Lifting one gnarled old finger, she beckons for me to fol ow—to take the first step toward a destiny I can’t yet imagine.
I turn back to my friends, turn to wave good-bye, only to find Miles, Ava, and the twins waving back, and Jude standing right there behind me.
And just as I’m about to explain yet again why I need to go it alone, Lotus stops, glances over her shoulder, and takes him in as though seeing him for the very first time. Her eyes moving over him as though she somehow recognizes him, taking me by surprise when she waves him forward, inviting him to join us.
“This is your destiny too. The answers you seek are now within your reach,” she says, her voice both sage and true.
I glance between her and Jude, wondering what the heck that might’ve meant, but she’s already turned back, and from the look in his eyes, he’s just as confused as I am.
She leads us through the muck, through a forest of burnt-out trees with cruel barren branches bearing no trace of foliage despite the constant supply of rain. Her feet moving with surprising surety as I struggle to keep up. Keeping my eyes glued to the back of her head, not wanting to lose sight of her, aware of the slip-slop of Jude’s feet as he trudges behind me.
And even though I’m grateful for the company, I can’t help but think it should be Damen instead.
Damen should be making the journey alongside me. Damen, who wanted to come, wanted to keep me safe—despite the fact that he disagreed with my coming here in the first place.
Having Jude here feels wrong in every way.
We push on, fol owing Lotus for what feels like miles, and I’m about to ask how much farther it is, when we reach it.
I know it the moment I see it.
The landscape is basical y unchanged, the ground is stil muddy, the rain stil fal s, and the surrounding area is as dreary and barren as ever—but stil , there’s just no denying it. The air is different. Cooler. The temperature dropped so low I wish I’d worn something a little heavier than an old pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. But even more noticeable is the way the area just before us seems to glisten and glow—to glimmer and gleam. Looking less like the shimmering veil that marks the portal to Summerland, and more like a change in atmosphere. The space turned suddenly hazy, swirly, al owing for only a blur of shapes, a mere hint of what might lie beyond.
Lotus stops, lifts her hand to her brow, and surveys the scene, as I stand right beside her, and Jude beside me, wondering if he’l insist on continuing now that we’re here.
I turn to Lotus, hoping for some sort of instruction, advice, a heads-up, words of wisdom—wil ing to settle for just about anything she’s wil ing to give, but she just points straight ahead, motions for me to keep moving, to make that big leap between the space where I stand and the great unknown just beyond.
“But what wil I do when I get there?” I ask, practical y reduced to begging.
But instead of addressing me she turns to Jude and says, “Go forward. Learn. You wil know when it is time to return.”
“But … I’m going with Ever … aren’t I? ” He glances at us, his face a mask of confusion that matches my own.
Lotus gestures impatiently, gestures ahead, and as I fol ow the direction of her crooked old fingers, I’m forced to blink a few times to take it al in, to see what she sees.
Stil , despite my efforts, al I get is a blurry hologram. Like a shadowy mirage that could represent a vil age and its people, but could just as easily be something else entirely.
“Your journeys begin here. Where it ends is for you to discover.”
Jude grasps my hand, determined to support me, to go with me, but I’m not ready just yet.
Much as I care for Jude, Damen rules my heart. He’s the one I want beside me on this journey—on any journey.
Lotus touches my arm, presses a smal silk pouch into my palm. Curling my fingers around it, she says, “Everything you think you need is in here. You decide what that means.”
“But how? How wil I know? How wil I—” I start, a mil ion unanswered questions storming my brain.
Not getting very far before she looks at me and says, “Trust. Believe. It is the only way to proceed.”
She nudges me forward, nudges me with a surprising amount of strength. And I can’t help it—I glance back again. My eyes scanning the area, desperately seeking Damen, as if the sheer force of my longing wil magical y transport him here.
But not finding him anywhere, I square my shoulders, tilt my chin, and take that first step, Jude right beside me, my hand grasped in his.
