Page 65 of This Midsummer Heart
That I’m not the same Titaine he was bonded to, either.
“Sleep, my lady,” Mercurial says soothingly, her hand brushing my brow.
At her touch, sleep reclaims me. I dream of a sticky midsummer night under a star-filled sky, dancing around a bonfire and savoring the hint of a cool breeze, the cold sweat on goblets of chilled mead and wine, of moving with abandon and not caring who sees. I dream of dancing with him until the dawn this time. Of his smile at me across the clearing. Only this time, there is no fear.
This time, my heart is full of love, for the world, for our peoples, and most of all, for him.
It is a dream of what could’ve been, were I braver, surer of myself and more forgiving. When I wake again, my heart aches.
I wonder if I will ever have the chance to make this dream come true.
Chapter thirty
Reunited
Auberon
“Titaine.”
I wake with her name on my lips, bolting upright in bed. My head pounds, my body aching from spending so long in bed. I’ve barely been awake long enough to take a sip of water for the past three days. And now—now that I’ve reclaimed my voice—there is no one here to ask.
I reach for the glass of water at my bedside, drinking until my throat grows tight from the cold. Then, slowly, I lower my legs to the floor and begin the arduous task of standing.
It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Oddly enough, after days in bed, I feel, well—strong.
The jumble of magic flexing beneath my skin must be the reason. Shivering, I let my bare feet guide me out into the hall.
A bevy of people are in front of me at once, blocking the way. But they aren’t fae. These areelves.
“Your Royal Majesty!” they cry, some of them just exclaiming, “King Auberon!”
Every last one of them are dark elves. Not a single one are my people—my former people—from the House of Elves. Yet I recognize them all from my past.
“I fought with you at Trident Wood,” I say, recognizing one of my old lieutenants from the war to unite the dark elves and wood elves. “Karsten!”
“You remember me.” The man’s face splits into a grin. He gestures to the young men and women beside him, and the pretty elf who looks to be about his age. “This is my wife and my children, and the children of my brother Eldrec. I brought everyone to see you, but the fae here wouldn’t let us into your room.”
At the end of the hall, a mix of the tall fae—so like the dark fae of the north—and fae of the woodlands, mountains and meadows, shake their heads in disapproval or push on with their tasks.
I reach out, clapping Karsten on the shoulder fondly, only to find another familiar face.
“Leonora,” I breathe. “I haven’t seen you since—”
“Since we were children.” She laughs, pulling another dark elf closer. A pair of large-eyed boys, almost identical in height, stare up at me from her sides. “King Auberon was a playmate of mine, and a fellow miscreant terrorizing the deep forests of Glowarian, before Gran and Gramps moved us south.”
I grasp her hand, shaking it firmly. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Nor the next person to greet me.
“Captain Sindarn,” I exclaim, embracing the graying elf. It was he who taught me to visualize the arrow that flies forever.
“My prized pupil,” he replies. “Look at you now!”
Everywhere around me are pieces of the life I thought I’d left behind up north. Each of them, I lost track of at some point after I became Houselord of the Elves. “What are you all doing here?”
“We’ve come to see you, silly,” Leonora says, very much sounding like she wanted to call me something other than silly. “And to follow you once more.”
“You were always our liege, of course,” Captain Sindarn says, clearing his throat. “Even on a separate continent.”
