Page 50 of The Sundered Realms

Once Liris swallowed, she asked, “Is this one of your favorites?”

“My—what?”

She paused, and chose her words with more care, wondering if she was about to blunder again. “You told me I could have preferences. Are you not permitted to have favorites? I just thought, since you travel so much, you must get to try everything.”

“Ah.” Vhannor looked nonplussed. “I like seaweed well enough, but no, it’s probably not a favorite.”

“Wait. You don’t know your favorites?”

“Do you?” he shot back.

“Of the food I’ve eaten, yes,” Liris said. “Just because I wasn’t allowed to show my preferences doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”

“And they are?”

Liris took another bite of seaweed, crossed her arms, and didn’t answer.

Vhannor snorted. “Fine. I’ll think on it. Why does Jiechit think you don’t know about demon portals?

Her good humor evaporated. “I don’t know. I thought it was okay to ask questions.”

“It is.”

Liris gestured around her where the sphere had just been. “Evidently not!”

She turned away, back toward the sea. Took a breath.

“Can I touch the water before I have to go back?” she asked, and her voice sounded smaller than she’d hoped.

She didn’t know how to keep people from trapping her. How to keep from trapping herself.

“Of course we can touch the water,” Vhannor snapped. Like he was angry she felt like she had to ask.

But she did have to ask, apparently.

Liris didn’t ask more questions or wait for more permission, because who knew how she’d step in it next? She just strode straight for the water without another word.

She’d dared take him at his word when he’d offered her freedom outside Serenthuar, after her mere suggestion there of doing anything differently had nearly gotten her killed. But apparently what she’d asked had been too far to go even when she was supposedly “free,” so where was the invisible line, and how was she supposed to balance on it? She wouldn’t go back to not acting.

She would not.

Vhannor caught up to her and looked at her as they walked, waiting for her to stop focusing on the water and look back at him.

“Liris.”

Fine.

She glared up at him.

And then he proved again how well he already knew her by saying, “I promise not to lock you in a spell or a prison cell, but I need you to help me understand what set Jiechit off.”

Not what she had done wrong, but what agentless action had caused a professional field caster to react in a particular way. That framing made her foolishly hopeful, but Liris still didn’t speak until they’d reached the edge of the water.

She crouched and, hesitantly, reached her fingers out.

At the first touch, her eyes pricked with tears. She ran her hand through while Vhannor stood patiently at her side like a guard.

It was water, just water, she knew that, but there was no just. There was so much, and Liris didn’t know where to begin.

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