The two of us moving tentatively toward something we can’t quite make out, thought it’s not long before we’re pul ed along by the irresistible force of it—like a whirling mass of energy, a vortex that’s sucking us in. And I’m just about to merge into it, when I feel it.
That familiar swarm of tingle and heat.
Soon fol owed by the plaintive cry of my name on his lips.
I turn, catching the flash of pain in his eyes when he sees me with Jude, assumes I’ve replaced him.
I drop Jude’s hand, watching helplessly as Jude’s swal owed into the whirl, while I strive to hold on, to straddle two worlds.
My fingers grasping, yearning, reaching for Damen, and though he moves fast, it’s not fast enough to keep our fingers from just barely grazing, the tips lightly brushing as our gaze briefly meets. And the next thing I know, I can’t stop it.
I’m yanked out of his reach.
Lost in the swirl.
Hurtling into an unknown place—into an unknown time.
Aware that Damen is here—somewhere—but unable to find him.
Already making the trip back.
Way back.
Back to the very beginning.
thirteen
“Adelina! ”
The voice that cal s to me is hushed, whispered, taking great care to be heard only by me.
“Adelina, my sweet, please tel me you have come for me!”
I move away from the corner, out of the darkness and into the fading stream of light just beyond. Fighting to keep my tone calm, stoic, I say, “I have come for you, Alrik.” Bowing low before him, my hands buried in the folds of my skirt so he can’t see them shake, desperate to hide my excitement, to appear respectable, ladylike, sedate.
But the moment I lift my head, the moment I see the way his dark brown eyes light on mine, his gaze partial y obscured by the tumble of dark waves that fal past his heavy fringe of lashes, past his straight nose, along the curving angle of his beautiful y sculpted cheekbone—when I see the way his long, lean form fil s the doorway—my face betrays me.
My gaze sparks, my cheeks flush, and my lips begin to quiver and curl, unable to contain the surge of extreme pleasure and joy the mere sight of him brings.
And if his expression is anything to judge by, then he clearly feels the same way. I can tel by the way he pauses in the threshold, the way he lifts his torch high, al owing the light to spil over me.
Al owing his eyes to devour me.
I can tel by the way his breath grows labored, the way his jaw tightens, the way his gaze clouds with desire—we bear the same effect on each other.
And when he closes the space between us in a handful of steps and hugs me tightly to him, when he covers my face with his kiss, his lips capturing mine, fusing, melding, exploring—al of my doubts slip away. I focus only on this.
Here.
Now.
My entire world shrinking until nothing else exists.
Nothing other than the crush of his lips, the warmth of his skin, and the swel of tingle and heat that always manages to find me whenever he’s near.
Refusing to think about a future that can never be ours.
Refusing to think about such cruel things as class and position and obligation and the strange game of chance that birth order brings.
Refusing to think about the fact that despite the depth of our love, we can never belong to each other in the way that we want. A
truth that was decided long before we had a chance to meet, our futures determined by others, not us.
Despite the fact that he loves me and I him—we wil never marry.
Can’t marry.
He’s been betrothed to another since he was a boy.
One whose family boasts far more wealth than mine.
One who happens to be my cousin, Esme.
“Adelina,” he whispers, my name like a prayer on his lips. “Oh, Adelina, tel me you have missed me as much as I have missed you.”
“Yes, m’lord.” I pul away quickly, the bliss of a few moments before rudely smothered by the reality we find ourselves in. Reminding me of who I am—a poor relation to the distant cousin he’l marry; who he is—the future king of our tiny city state; and where we both stand—in an empty, darkened stal in his stable, the air thick with the smel of horse flesh and hay, a pile of freshly laid straw at our feet.
“M’lord? ” He quirks his brow, al owing his dark eyes to graze over me until meeting my blue ones, leaving me to wonder if he sees the same things in mine as I see in his: disappointment, doubt, and a fervent but futile desire to change the status quo. “What is this? Is that how you see me now, as lord?”
