Page 77 of The Last Heir of Elsewhere

ABOARD THE FORESIGHT

“You seem to be getting along better.” Riven said by way of greeting as he stepped up behind me.

I nodded slowly, and crossed my arms, leaning against the side of the ship. “Only because she’s adaptive.”

“What does that mean?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Lonnie dancing across the deck of the ship, practicing the swordplay I’d spent every moment of the last several days teaching her.

After a difficult first session, in which I expected she would never pick up a sword again, she’d steadily impressed me with her improvements. With each new move she mastered, my apprehension lessened. At least now, she would be able to defend herself when we arrived in Underneath.

“If I didn’t know her magic was suppressed, I’d say she has some enhanced ability to survive, no matter the circumstances,” I told Riven. “Maybe it’s just a learned personality trait, what with all the times Rhiannon moved her family around.”

Riven didn’t say anything to that, but he didn’t have to. Voicing the thought aloud made me all but certain it was true. Rhiannon had been, and still was, a terrible mother, but she’d certainly raised capable daughters—if only by accident.

I smiled widely, as I watched Lonnie take a large slash in the air, and spin around, as if fighting two invisible opponents.

Riven looked sideways at me, his expression assessing.

“What?” I asked.

“Have you told her where we’re going, yet?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Did you warn her about Rhiannon?”

“Not yet.” I frowned. “Let me worry about that. I’ll tell her when the time is right.”

“And when is that?” Riven asked.

“When I think she’ll believe me, and not go running straight to her mother and into a trap.”

“There’s hardly any time left. We’ll be arriving tomorrow evening.”

I pushed off the edge of the ship, and strode in the direction Lonnie had gone. “Then I’d better make tonight count, hadn’t I?”

Later that night,I eased the cabin door open to find the lamps already extinguished, and Lonnie lying in bed, her back to me. I sighed. Despite what I’d told Riven, I was not willing to wake her just to continue my efforts to make her like me.

It sounded absurd. I was over two hundred years old, and I was spending my time trying to slowly coax a woman into wanting me, like some inexperienced nineteen year old. It was possibly the most ridiculous thing I’d ever bothered doing, and by far the most difficult.

Lonnie was emotionally broken, confused, and incredibly stubborn.

In the days after we’d talked about her sister, I’d been afraid I’d made a terrible mistake bringing her here, but somehow, she’d seemed to pull herself back from the brink of devastation.

I thought her cold shell was finally thawing, ever since I’d saved her from the Charybdis. Of course, there was still an absurdly long way to go, and a disheartening number of obstacles in our way.

For one thing, despite her appearance to the contrary, she was clearly still grieving.

For another, she had some absurdly human views about monogamy that made her unwilling to even acknowledge half of what I said or did near her. That hadn’t come up per se, but I’d watched her excruciating back and forth with my brother for long enough to know it was the case. Even without prophecy, I knew that one day I’d become as frustrated as Bael, trying to convince Lonnie that it was perfectly possible to have more than one mate. In fact, for her, it would be almost impossible not to…at least, once she finally started using her powers correctly.

Of course, that was one of the problems in and of itself. Until Lonnie accepted her own magic, and stopped acting like the human she’d been raised to be, instead of the future queen that she was, we’d never get anywhere.

I walked as silently as possible across the room, trying not to wake her. At least she was sleeping in the bed now, rather than on the floor.

That had been another miscalculation on my part. I’d thought she would eventually relent, and sleep in the bed with me, but clearly I’d underestimated both her inflexibility and her resilience. Of course she would refuse to give in, unless the alternative would actually kill her as with the dinners I’d forced on her. I took it as a good sign, therefore, that she’d accepted the peace offering of the larger bed.

If I were a gentleman, I would have left her to sleep on her own.

---