Page 77 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“Defensiveness is a device of the weak. Learn from your errors, or you’ll never be the man you should.”

“Ah, give him a moment to find himself, love. Erran has moved on. Of course he has. You see how he adores Mariel. But sometimes we have to light a spark to kill the fire.” Hestia kissed his cheek. “You both seemed so different when you returned, content with each other. Remember what’s real, Erran, and what is not. Dreams don’t warm our beds or our hearts. They only remind us how cold our lives are when we wake to find them only that.”

Erran didn’t need the lecture. He knew how it had looked. To others. To Mariel.

And he knew precisely what secret was burning a hole in his pocket and why.

He had no heart for his father’s exploitative game, but he had no choice and would play it just the same.

This time, he would win.

Mariel greetedthe Warwicks in a stupor. Her heart heated with anger, then shattered from pain. Over and over this happened until she was dizzy with confusion she was more than ready to be rid of.

The welcomers all blurred into one, a veritable mess of warmth and welcome. Only one stood out, a redheaded man who seemed unusually interested in her words and movements. She’d forgotten his name a second after he’d given it. His gaze followed her down the line.

The moment she stepped in front of Yesenia, she wished she hadn’t. The woman was taller than some men, her dark hair plaited like a warrior’s. She was dressed in the green and silver of her husband’s land, but it was not a gown she wore. Her trousers and blouse reminded her of the way Mariel herself liked to dress, and something about the similarity made her ill. She glowed with a self-assurance that was alarmingly sensual.

It was no delight to see exactly how and why Erran loved her.

“Mariel, I cannae say how lovely it is to finally meet you,” Yesenia said, snapping her in for a firm but warm embrace that seemed genuine enough. Maybe she was relieved to be done with Erran. Maybe she was putting on a show. Maybe Mariel’s mind was working against her. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“Likewise.” Mariel forged a smile when she pulled back. She turned it on the man at Yesenia’s side, a fair-faced blond with a gentleness that seemed radically out of place in the Southerlands.

A bit like Erran actually.

Mariel almost couldn’t believe it. Yesenia and Erran had actually married each other, by proxy. They’d ended up with copies of themselves when they couldn’t have one another.

“Mariel, a pleasure.” The husband, Corin, kissed her hand. “You so remind me of Sen.”

“I’ve heard this before,” she said, trying to sound light and playful, the opposite of the darkness festering in her chest. “Now I see what a compliment such a suggestion is, however wrong.”

Yesenia smiled. “Erran is a lucky man. I’m sure he knows it.”

I thought he did.Mariel caught Erran watching. He stood with his parents and Sessaly, staring into the distance. “Ah, I’m sure we’ll speak more later.”

“I would like that,” Yesenia said, annoyingly full of kindness.

Mariel shifted away from them in a daze of self-recrimination. Her hatred would have been justified if Yesenia had been the cold and unfeeling monster who had broken Erran’s heart so callously, but the woman she’d met was perfect for him, a victim of the king’s arrogance and who otherwise would have become the willing wife of her childhood love.

She joined her in-laws. When Erran couldn’t even meet her eyes, she knew. She knew every one of her fears had been rational. What she didn’t know was what to do about it.

“What does our itinerary look like, sir?” Destin asked the steward.

“You’re free until the morning,” Rylahn answered. “Settle in, catch a kip. Evening meal will be served in your quarters tonight.” He turned toward his son. “Except Erran. We’re due to meet with Lord Warwick for the next couple of hours.”

Erran nodded, looking everywhere but Mariel’s way.

“Mariel, would you like to see the coast with me?” Destin asked. The way he’d said it was so transparent, she was sure the others could see through it as well.

“Aye,” she said, giving Erran one last opportunity to look up, to show her she was being emotional and paranoid.

But he only muttered a “will you see tonight” before shuffling off behind his father.

Erran’s eyesglossed through the mostly transactional exchange between his father and Khallum. They sat across from each other at the table with the famously serrated edges, meant to remind any man there not to get too comfortable, spouting off about levying higher taxes for miners and building more ports in the empty stretch between Sandycove and Warwicktown.

He was so in thrall to his own malaise that he didn’t even notice when his father left.

“Ye know you cannae fuck her ever again. Right?”

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