“Wel , aren’t you? In principle anyway?”
It’s cheeky, I know, but it’s also the truth. I happen to know he likes that about me, the fact that I don’t play the usual games, especial y where courtship is concerned. I’m neither sil y, nor flirty, and sometimes, I tend to veer far more toward tomboy than girly. But I’m forthright, direct, and I try my best to tel it like it is.
I try my best to live without regrets.
He cups my face in his hands, traces his finger from my temple to my chin, where he presses his finger and lifts, forcing my eyes to meet his. “What is the reason for al this formality? You act as though we’ve just met. And even then, if memory serves, you were hardly formal that day—you pushed me right into the mud, face-first no less. Your manners were certainly lacking, though you managed to make quite an impression. I’m certain I have loved you from that very moment. Covered head to toe in muck—I knew right then my life would never be the same.”
A smile sneaks onto my face, remembering the moment as clearly as he. Me at ten, he thirteen, I’d been staying with much wealthier relatives and paid him a visit with my spoiled cousin Esme, who so enjoyed lauding her wealth over me, always comparing her fancy dresses to my more drab ones; she was becoming a chore to tolerate. And so, annoyed with her constant preening and prancing and bragging with no end in sight about how handsome her future husband was, how wealthy, and how wonderful it would be when she was made queen and I’d be forced to bow down and kiss her feet, wel , I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I marched right up to him, caught him off guard, and pushed him straight into the pond, then I turned to her and said, “Stil think he’s handsome?” and watched her cry and scream and run off to tel someone what I’d done.
“It was a pond,” I say, looking right at him.
“A very muddy pond.” He nods. “It never quite came out of my clothing. I stil have the shirt that bears the stain.”
“And, if I remember correctly, I paid a grand price for that. I was sent home immediately, and Esme never invited me to visit again.
Which, come to think of it, real y wasn’t much of a punishment at al , was it?”
“And yet, you found your way back. Or at least back to me anyway.” His arms circle my waist, as his fingers traipse up and down my spine. The feel of it so calm and soothing, it’s al I can do to stay focused, on point, to not succumb to his spel .
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely a murmur. “Are you glad of that?” Knowing that he is, but it’s always nice to hear the words spoken aloud.
“Am I glad?” He throws his head back and laughs in a way that exposes a glorious column of neck it takes al of my wil not to kiss.
“Shal I show you the level of my gratitude?”
He kisses me again, at first playful, a series of light pecks and nips, but then it grows deeper, much deeper. But even though I try to respond with the usual fervor, something is off. And he senses it too.
“What has happened since we last met? You are different. Has something occurred to change your feelings for me?”
I force my gaze away. Force myself to breathe, to speak. But the speech I rehearsed as I made my way over suddenly escapes me.
“Adelina, please tel me—do you no longer love me?”
“No! Of course not! It’s nothing of the sort! How can you even say such a thing?”
“Then what? What terrible event has you refusing me?”
I gather the words, struggle to move them from my head to my lips, but I can’t do it. Can’t say what needs to be said. So, like a coward—a word that has never been used to describe me—I gaze down instead.
“Is it Rhys? Is my brother bothering you again?” His jaw tightens as his eyes begin to blaze.
But before it can go any further, I’m quick to shake my head.
His brother Rhys is fair of hair and even fairer of face—his obvious outer attractions going a long way to belie a much darker inside—
the fact that he’s ruled by a long string of jealousies he can never overcome.
Second in line not just for the crown—the chance to rule his father’s smal Iberian kingdom—but also for his father’s attentions, only to learn that the girl whom he loves, my spoiled cousin Esme, is destined for his brother—the one who, in Rhys’s opinion was born into everything, yet deserves nothing.
And while I’ve tried to gaze upon Rhys with compassion, if for no other reason than the fact that we share something in common—
we’re both being kept from a chance at true happiness—being kept from the one we love due to politics, finance, and traditions we just barely understand—my sympathies were soon thwarted by his undeniable mean streak, and his abject cruelty toward me.
