Page 17 of The Pastel Prince

“We could make signs,” Tezen offered from her seat on my shoulder.

Beirach nodded. “On the morrow before we leave.”

I felt my panic bubble over. “Tomorrow? We need to leave now and ride all night!”

Beirach heaved a sigh, his gaze moving from Tezen to me torpidly. “Riding at night is not advisable, surely you know this. There are too many predators that roam the Verboten when the sun sets.” I began arguing. He merely shook his head to silence me. “Kenton, I feel your distress, truly I do, and I understand your need to get home, but the horses need rest as do we. We shall leave at first light, I promise you, and we will ride as long as our steeds can carry us before we rest.”

I wanted to shout at him, to rail against his stupid calmness, to strike out alone and his sensibility be damned. But the weariness of our steeds seeped into me, and I merely nodded.

“My people could be dying as we speak,” I reminded him, then led my horse down the hilltop, away from my companions and the once robust enclave of wood elves that now sat dead.

My friends followed at a respectful distance, allowing me space to work through my anger. As I sat by the fire that night, watching the crackles of dry wood take flight, I came to realize that I’d not been angry at all, not really, just frightened. Dearly so.

“May I sit beside you?”

I looked up to see Beirach towering over me, his handsome face cast in the firelight. He had stripped off his armor and was now in dark sleeping robes, much like mine, only far plainer. His hair hung free, glinting ruby strands highlighted in the firelight.

“Yes, I would like that,” I replied, pulling my knees into my chest as he lowered himself down to my bedroll. He settled with a weary huff. Tezen snored behind us, her bed atop Methril’s blanketed back.

“For one so small her snores rival that of the tawny bears,” he said, stretching out his long legs to let the fire warm the soles of his soft leather boots.

“Yours rival the sound of a rockslide on the Witherhorn range,” I replied and got a small, soft snort. The first sound of anything other than despair that any of us had made all afternoon and evening. We’d eaten little and spoke even less, our hearts too heavy to make small talk about the weather or the latest court fashions.

“So I have been told,” he said, leaning back on locked arms to study the night sky.

His comment piqued my curiosity. “So you have shared a bed with someone in the past?” He glanced to the side, his gaze catching mine. My face grew hot. “I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me to ask such a personal thing.”

“An enquiring mind is never something to apologize for.” He gave me a weak smile before looking at the stars and twin moons that hung low in the sky. “I’m a man who has lived a long life, young prince.”

“I am no prince,” I quickly corrected. “Merely a son of a wilder warden and a priestess. The city elves are the ones who put great worth upon such titles.”

“Yes, forgive me. My mouth does have a tendency to speak before my intelligence catches up at times. Young Kenton then.” I did not care for that terminology either, for it made me sound like a child. Perhaps in his eyes I was, but I wished for him to see me as a man grown not a ward like Aelir.

“Simply Kenton please.”

He inclined his head. “There is nothing simple about you, Kenton.” My belly flipped over on itself, the rolled bread with vegetable paste suddenly ticklish as it sat in my stomach. “To reply to your query, yes, I have lain with many people in mytime. Many were passing fancies, several were lengthy love affairs, and one was my spouse.”

I swallowed down an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. “Where is your spouse now?”

“She passed many years ago.”

A log cracked and spat in the firepit. “I’m sorry for being so inquisitive and pushy. May Danubia cradle your wife in her loving arms.”

“My thanks, and do not apologize. Being curious is a grand thing for a young man. Asking questions is how we learn and grow.”

“You sound like the tutor of the Stillcloud heir, although he feels only certain kinds of questions are acceptable.” I hugged my legs more closely to my chest, then rested my chin on my knees.

“Then he is a fool, for knowledge of all kinds should be passed along.”

We sat in silence for a moment and Tezen snuffled in her sleep like a hog rustling truffles from the ground. “I know her father,” he said into the comfortable silence. “He is a king that clings tightly to the rules set down by his people before him. Not unkind, nor brutal in any way, but firm in the way that he expects his children to behave. That fact she has left the pixie court is shocking, to say the least, but she seems happy enough.”

“How did you meet her father?” The warmth of the night combined with the heat of the fire was slowly leeching the stiffness from my muscles. Worry had tightened my shoulders as it settled onto them like a boulder.

“We fought together to drive back the trolls.”

My sleepy gaze widened, and my sight flew from the fire to the archdruid. “My father also fought in those battles.”

“Mm, yes, I recall seeing him a few times but never had the honor of meeting him. I was just an ovate then, mind you, andfar below the notice of the wilder wardens. I’d been brought into the pixie’s good graces after saving Tezen’s uncle from a troll’s battle axe by casting a spell that turned the troll into a withered tree that the king then set ablaze.”

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