“I don’t know,” Krew offered. “I just want you safe, but I have no idea how to navigate this. I don’t wish to cage you, or the power I’ve given you.”
I clenched my fists in frustration. We’d just gotten into a routine with the wolves. I didn’t want to change it. Owen and I had both been feeling relatively good about my progress too. “You can demand I stop healing that forest, but I will still show up every day and run with those wolves. They show up for me, and so I’m going to keep showing up for them.”
Unable to take this conversation any longer, I spun on my heel and headed out onto the balcony, ignoring the fact that I was starved and going to be cold now too.
Minutes later, I felt Krew approach from behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Owen left for the night. And I’d like to apologize. I’m sorry, Jorah. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to keep hurting you to keep you safe, I just know we need to be careful.”
I watched as the sun finished painting the sky orange. “I’m so tired of being stuck.”
Krew put up a sound barrier around us. “Care to explain?”
I gave a shrug, not bothering to face him yet. “I can’t go to the kitchens because your father doesn’t like the company I keep. I can hang out with Renna and Molly, but only if we do activities your father would approve of, walking in the garden like the pretty flowers we are meant to be. I can use my magic but never around your father or anyone other than Owen. I couldn’t even tell one of my best friends we got married and bonded because it put her at risk. Not to mention every time I so much as see Warrick, I want to load him up and bring him with us.”
I stopped only momentarily, chest heaving. “And the worst. The worst part is that I want to imagine a life with you. Part of the reason I got so choked up watching Renna’s family was that I was imagining that for us. A family that just truly loved one another.” My voice cracked. “But I am just supposed to be accepting what little time we have together without making those plans. Making those dreams. I’m not allowed to think of the future, and I’m not allowed to fully enjoy the present. So what do I have then?”
“Jorah.”
“I don’t want to be a widow, Krew. If I have made all these sacrifices just to become a widow at the end of the day,noneof this was worth it. None of it.”
He spun me, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck. His other hand remaining at my waist. “I want that too. All of it. That is why I pushed for the plan with Nara. Why I am obsessed with figuring out which object holds my mother’s magic. Because if we have that, love, we win.”
I knew he was right, but it didn’t help my current level of dreariness. We were no closer to figuring it out now than we had been when we first read his mother’s journals.
With a sigh, I whispered, “Just feed me and then take me to bed.”
“You haven’t eaten?”
“No. I went for a walk in the gardens with Renna and Molly. So of course we didn’t get up here at the usual time.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” He immediately strode for the door to send for food.
“Because I’m currently too busy wallowing in self-doubt and self-pity.”
“And food will help?”
I gave him a nod, feeling my lips smirk. “Among other things.”
He gave me a slow smile full of promise before opening the door only long enough to bark some orders at the nearest guard.
He skipped the dinner with the royal family and stayed with me the entire night. We didn’t have the answers. We didn’t have a plan. And the thought of being stuck like this for months on end sounded disastrous.
Eventually, something was going to have to give.
CHAPTER20
“So,” Owen began as we walked back in from my run with the wolves.
“So?”
“Since parliament is in session at the castle for the next three days, why don’t you shower and then we can spend some time in the kitchens this morning?”
My steps faltered. After our conversation with Krew, and to obviously make sure the king didn’t catch on to the fact I now wielded magic, Owen and I were back to practicing all hours of the day. Every three days Owen would decide when we were training and what time. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes he rolled me out of bed during the dead of the night. Sometimes we did early mornings, as was our old routine. Sometimes late nights but separate from the princes. Sometimes we were inside at our old training room, sometimes we were in the forest. And thus far, I’d only accidentally healed one small tree.
I was calling that a win.
We were trying to make our training pattern as unpredictable as possible. I didn’t know what a full night’s rest even looked like anymore, but true to my word, I kept my routine of running with the wolves in the morning. And most afternoons, I took a two- or three-hour nap out of sheer necessity.
“Won’t one of the king’s spies find out or something?” I asked Owen. I’d love to spend some time in the kitchens, but I also didn’t want Maurice and the rest of the kitchen at risk.
