Page 19 of This Midsummer Heart (Seasons of Legend #4)

Chapter eighteen

Night Blooms

Auberon

M

y

welcome

lasted

just

long enough for me to get a meal down. Sadly, before the miller’s wife could produce a blueberry pie, the miller himself arrived in the doorway.

It is difficult to say whether his reaction to me was thanks to my being a dark elf, or my being a stranger alone with his wife. I suspect it was a bit of both, since he punctuated yanking the chair out from under me with, “Get out of my house, elf.

”

I was all too happy to oblige—even if it meant dealing with Titaine. The food was good, and, best of all, free. I had little to complain about when I left.

Now a great deal happier with a belly full of home-cooked, hearty food and whistling a tune, I find my way to the town’s central street, gratified when I behold its size and the crowded commercial district.

By which I mean it was crowded with businesses, rather than people; the town’s wide street feels empty, even to one who’s never seen it before.

I suppose all this was built before they began growing that briar.

Maybe it’s their way of keeping bandits out, like the ones we pursue.

The ones who have my father’s dagger, the Blade of Hedril.

I’m starting to feel like I’m not a very good leader, and that’s not an emotion I wish to sit with for long.

It would be easy to blame my father, who raised me to be a leader in war, then gave me his dagger and crown once we found peace.

“You’ll make a fine king someday,” were his last words to me before leaving Glowarian Forest for the long walk of the elves—the one that would take him into the next realm.

Before this, he told me it was not his calling to be a peacetime king.

The truth is, the war between wood elves and dark elves had been alternating between a simmer and a rage for so long, I don’t think he knew the first thing about true peace, nor did his father before him.

I did the best I knew how to, and that meant neglecting my role as king in order to preserve that fragile peace between the elves.

I became Houselord of the Elves instead—even if by birth and blade, I was still king of the dark elves.

I’ve spent so long trying to avoid the appearance of favoring one side—an uphill battle, since I resemble my dark elf father so much, setting me apart from the wood elves of my mother’s line.

There are always powerful wood elves insinuating that I favor the dark elves more, or that I am somehow more dark elf than wood elf.

Once, one actually questioned whether my mother is truly a wood elf.

She bestirred herself from the Eastern Cross to address that one, then returned to the woods of her home.

I miss her, but I don’t begrudge her for her absence.

She outlasted a political marriage to my father that brought her no joy since the first day I was sent into battle. She deserved to move on with her life.

I wish I had inherited that skill. For now, as I watch Titaine being led into an inn by a human woman, I cannot help but look at my bride and think, That woman used to be mine, and I lost her.

Just as I cannot help but wonder, What will it take to win her back?

She’d never accept my suit a second time—not after the mess I made of our first bonding. But she is

still my wife, even if it’s only because of ridiculous elven bureaucracy.

What if there is still a chance for us?

I catch up to her before she can take the stairs up to her room in the inn.

As if she expected me to walk through the door, she turns quickly and tosses me a key.

It’s a good thing my elven reflexes don’t rely on magic.

I scoop the key and its wooden tag out of the air before I fully register what’s happening.

“Your room’s on the floor above mine,” she says, ruining any hopes I have of there being only one bed we’re forced to share. “Please resist the urge to stomp everywhere.”

“Who do you think I am?” I demand. “Robin?”

She regards me coolly. “Who knows just who you are.”

It’s a parting shot that stings more than it should. She does

know me. Just as I know her. It can only mean one thing.

I’m still not the man she hoped I was. And no matter how hard I try, or how much I’ve changed, or how many times I begged for her forgiveness in the first eight months after she dissolved the bond and the treaty, Titaine will never forgive me.

My throat stings annoyingly as I follow her up the stairs, making a point to be light on my feet. I wish I could blame this feeling, this burning in my throat and ache in my chest, on the miller’s wife’s peerless cooking, and not on its true source.

In Titaine’s eyes, I will never measure up.

And she will never know just how much I wish that I did.

The temperature in the valley soars overnight.

Having a room on the uppermost floor is less than ideal in this heat.

The humidity is oppressive in the peaked roof of the inn, the air barely stirring through the single window.

I have it open as wide as it will go, and still my skin is sticky and breathing a chore.

Even when I rise to brush my chest, neck and face with cool water from the ewer at the toilet table, it evaporates just as quickly.

I cannot sleep. Sometime around midnight, a distant clock chimes the hour, and suddenly the air begins to stir.

It brings with a sweet, soapy fragrance, dashed with an intriguing spice. I think at once of the rose briars, every bud closed as we made our way through to the stream. They must be some kind of night-blooming rose.

Curious, I rise from my mussed bed, the linen sheets wrinkled from sweat.

I barely acknowledge this change—such sweating is one of many peculiar new symptoms at this point.

