Page 108 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“Of course she stays with you, love,” Hestia said swiftly. “We’ll work out the other troubling details another time, when we’re not...” She sighed.

Mariel wanted to speak up in her own defense, but even opening her mouth made her queasy. Erran doing it for her was startlingly satisfying.

“By other details, you mean her brother, who will also not again be locked away?” Erran asked in challenge. His hold on Mariel tightened. “We need to find Sessaly, but you also need to understand the way of things. She’s my wife. He’s our family.”

Rylahn shot to his feet with a forceful grunt. “She’s not yourwife, Erran. She’s athug! I did not raise you to be so willfully blind!”

Erran swallowed hard and spun to face Mariel. “I’m offering you an annulment. Right here, right now. You can leave with as much gold as you want, and you never have to see me again. This is your way out, Mariel. I won’t stop you.”

Tears spilled over her lids. She shook her head. “Never.”

“And if instead all I could offer you was obscurity? A quiet life without any of what you’ve had here?”

It was horrifying, baring her heart in front of those who thought so little of it, but Erran needed her to say it, and he needed his parents to hear it. “I only need you, Erran.” She trapped another wave of bile to add whatheneeded to hear. “And our child.”

“And should their crimes be swept away, merely because your heart has softened?” Rylahn asked. One shaking hand gripped the mantle.

“Yours were.” Erran stood tall, challenging his father in a silent standoff. “For who had the power to hold you to account?”

Rylahn shook his head as though shedding the conversation entirely. He sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s late. It’s been a long night. We’ll reconvene at first light about our Sessaly.” His hand lifted at Mariel. “She stays with you but under guard. She will not leave the grounds until I say so. Her brother as well.”

Erran nodded once in understanding.

“Where are you going?” Hestia asked when Rylahn slipped his vest back on and headed for the entrance. “Are you not going to catch some rest?”

“To call my banners. Until we know the size and shape of our foes, we must assume we are at war.”

He slammed the door.

Erran undressed andbathed his wife not because she needed it, but because he did. The weeks apart had demoralized him in a way he’d never experienced, and he’d accepted it could only have happened because he’d never been so teeming with purpose.

Shewas his purpose.

He no longer cared how she’d come into his life, only that it was her choice to stay when it would have been so much simpler for her to go. Only ifshewanted to leave would he allow it. He’d stand aside for no one else.

It wasn’t just about the two of them anymore though. Erran pictured the life growing within her as he slid the soapy sponge along her belly, still smooth enough he wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t said something. He didn’t know how to ask her if she was happy about being a mother, or to tell her how thrilled he was at the prospect of fatherhood. Neither seemed appropriate with so much unsettled.

He was bursting with things to say. Maybe she was too. Maybe the long, lingering moments when her eyes commanded his were the message.

But nothing that came to his tongue was enough.

So he didn’t say anything.

Nor did she.

Erran cleared his mind of the worries of tomorrow and carried his wife to a foreign bed in a building he hadn’t been inside of until that night.

She curled against him.

He folded himself around her, his thighs cradling her and his arms crossing over her, forming a shell.

His eyes closed.

They were on their island again, just the two of them.

The island could be anywhere.

Anywhere they were.

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