Page 19 of A Promise of Peridot
The beach was impossible to find my footing against. Each step landed awkwardly, my boots too heavy in the wet mixture of sand and sea. My braid had come undone, resulting in sweaty, crunchy strands of hair plastering themselves against my neck and forehead; my lungs were surely bleeding from the exertion; and my legs were throbbing—a steady, pulsing burn in my quads and arches and ankles.
And yet, the quiet oblivion inside my heart had not yielded.
It scared me more than I could admit—that the salty air in my lungs, the rhythmic pump of my arms, for the first time in my life, hadn’t helped.
And my feet—these shoes against the sand—
I came to an awkward, stunted halt and yanked my boots off one after another as if all the suffering in my life were their fault. The patchy, poorly cobbled offenders mocked me from the sundrenched gold of the Azurine beach.
My face was too hot as I appraised them. My breathing ragged.
Those boots had carried me through the Shadow Woods. Parried in the fields of Shadowhold with Dagan a hundred times. Had trudged up and down the stairs to visit Mari in the library.
They had pressed up against a cold dungeon wall for hours, waiting for merciful sleep to come. Had been kicked into a corner so I could crawl into bed beside a warm and waiting Kane. Those boots had sat folded under me as I held my dying mother in my arms.
My heart raged against my chest as I grabbed the leather shoes and threw them into the ocean with as much force as I could muster.
They sailed through the air on a slight, white arc of energy, landing in the depths of the ocean miles away with a subtle splash.
My eyes found my hands.
They looked the same. Red and blotchy from running under a bright sun.
But—
I had felt something.
And... it scared me. My own power. What was thrumming under the surface of my own skin—
“Whatever those shoes did to you, I have no doubt such an execution was warranted.”
I whirled at that new, sunshine voice and found Fedrik standing up the beach, backed by a little pastel village. Beyond it, patches of trees were specked with splotches of orange. I wasn’t sure how far I had run, but we were clearly no longer near the harbor.
I curtsied, but he tossed his hand in the air dismissively as he strolled closer.
“I must know.” He jerked his chin toward the glassy bay behind me, quiet save for the rocking of seafoam against wet sand. “Why?”
“It was a sacrifice,” I admitted.
“Then a necessary one,” he assured me. “And their honor to serve.” Fedrik flashed a grin that outshone the sun above us.
“Are you... hiding?” A few hours ago he had abandoned our terse convening on his palace steps to avoid Kane. And now he was here, miles from the city center, alone on this beach with me.
“And what would I be hiding from?”
“King Ravenwood. I just thought...”
Fedrik grinned again, handing those genuine smiles out like free sweets. So unlike Kane in that way. In all the ways. “I only needed an excuse to rid myself from the politics. Life’s far too short to concern ourselves with brutes like him, right?”
I said nothing, feet growing cold and itchy where the wet sand was drying around my bare ankles.
“Lady Arwen, might I interest you in—”
“I’d better get back. My sister is probably looking for me.”
“Sure,” the prince said, faintly amused. “Enjoy the city.”
?Droplets of sweat had gathered at my temples and slid down the sides of my face by the time I slunk back into the palace room Ryder, Leigh, and I had been given for the night. I wiped a hand across my mouth, cool air replacing the moisture above my lip.