As though it’s my doing. As though it’s my fault that Alrik is betrothed to the one Rhys loves.
As though I wouldn’t change that if I could.
As though I wouldn’t reverse it, switch up the birth order so that I could live happily with Alrik, and he could live happily with Esme, and we could al live happily ever after—preferably far apart from each other.
But alas, that is not to be.
For one thing, Esme has no interest in Rhys. She loves Alrik. She can’t wait to be married.
For another, sometimes, when I’m trying very hard to be logical and reasonable, I remind myself that while I’ve no doubt Alrik loves me, loves me in the way that I love him, I’m not sure I ful y believe him when he claims he has no interest in the crown.
It’s his birthright. As the firstborn son, as his father’s heir, it’s what he’s been destined for ever since he came into the world. To turn his back on al that, wel , it seems like a sacrilege.
“Adelina, please don’t look so sad.” Alrik’s lips sweep my face, desperate to brighten my darkening mood. “Not when I happen to have the most wonderful surprise for you.”
I lower my gaze, assuring myself I can do this. That I’m real y, truly ready to go through with it, then I meet his eyes and say, “And I have one for you.”
I take a deep breath and gather my strength. Virtue isn’t something one gives away easily, not without marriage, or at least the promise thereof. And if word got out, wel , there’s no doubt it would ruin me. And yet, I don’t care. I don’t care about rules and conventions that have everything to do with the head while steadfastly ignoring the heart.
I can’t care about a future I can’t even see, much less imagine.
Al I know for sure is that Alrik wil marry Esme, and, eventual y, someone wil marry me. There’ve been offers. Serious offers. But for now anyway, I refuse to entertain them, no matter how much my parents may beg and plead. Even though I ful y expect to one day lie with my husband in our marriage bed, even though I expect he wil be a good and kind man with much to recommend, I know in my he
art that I wil never love him in the way I love Alrik.
The kind of love we share only comes once in a lifetime—and for some, not even then.
And it’s for this reason alone that I’m prepared to risk it al .
If I do nothing else with this life I find myself in, I want to experience love in its absolute, deepest, truest form. Otherwise, I just can’t see the point in going on.
“You first,” he says, eyes glinting with anticipation, as he grasps my hands in his.
I lift my chin, lift my arms to circle around him, my hands clasped at his neck, looking straight into his dark eyes when I say, “I’ve decided that I am ready and quite wil ing … to make myself yours.”
His brows merge, at first not quite understanding the meaning behind my words. But he soon catches on, reacting in a way I didn’t expect. As many times as I rehearsed this scenario in my head, not once did I imagine he’d reply in a burst of uncontrol ed laughter.
Deep and hearty laughter. So deep and hearty I’m afraid someone wil overhear, find us sequestered in here.
Then, just as quickly, he pul s me back to him, covers my face with his kiss once again, lips pressing softly against my flesh as he says, “My dearest Adelina, there is no need for you to sacrifice your virtue when you are soon to be mine.”
I pul away, stare into his eyes—my gaze incredulous—his resolute.
“I—I don’t understand,” I stammer.
“We are to be married.” He smiles. “You and I. Just like we’ve dreamed. It’s al been arranged. Just you and me and a member of the clergy. I’m sorry it won’t be grand, the kind of wedding befitting my future queen, and I’m sorry your family can’t be there to witness our union, though I’m sure you understand the need for great secrecy. But soon, very soon, once word is out and my father has no choice but to accept what I’ve done and al ow both his sons to forge a future with the ones they love, wel , then we’l have the grandest party you’ve ever seen. Adelina, I promise you that.”
My eyes search his face, wishing I could match his level of elation, but I’m left with far too many questions to even attempt that. “But how wil we do this? Where wil we do this? And, more importantly, Alrik, your father wil kill you!”