It’s me.
It has to be.
I swipe my hand across my burning cheeks.
Maybe I just need air. Yes, that’s it. I need air.
I scramble from the mattress and grab my nightdress. As I pull it on, I glance back at the bed. Hector still sleeps, his body cast in shadows.
The cold floor sends shivers up my spine as I tiptoe from the room and into the hallway. Four guards walk by, patrolling the corridor. They ignore my sudden bedraggled appearance as I hurry toward the indoor courtyard.
A few days ago, I discovered the oasis. Now, I sneak here when I need time to think.
“You too?”
I turn at the sound of the soft voice and discover Wrenley sitting on a bench not more than two feet from me. She wears a pink dressing gown over her nightdress. Her black hair hangs freely down her back.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I admit.
“Me neither.” She shoves the loose strands away from her face.
I study the sadness in her eyes as she rotates a small pink blanket between her fingers. Over and over again, she rotates the material.
“Has something happened?” I ask.
She waves a hand toward the palace. “Never give a man your heart, Sol. He will only crush it.”
“What did Kheldar do?”
The wind plays with her hair as she presses the cloth against her stomach and sighs. “He has done nothing. That is the problem.”
I dig the toe of my slipper into the sandstone pathway as I consider her words. “What do you want him to do?”
Sadness shines behind Wrenley’s eyes like a burning coal that refuses to be extinguished. “I want him to listen to me, but he’s incapable of listening.”
If only I could find the right words to comfort her. There’s something about her suffering that brings out the compassion in me and the desire to be her friend.
“My lady,” a woman calls out from a side door.
Wrenley frowns and stands. “Duty calls.”
She disappears back into the palace, leaving me to the quiet, the stillness, the unsettling feeling that woke me.
Her poignant words return again and again.“Never give a man your heart.”
Too late.
* * *
Ispend the rest of the morning wandering the courtyards alone, pondering the emotion that had awoken me so abruptly. Now the feeling has dissipated, as though I had imagined the entire thing.
Perhaps I had.
Once I return to my chambers and don the cotehardie Wrenley gave me, I join her in a grand library to discuss the women we had encountered several days ago.
We go over her meticulous notes and find solutions for each case. We decide to offer Beryl’s father a business venture with more potential profit than what he would make from marrying off his daughter.
The more we talk about each woman, the more the sadness fades from Wrenley’s face. Her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm as she speaks about the ladies and her goal of helping them find purpose and direction.
