Page 26 of Calling of the Crown

Everyone gathered the empty food trays and the glassware before trailing to the door. Rune smiled unapologetically for crashing the party as everyone left. At last, it was just the two of us—him in the doorway and me staring at him over the back of the couch.

I folded my arms over the plush material and laid my cheek on my arms. Rune stood silent for a few minutes, his warm, golden eyes tracing over me. He seemed content to stand there and watch me, and I was happy to return the gesture.

Finally, he came over to the couch and reached down to brush his knuckles across my cheek. “Tired?”

“Mhmm,” I answered. My eyes slipped closed as I soaked in his touch.

“Too tired to do one last thing with me for the day?”

My eyes instantly opened as I eagerly got to my knees on the cushions. “I’m never too tired for that.”

Chuckling, he came around the couch. He quickly scooped me up in a classic Princess style hold before making his way back to the doors. “I didn’t mean that, although, I won’t be mad if that’s what this turns into.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him as he carried me in the direction of our room. “If you’re about to ask me to do some late night studying with you, the answer is no. If I read another word of—”

“Are you shitting me?” Rune laughed incredulously, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “I would prefer to never even see those boring-ass books again, let alone spend my free time going over them with you.”

“Thank God because my brain is fried. It’s bad enough that those texts will forever be ingrained in my mind now, stuck there like an irritating tune that you can’t get rid of. I could’ve filled my head with so many better books.”

“I don’t envy your photographic memory right now,” Rune noted as he strolled through our master bathroom with me still in his arms. He stopped outside a door in the back of the room, and he suddenly took on a thoughtful expression. “Unless Jesiah gives us a quiz on what we read. Do you think he’s going to test us on the material?”

I shrugged. “Probably. How else will he know if we’ve retained what we read?”

Rune’s face fell. “Fuck. I didn’t actually read anything. I was just making a show of flipping through the pages while imagining you and me starring in a student-teacher porno.”

Laughing, I swatted at his chest. “You’re so full of it.”

“Think what you want.” He winked at me and set me on my feet outside the door.

I glanced at the door before us then raised a questioning brow at Rune. “The task you wanted to do before bed was see the linen closet together?”

“The linen closet?” Rune chuckled. “So you clearly didn’t check what all the doors led to on this floor.”

“I haven’t exactly had the time.”

“Fair enough.” He pointed at the door. “Open it.”

Curious, I grabbed the handle and opened the ornately decorated door. Instead of a small, dark room lined with shelves, I was greeted by a light, cool breeze. The distant sound of the ocean welcomed me, and I slowly walked out onto the balcony with my voice stuck in my throat.

The outdoor bath was a balcony off our bathroom, and the intricate railing spanning the edge was a smooth, iridescent design that reflected the glow of the moon. The pillars holding up the banister were designed to look like swaying seaweed with sea life sprinkled in tiny carvings along the material. A sleek, deep crater sat in the center of the balcony, and seats lined the rim of the pool to let its users sit within the water. Candles had already been placed around the balcony, their soft glow offering a more intimate lighting to the space. The sky, darkened with night but shining brilliantly with a thousand stars and the forever full moon, filled our view.

“This is gorgeous,” I sang breathlessly.

“I found this last night. I thought you deserved a good soak before bed. A chance to completely relax and clear your mind.”

Brimming with awe and thanks for this man, I looked back at the empty pool and noticed there were no spigots to turn on the water. “How do we fill it up?”

Rune came up behind me to press his chest into my back. His palms grazed my wrists before skating slowly up my arms. “I’m guessing you fill it up. Why would a Water Fae Queen need a spigot to fill her tub when she can call water with ease?”

I stared wide-eyed at the distant sea. The palace was situated on the far north side of the island, but even so, a good mile separated the palace from the shores. The ocean was right there in perfect view from this height, yet it felt continents away. I couldn’t possibly call out to it from this height and distance.

“I can’t do that,” I said, and every part of me clenched painfully as the words left my mouth. I hated the sound of them.

After a day in which I’d faced trial after trial and came out feeling stronger after each one, it left a biting sting in my chest to suddenly doubt myself. I wanted to be confident in who I was, but I … I wasn’t. I had pretended to be bold and sure throughout the day—hell, I’d believed I was—but now I was reminded of how unsure I was.

“You can do it, Bria,” Rune encouraged. “I watched you call forth a wave the size of a mountain today. You did that.”

“That was just me asking the water to reach out to the rest of Water Fae. I didn’t make the wave. It appeared on its own. I-I’ve only ever manipulated small portions of water that have been right in front of me. To call the ocean—” I stopped, staring at the distant glittering sea. I swallowed hard. “To call the ocean when it’s that far away is impossible.”

---