Page 71 of Enchanted Shadows
“Don’t tell him, Ada,” he barked.
I turned the corner to the kitchen, leaning up against the doorframe. “You know, you’d think at some point in your wise old age, emphasis onold, you’d give up on the nut jokes.”
“Never.”
He unfortunately sounded deathly serious. “Are you going to tell me already?”
He picked up a few crushed pecans, and just before he tossed them back into his mouth, he said, “Walnuts.”
My mom knew he loved nuts, so she mysteriously always had a few extra that she left out for him in the same little clear bowl as she always did. As much as the world had vastly changed these last few years, some things were comfortingly the same.
“Sit!” my mother demanded. “You look like you need to eat more. And sleep more.”
“It has been a rough few days; I would love that,” I told her. “You didn’t have to make this for me, though.”
“She made it for me,” my father tried to explain.
“She did no such thing,” my mother disagreed. “But it wasn’t a burden at all.”
Within five minutes I was drinking a coffee and having fresh banana bread in the same house which I had been raised in. I knew there were scratches on the doorframe to the living room of my sisters’ and my heights over the years. There was also a small nick in the wall in the room I had slept in which I had hidden for years by moving my dresser aside before they finally found it.
My father was never one to beat around the bush, so I wasn’t all that surprised when he said, “Is everything all right with training? Or did you come for another reason?”
I held up a hand. “Training is going well. Wren did have a little hiccup with that Stirling boy, but since we arrested him, we all get a nice long break from that.”
“He can stay arrested for a good long while,” my father seethed. “Your letter about that had me ready to fetch Wren and bring her home.”
“She’s doing well,” I told him. “If it ever got to the point where I worried for her safety again like I did the night of the fire, I’d bring her to you myself.”
“At least we won’t be forced to endure a marriage to the Stirling family,” my mother said kindly.
I winced. I couldn’t help it. “About that.”
They both went quiet, listening.
Honesty was always best with my father, particularly when I was in over my head, so I blurted out, “I am marrying a princess. Not out of love, but to help keep her safe.”
Silence met my words, so I rushed on to explain more. The entire situation Kessara had been put in, the lengths she was going to keep her brother safe. As I finished explaining, I ended it with, “If Wren had ever been in a situation like that, I hope someone would do the same to help her. To help keep her safe.”
“That poor girl,” my mother said as she sipped her coffee.
“I am proud of you for wanting to do this,” my father said, sitting back, his lips pressing together.
Oh no. Here it came. The disappointment.
He let out a sigh. “Haven’t you sacrificed enough for Wylan? For peace in the realm? Don’t you deserve to be happy too?”
I gave him a shrug. “This is something that I can do. An easy fix to a huge and messy problem.” I went on to explain the prince title I would soon be getting.
“I thought you didn’t want that the last time the king offered,” my mother said, brows drawn tight.
“I didn’t.” I looked my father in the eyes as I said, “You and I both know that I’m not prince material.”
He crossed his arms. “In the world of nuts, you’re a walnut.”
My eyebrows shot up. “A pair of nuts on the wall?”
He swatted at the air. “I don’t need to know what you do in your spare time, son.”
