“I’m going to push you into the damn pond if you interrupt me again.” I pretended to push him. Lorcan indulged me by pretending I moved him an inch forward.
“Isn’t swearing in front of the Goddess considered blasphemy?”
“It’s not if it’s the Goddesses’ living avatar on earth doing the cussing,” I said in a sweet, singsong voice, through clenched teeth, trying very hard not to let him see my smile. Failing. “Are you going to let me finish?”
He sobered. Barely. “Continue, Highness.”
I cast him the haughtiest look I could summon. “As I was saying, Auralia, we have a rocky relationship. But I’m here. I will always be here. Every year. Except for last year, I think we can all agree those were exceptional circumstances.”
“Agreed.”
“Will you shut up?”
He was laughing again.
“Moving on. Again. I will say there’s one thing you’ve done for me, for which I am profoundly grateful.” Finally, Lorcan sobered for real. “You did send me the most annoying, if talented, knight protector in the history of Auralia. Without him, the country wouldn’t exist today. I wouldn’t be alive. For all his faults—and he has a few, the worst being how obnoxiously perfect he was before we broke his head—”
“You didn’t break me.”
“Let. Me. Finish.” I addressed the statue again. “As I was saying, my knight protector was the most irritatingly perfect man ever to exist before he got bashed in the head while defending me, and while I regret breaking your perfect gift, I actually like him a bit better this way. It’s like that Japanese art where you put broken pottery back together with gold—”
“Kintsugi,” Lorcan supplied.
“That’s it. Thank you. He’s like that. Broken in places, but mended, and more beautiful for it. His imperfections make me feel a little less like a failure myself.”
A sharp inhalation beside me. My ears and my cheeks burned, either from the cold and wind or embarrassment. That swooping sensation in my stomach. “I’m hoping, Auralia, that you can perform a similar trick with us. Because he and I have made a hash of this on every level. I mostly blame you for making us both such bullheaded, stubborn individuals who never want to compromise. You should have made one of us more inclined to settle. Preferably him, of course.”
I was rewarded with an elbow to my ribs. I giggled.
“The one upside of us both being mulish and as contrary as the day is long is that we are both still here. Cracks and all. If there’s a way to mend us, I’m hoping we get one more chance to figure this out.”
All summer, we’ve been trying to rebuild gatehouses, instead of using the pieces to construct a new bridge between our past and future selves. I’ve been as guilty as he in this.
A moment of silence passed.
“Are you done?”
“I’m done. Your turn.”
I waited with bated breath to hear what Lorcan would say.
CHAPTERTHIRTY
He’s quiet for a moment, gazing reverently up to the effigy’s beneficent face. His brown traveler’s tunic makes his eyes as blue as the sky above.
“I think your vessel is perfect in every way. I always have. You couldn’t have asked for a more devoted living avatar. Even though she doubts you, Zosia shows up. She does everything you ask her to, and more. She’s an excellent princess, and will be a great queen.”
Oh, shit, I think I’m going to cry. Damn him. Every time I come to this place, my eyelashes wind up stuck together for one blasted reason or another. So uncomfortable.
“I have no right to ask for another chance, yet here I am, because I am arrogant enough to want her even though I don’t deserve her. I failed her on every conceivable level. When I awoke after my injury, I should have spent every moment working to free her. I didn’t. I left her to starve. Others tried to warn me. I didn’t listen. It took me too long to remember her. Worse, I let others take what should have been rightfully hers, because I’d forgotten who I was. I still pursued her because there is no one else for me, even though I’d debased myself beyond being worthy of her.” He swallowed.
“What I wanted to show Zosia this summer, was that I didn’t want to clip her wings. I wanted to help her fly. But she doesn’t need that. She’ll do whatever she needs to for this country, with or without me. I need her to feel whole. Living without her these past few weeks has been awful. I didn’t know where to go or how to get back to her, when I truly didn’t deserve her forgiveness. The thought of losing her made me cling tighter than I should have.
“I worry that she’ll shortchange herself in service to the crown, the way she would have done with Prince Sohrab. I couldn’t stand by and let it happen, though I knew I didn’t deserve her, and I couldn’t figure out how to tell her what I’d done without losing her all over again.”
I flashed him a grin and got a lopsided one in return. “I should have known she was too smart for me to fool her.” He faced the statue again, studying her.
“Saying yes to Zosia meant nothing when I couldn’t say no to anyone else. Rather than look in a mirror, I stormed out when I didn’t get what I wanted. I tried to dictate terms to a queen, and she was right not to let me get away with it.”
