Page 8 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Erran watched Mariel pace the darkly lit bedchamber like a restless fox. She was fully dressed, still wearing her weapons. She always wore them, even to breakfast, like she was expecting a violent melee to descend at any moment.

The woman was a complete enigma to him.

But he didn’t have to solve her. He just had to tolerate her. “What did my mother say to you?”

“I ken you could guess,” she replied without losing momentum.

“And your response?”

“Told her what she needed to hear.”

“So... a lie?”

“Aye, I suppose.”

“What’s going on here?”

“What?”

He waved a hand at her and made a walking motion with his fingers.

“We don’t know each other, Errandil. Don’t fuss yourself trying to make conversation. We can do our duty without... that.”

Was she actually suggesting she was fine with intercourse but talking to each other was a step too far? “Maybe I just don’t see the merit in being miserable all the time, Mariel.”

She shook her head with a bracing look at the ceiling. “You’d never know if I was miserable. First you’d have to know what my joy looks like.”

“Miserable witheach other,” he said, his belly tight in readiness for whatever her next retort would be.

“Aye, well, you seem miserable enough on your own without my help.”

Erran didn’t expect anyone to understand his predicament.Love,particularly the romantic kind, was a happy accident for a noble, not an expectation. As his mother had so poignantly said just that morning, only after duty came personal fulfillment.

He’d always assumed that when the time was right, he and Yesenia would tell their families how they’d felt and a marriage contract would follow—not even because they were in love but because the Rutlands were one of the few houses in the Southerlands with the pedigree to wed a lord’s daughter.

But then the king had sold Yesenia off in a political marriage to their enemy in the north. That much they might have overcome, as Erran had been more than ready to fight to bring her home. Except, shehadcome home, and she’d beeninlovewith the tree-dweller.

Erran had pulled Khallum aside later to find out what hypnosis the Quinlandens had used on her to change her into an entirely different person, but his best mate had cut the matter off with a harsh, almost pityingconfounds the feck outta me too, mate, but my little sister loves the bootlicker.Loveshim, loves him, ye ken? Let it go.

Loveshim, loves him. Never had a phrase left him so defenseless.

Still, he’d thrown himself at Yesenia’s feet, practically begged her to remember what they’d shared. He’d promised to fight for her, to do anything necessary to free her, and she’d looked him dead in the eyes and told him she’d chosen the Easterlander.

Word got back to his father of how he’d behaved, and Rylahn had already been cross with Erran after having to arrange a last-minute union to keep him from running off to the Easterlands like a lovesick fool. But for Erran to debase himself further, when both Yesenia and he had spouses of their own? It was simply not how Rutland men behaved.

But that was how Erran had ended up on an involuntary idyllmoon at Loch Ethereal with one of the most unsettling women he’d ever been around. “If that’s how you wish for this to go.”

Mariel turned, looking at him for the first time since they’d been banished to the bedchamber by his mother, right before she’d swept off into the afternoon like a gentle storm. Her sigh was expectedly contemptuous but just barely, like she’d lost the heart for full-blown animosity. “You have your life. I have mine. So in here? Let’s give each other peace.”

“I just don’t understand how you expect this to go. What happens in six months, a year, when there’s no sign of a bairn coming?”

“Who said there won’t be one? I know what’s expected of me.” Mariel shrugged. “But then, what if I’m barren? Seems the annulment that would follow such failure would make you happy.”

“Guardians, what a blessing that would be,” he whispered under his breath. His brows furrowed in a thought he didn’t share. He’d heard of women who secretly sabotaged their fertility behind their husbands’ backs, but suggesting such a thing would be like throwing oil on a fire. “Mother knows what is—isn’t happening in our bedchamber... on our wedding night or since I’ve come home. The only way to fix that is to fix the problem.”

“Would you like me to make some unsavory noises for the guards in the hall?” Her eyes fluttered in petulance. “Like a barn animal?”

Erran’s brows creased further. “Is that what you sound like when you...” He left the rest unsaid. He didn’t actually know what a woman sounded like when she came undone. Yesenia had always pushed him away when he tried to pleasure her.

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