Page 72 of Beneath the Haunting Sea
For a moment he didn’t say anything, the muscles in his jaw tightening and then relaxing again. “Because it isn’t fair for you not to be happy. You deserve happiness, after everything you’vegone through.”
She could see in his eyes that there was more he could have said, but he didn’t.
“Are they—are they really getting married in three weeks?”
Wen nodded.
“And did—did Caiden … tell you all this?”
“I spoke to my father.”
“I see.” Talia watched the lamp on the table, the light soft and flickering. She traced a pattern in the dust on the floor. Her throat hurt. “Thanks for tellingme. Thanks for showing me the mirror room and saving me from the temple and—” She looked up into his face, saw his steadiness, his strength. “Thank you for caring.”
“Always.” He scooted a little closer to her, and she shifted out from between the chair and wardrobe, leaning her head on his shoulder. His breath was warm at her ear. Comforting. She almost told him everything, but she held back,screwing her eyes shut and trying to hold tight to the last frail threads mooring her to the earth.
She stood outside Caiden’s door and knocked, three times. There were things she had to say to him. Things she needed him to hear. Light from the hall lamp pooled on the crimson carpet, and her breaths came quick and short.
Talia knocked again.
She thought she heard steps from inside of the room,but they didn’t draw any closer. The door didn’t open.
“Caiden?”
No answer.
“Miss Dahl-Saida?”
Talia jerked around to see Ahned standing in the hall, an oil lamp in one hand. He frowned. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I came to speak with Caiden.”
The steward’s frown deepened. “Miss Dahl-Saida, please return to your room.”
She stood straight and still, clenching the skirt of her violet gown.“Will you tell him something for me?”
“If you wish.”
Talia jutted her chin out. “Tell him congratulations,” she said viciously.
She swept down the hall, not turning her head even when she heard Caiden’s door open, his tread on the carpet, his voice speaking quietly to Ahned.
Chapter Thirty-One
CAIDEN STOOD WITH HIS BACK TO HERat the window of the dusty ballroom, his shoulders rigid, the muscles in his neck taut. He held a goblet of wine, but did not raise it to his lips.
She’d followed him in here from the dining room, her mind bursting with the things she had to say before tomorrow.
Before he was married and she couldn’t in good conscience say them at all.
Thethree weeks had passed swiftly, the wedding everywhere: Blaive, handwriting invitations in the dining room, expensive cream paper and bottles of blue ink strewn all across the table. Meetings with a chef, a team of seamstresses, a florist who kept a hot house for just such winter flower emergencies. Caiden, riding back and forth to Shold to discuss arrangements with Blaive’s father.
Talia hadhidden upstairs between meals, scouring the library for books on shipbuilding and sailing, and any references she could find to Rahn or the Hall of the Dead. She wanted to be ready when the weather grew warm enough, and she had no desire to go blindly into the sea goddess’s domain. She was close to uncovering something she felt sure was important—the dates of the myths and the Billow Maidens’ nine-hundred-yearcurse. She even found a handful of prophecies predicting Rahn’s return from the sea to rule the world that the goddess believed was rightfully hers. But Talia hadn’t found everything she needed to pin down the timeline completely.
And none of that had distracted her wholly from Caiden.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” said Talia, stepping up beside him at the window in the ballroom.
The snow hadstopped for the time being, and a pale sun was sinking westward through ragged clouds. Out over the sea the sky was edged with liquid gold.
