Page 21 of This Midsummer Heart (Seasons of Legend #4)

Chapter twenty

Summer Storms

Auberon

T

his

night

is

as

wet as a mermaid’s elbow.

Lightning flashes, illuminating the crush of buildings in this rain-drenched town.

The further we venture down its crooked boulevard, the more Rubina—I think that’s what this place is called—resembles a city, thanks to its long stretch of beaches and the summer travelers.

And we do have to venture deep into its haphazardly laid streets, built along the craggy cliffs, the rain drenching me and the endless mud speckling my trousers up to the knee.

Evidently, the entire coast is popular. This is our second town, and still there have been no rooms available for us to escape the rain.

Our horses took the last two stalls available at the stable near the entrance to the town.

I was tempted to stay in there with them just so I could attempt to get dry.

The Bridge of Miracles is just a few days’ ride from here. Tonight, it feels as though it could be weeks away.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this one,” Titaine says, her hooded cloak annoyingly pristine thanks to the enchantments woven into it. She’s already crossing the street, towards the stone facade of another inn with its lantern guttering out. “Come on.”

I eye the rivulets of water running down the street, the cobbles vanishing as we leave the main thoroughfare. Titaine is lucky the enchantments on her cloak and slippers still work—and so am I. I am not convinced a muddy and soaked-through Titaine is a tolerable traveling companion.

At least my boots aren’t leaking. The rest of me is going to need a solid week of sunshine to dry out. I’m not likely to get either of those things, though. Once we make it past the wild tides of the Bridge of Miracles, we’ll be entering mid-winter on the continent of Tethered Malu.

“We’re wasting time,” I grumble, also wasting my breath as thunder chooses just then to peel out, making the very ground shake.

Still grousing and miserable, I follow Titaine into the inn. “At least stall a bit so we can spend a few minutes indoors—”

“We’ve only our smallest room left. Not sure it’ll fit you comfortably—”

The innkeeper’s words trail off as he sees me dripping water onto his floor, flecking the walls with it as I lower the hood of my too small, borrowed cloak.

His face is flushed—captivated by Titaine’s beauty—and then goes slack as he takes in my blue skin and pointed ears.

Titaine’s are conveniently hidden by her glamour.

The innkeeper’s tone changes entirely. “W-wouldn’t be proper, of course, to have a lady and an, er, gentleman, sharing the same bed. He’ll have to stay someplace else.”

Titaine offers the innkeeper a radiant smile. “This man happens to be my husband”—the word sounds bitter—“so one bed will suit us just fine.”

The innkeeper hands her the key, his eyes darting towards me. He looks as if he’d rather swallow it than admit a water-logged elf.

The stairs creak all the way up, the paint worn off them in the center. Five agonizing flights of stairs bring us to the swelteringly humid attic, where I see the doors to not one but three rooms squeezed in beneath the eaves. Just how small is

this room?

Titaine leads the way, pushing open the door, a slice of which is missing thanks to the intrusion of the sloping roof. The entryway doesn’t get much wider from there.

Without meaning to, a soft groan escapes my lips. Though there is the promise of rest in that little bed at the end, I’ll have to contort my sore muscles and back to get there.

“Duck,” Titaine suggests oh-so-helpfully, then slips in with no further inconvenience than a tilt of her head and a folding of her wings. I bend almost in half to make it through.

It is too hot up here to light a fire in the tiny grate and dry our clothes, and I half wonder if it’s ever used. A thick coating of dust, turning the black stove gray, proclaims that it’s mostly for decoration.

“Lovely,” I say, dropping onto the one section of the bed where I can fully sit up.

“Not everyone is born a prince, Auberon.”

“Not everyone regards elves as if they were slugs tracked in on the carpet. Why are you defending that human? He deserves no kind words from either of us.”

“Everyone deserves a kind word.”

“No, Titaine, I don’t think everyone does.” You didn’t have any for me, for several years.

Her hands settle onto her hips. “I was turned away from multiple inns in Adellor, and you don’t hear me belittling anyone’s life’s work.”

“ You’ve

never belittled anyone’s life’s work?”

“Of course not!”

I narrow my eyes at her.

Slowly, color reaches her cheeks, turning them rosy. “That’s different.”

The mood of the room shifts completely, from close and unpleasant to downright unbearable.

“I take my life’s work very seriously, Titaine,” I say, refusing to bite my tongue this time. “Work you threatened at every turn once you decided you were done with our arrangement.

”

“ Arrangement?

What does that mean?”

I swallow down a harsh laugh that would come out all venom. “You treated our bonding like an arranged marriage. Don’t bother trying to deny it—I read your fine print in our bonding contract, even if I missed it when I signed.”

Titaine just stares at me, her face unreadable as she searches mine with quick golden-brown eyes. At last, she drops her arms. “That was a different time,” she says, suddenly unable to look at me. “I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Careful, Titaine,” I say, unable to hold back the edge in my voice, “that sounds dangerously close to an apology.”

Her eyes flash up at me, then look away just as quickly.

“You started our bond and marriage with a trick,” I press, though my tone is rapidly losing its harshness. “I think that deserves a real apology.”

