Page 27

“Are you bothered that you never got the chance to be the consort to the Empress of Aetheria?”

I ask Alaric as we walk along the coast. The shadow cat who has bonded with me pads along a little way from us, slinking from shadow to shadow, occasionally trying to pounce on a gull that is not wary enough about it.

“Not as much as I would have thought,”

Alaric says. “Obviously, there would have been considerable status in the role, honor, glory, and so on.”

“And you're all about those,” I say.

He smiles, putting an arm around me. “Not all. I think I found at least one thing that matters more.”

“And what would that be?”

I ask, teasing him.

Of course, the problem with teasing Alaric is that he's better at it.

“You know, I forgot. I'm sure it will come back to me.”

I punch his shoulder, and he draws me into a kiss.

“Oh, yes,”

he breathes against my lips. “That.”

We are a long way from Aetheria now. We have walked for days, sticking to the coast. We have not been bothered by bandits, at least not after the first attempt. I lean on a spear and a pair of swords at his waist. Combined with the shadow cat, it seems to be enough of a deterrent. We have stopped wherever we can find shelter.

Now we are nearing our destination.

“How do you feel about being outside the city?”

I ask. “I know you didn't want to run away to a sleepy little seaside village.”

“I said that to try to save you,”

Alaric replies. “And I'm sorry.”

“You don't need to be,”

I reply. “But are you going to be alright going to my home? I can barely imagine you in a poor fishing village. There isn't a single bathhouse.”

“Then how do you bathe?”

Alaric asks.

“In the rockpools.”

“I'm sure I can get used to it. And this sea air isn’t… entirely intolerable.”

Sometimes I wonder why I put up with him.

Then I look at him, and love bursts through my heart all over again.

It isn't just that he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen.

It's that somewhere under that veneer of arrogance is someone who truly cares, not just about me but about the world around him.

Someone who pretends only to care about glory and honor, but who was happy to risk his life for me, to kill an emperor… oh, and to turn cartwheels for small children in the middle of processions.

Someone like Vex, who truly did only care for his own position, would not have done any of those things.

We round a bend and Seatide comes into view, the sunlight behind it.

It seems so small now that I have been to the most important city in the world.

It is tiny, amid dot on the edge between land and waves.

Yet my heart leaps at the sight of it, because this is home.

My mother is there somewhere, and all the people I knew growing up.

I do not know how long Alaric and I will stay.

I want to show him off to my mother, introduce him to all my friends.

I think we will stay a while, but I also know that this place is too small for Alaric.

For his ego, if nothing else.

Possibly it is too small for me now too.

Ultimately we will need to wander again, seeing what else the world contains.

For now, though, it is enough that it contains Alaric, and that he is by my side.