But I am glad I do not share a bed with Titaine after all, for she is likely sleeping as cool as petals floating down an icy stream.

I think of the stream that brought us here, and wonder if I could find my way to it for some relief, without getting too near the miller’s home again.

As quietly as a cat, I make my way down the stairs and out onto the empty street, my mail left behind in my room and my tunic open to my naval. The air isn’t as stifling, but it still provides little relief. Only that rose-scented breeze offers me reprieve from this heat.

Then I blink, and I am in front of the briar. Only this time, every bud is open, the roses a deep scarlet that is almost aglow in the light of a half moon. Their fragrance is intoxicating, the spiraling petals seeming to pull me closer like a bee.

The briars creak and sigh, parting for me as they did so soundlessly for Titaine, bending to allow me deeper into the thicket.

Somewhere, far in the back of my mind, I know everything is wrong about this.

I know it is a trick. And yet, as if this were a dream, I’m drawn closer until the cool, powerfully fragranced air surrounds me, swirling with succor and spice, soothing my weary limbs, easing the aches in my back and feet and cooling my skin.

Slowly, the briar knits shut around me, drawing closer and closer.

I should be panicked. Instead, I feel lulled into sleep, my eyes drooping. Vines crawl over me, lacing together across my skin, pulling me under into the relief of a comfortable, deep sleep. I don’t even feel it this time as the thorns lash my skin.

I fall to my knees, only to find I am weightless, supported by dozens of vines and canes. My lids droop and fall shut.

Minutes or hours later, I hit the ground with a miserable thump, the pain channeling up my spine and into my head and neck. Still dazed, I scan the thicket around me, confused and disappointed that it is receding, almost quivering as it seems to die back.

A bright light, like the sun has reemerged, sends them scattering for good, blasting a wide path around me.

“Auberon,” Titaine cries, “are you alright?”

Why wouldn’t I be alright?

I wonder, realizing for the first time that I am now flat on my back. My limbs are weak and tingling, hatched with dark lines of blood.

That wondrous, sweet scent of roses vanishes, leaving only the smell of iron and dirt in its wake. My eyes widen.

As usual, my timing is awful, for just then Titaine sends out another ray of blinding light, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut.

I freely admit that part of me doesn’t want to open them again.

I could sleep here forever. Then another pulse of light blooms behind my eyelids, then another, reminding me that it is not just her golden glow that earned Titaine her nickname of lady of the sun.

At last, the magical stupor releases me—but I am still weak, still lying prone as Titaine stands over me. When I turn my head, I can see little of the briar that once clogged this valley, and the remnants of a cracked clay road.

Titaine crouches at my side, still aglow with her recent casting so that she is brighter than the moon.

She slips a hand under my head, lifting it.

“Are you alright?” she asks again, her magic highlighting that concerned furrow in her forehead, and the downturned corners of her lovely mouth.

Her other hand rests on my chest, her palm against my bare skin.

She’s concerned for me.

She cares.

When I am finally able to speak again, my voice creaks like the retreating cursed briar. “It is a very strange thing,” I answer her, my voice a whisper, “to realize that you don’t hate me.”

Titaine’s hands slip away. She stands abruptly, dusting herself off as if I’ve sullied her. In so many ways, I have. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Despite my weakened state, despite my bleeding cuts, despite the rotten state of this world that refuses to remain one of magic like it should, despite every bad thing

that has happened over the last few weeks, I find myself smiling. “No, I saw you. You were worried for me.”

“I’d be worried for anyone who strolled into a cursed briar.”

“I was lured,” I say, a little proud of the way my voice stays light instead of taking on an argumentative tone. For what more do I have to prove?

I’ve been an arrogant buffoon, and still, still

Titaine cares for me. I’d get up and dance if I hadn’t just been snacked on by a malevolent rose bush.

“You rescued me,” I happily accuse her.

“It’s hardly the first time.”

“Oh, yes, even better, then. You’ve now come to my rescue twice. You must really

care.”

Titaine huffs, her narrowed eyes burning as they peer down at me. Then she strides away, off to chase after the retreating briar.

“Glad you finally forgive me, Titaine,” I call after her.

“I never said that!”

“Oh, but you did.”

I can practically feel her rage as she fires another spell into the remaining briar, uprooting the last of the curse.

Slowly, I sit up, rubbing at the back of my head where her hand cradled it.

I may be slightly giddy from blood loss, but given that everything hurts, I think I’m still grounded enough to know what’s true.

Titaine forgives me. Titaine doesn’t hate me.

I can work with all of those things. I can win her back. I’m going

to win her back.

For once, our long journey doesn’t feel as arduous. The road back to the inn, however? I’m not quite sure I can manage it.

I lay back in the dirt, waiting for Titaine, knowing that if I still can’t rise by the time she is done sending the malicious briar into oblivion, she’ll come to my aid. Because she cares that much.