“You speak Elvish?” I didn’t hide my doubt as our eyes met and I scanned her face, unsure if she was serious or not.

“I…” She grimaced, lamenting the conversation, but hesitantly explained. “The maid that raised me? Well, she was an elf, and since it was just her and me, I primarily spoke Elvish for most of my childhood.”

“You speak Elvish,” I stated, and my jaw dropped at the realization.

“You play piano,” she countered, as if it was some kind of competition.

“Son of the Emperor, remember?” I refuted back, still flabbergasted.

“Raised by an Elf, remember?” she copied my tone, but her body tensed, her shoulders squared.

“It’s not that…” I sighed, running my hand over my face, calling to Zora and Orest. “She speaks Elvish.” The announcement somehow stopped the lively flow of buzzing conversation, and I could feel Finn shrink behind my back.

“Wait what?!” Zora asked, shocked. Her eyes darted to Finn, and then back to me.

“You read Kaius’s papers...” Orest calmly specified, catching up with my racing thoughts.

“Yes, I read them. I wasn’t going to just blindly hand them off, plus I had to know what they were in case they got destroyed,” Finn replied, defensively.

“No... he means, you could read them,” Zora said, standing up from her spot on the large olive couch. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you spoke Elvish?” she asked, her tone and her eyes not hiding a dash of hurt.

“I didn’t think it mattered?” Finnleah uttered, her tone changing from defensive to confused.

“It wouldn’t matter, that is, if any of us could read Elvish,” I explained, motioning Finn toward the hall to get our cloaks.

“It seems our dinner visit will be cut short today,” Orest stated to the De Villiars, apologetically nodding goodbyes, as he got up from the comfortable couch.

“Of course, please keep us posted on your findings.” Lady De Villiar understood, as she wrapped her arm around sleepy Aurelia, cuddled against her shoulder.

“Where are we going?” Finn questioned, while lacing her boots.

“We are going back to the camp,” I replied, grabbing her cloak. The muscle in her jaw strained, but she obliged with the gesture, allowing me to wrap the cloak around her shoulders.

"Why?" she questioned again, her gaze connecting with mine. Lost in the depths of her emerald eyes, my thoughts became hazy, clouded by her beauty but I managed to respond.

“Because you, Finnleah, just became the key to winning this war.”