When she says nothing, I continue. “If you’ve changed at all—and I’m not sure you have changed for the better—I’d like to think you’d see that. The gods know I’ve apologized to you many times over for my mistakes.”

“Your affair,” she retorts.

“My duty to find a wood elf consort,” I rejoin, but again, the fight goes out of me too quickly.

“And, yes, I admit, I had hoped to find someone who might look at me the way you once did. But I promise you, Titaine, if I’d thought for even one second that you still loved me, I never would’ve done it.

I never wanted to turn my back on you—not for all the dragon eggs in the woldings.

I should’ve been stronger and resisted the pressure.

And I should’ve spoken to you about what I was feeling first.” My voice is low beneath the drumming of the rain.

“We both should’ve told each other so much more than we did. ”

At last, our gazes connect and hold. I still can’t tell what Titaine is thinking—her ruddy cheeks and flexing jaw suggest she’s stuck somewhere between embarrassment and anger—but she says nothing.

The storm continues outside the window, battering the roof with rain while thunder rattles the lone little window.

“I’m sorry,” she says at last. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t show you more—affection.”

“I could’ve found affection in a number of places. I wanted your love, Titaine. Instead, I got a marriage arrangement.”

“That’s tragic, then,” she almost mumbles, turning to fidget with her travel pack, “because I thought we had a love match.”

“Then what in the elder forests happened?”

Her shoulder shrugs up. “I knew you would be asked to take a consort. I knew you would never really be mine.”

“But I was

yours! You knew that, once.”

Her eyes press shut. “Fear is the enemy of knowledge.”

What fear? What were you so afraid of? That I’d hurt you?

“I hurt you because I thought you didn’t care,” I say slowly, tasting the words. They’re as bitter as a healer’s brew. “Do you mean to tell me if we’d really just talked it out, none of this would’ve happened

?”

Titaine tucks a lank of hair behind her pointed ear. “I find such talk—difficult. It’s not something that comes naturally to me. You were not so skillful at it, either—turning to pettiness and vengeance instead.”

Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. “I was young and foolish.”

“You tried to ruin the House of Fetes just weeks ago.

“ Her arms cross beneath her chest. Now that she’s making a point that is not in my favor, she seems to have no trouble meeting my eye.

I shrug, busying myself with inspecting the pillows. Buckwheat.

I’m in for an uncomfortable night, for so many reasons. “I’ve changed since then,” I tell Titaine.

“Have you?”

Desperate to make her see, I search for the perfect words to explain myself, as if I have word magic of my own and saying just the right thing will earn me her love again. Something has changed. Even if I can’t say exactly what. But I’m no longer angry with you. All that’s left is—

A knock on the irregular-shaped door cuts off our heart to heart before I can compose an answer. When Titaine continues to stand there, arms crossed, I ducked my way back to the door.

A rather sheepish looking human woman waits on the other side. “My husband neglected to furnish you with water and a wash basin,” she says, proffering a white ceramic ewer in a wash bowl. “I apologize, sir. If you need anything else—”

“I don’t suppose you have more towels?”

She shakes her head, blushing furiously.

With a sigh, I reply, “If you’ll be lighting a fire downstairs before morning, my cloak—”

“Yes sir, absolutely. Give ’em here.” Her eyes flick downward. “Those trousers could use a good washing.”

Titaine’s voice rings out behind me. “He will not

be removing his trousers.”

The innkeeper blushes twice as hard. I smile apologetically at her. “Alas, they’re my only pair. I’ll clean them as best I can to avoid dirtying the bedding.”

“Oh, of course. I mean, no, not to worry,” she stammers, “these summer storms catch many an unprepared traveler.”

The innkeeper is clearly flustered—by me, this time. As I hand her my cloak, she asks, “Are you really a dark elf?”

My brow furrows, unsure how to respond. I should’ve thought the blue hue of my skin made it obvious.

“When I was a girl,” she continues in a rush, as if she feels she is covering a gaff, “dark elves used to come out this way, from the fire swamp, you know—of course you know. Only I can’t remember the last time I saw one.”

I lean one arm on the doorway to support my awkward crouch. “Politics,” I say by way of explanation.

The woman’s eyes grow round. “But do you think more of you will come? Your people used to come with their instruments and share their songs—everyone loved it. It hardly feels like midsummer celebrations without it. ‘Twas good for the town, too.”

I regard her carefully. “I think the age of peoples of magic feeling at ease with mortals who lack it has passed.” Titaine was right, but a little short-sighted. Soon enough, I think that even humans with magic will start to feel unwelcome and unsafe in this magic-less land.

Her face falls. I know then that she speaks in earnest, but that she doesn’t understand why the dark elves of these parts now keep to themselves. These are the elves who refused to bend the knee when I became king. It also means they lack a king’s protection.

With men like her husband, it’s no wonder they’ve stopped coming to this town.

“I’m grieved to hear it,” says the woman, offering me a weak semblance of a smile. “Sleep well, sir.”

I shut and latch the door, relieved to be done with that conversation—and to finally be able to stand upright. But my relief is short-lived as I turn to find Titaine climbing into the bed.