Page 88 of A Baron of Bonds
Chapter 42
Rev
I had never beento the sea.
Yet, somehow, I knew it well.
The contrast of the white waves that folded into blue-green water I recognized without ever having seen it. The language of each crash was one I understood, speaking as if in constant greeting. The scent of salty brine was something that pulled deep from the place I had once called home.
Karus gripped my arm and beamed at me, her body buzzing with excitement as I gazed upon the vast ocean for the first time in my life.
I finally understood her reference to my eyes. I understood her love of the sea, how it called over and over to us, beckoning our souls to step into the life it gave.
The salted breeze brushed across my lips, and I pressed them to hers, the taste seeping into my tongue as if the ocean could not bear to let me ever forget its presence.
As if I could.
I wished we could stay longer. I wished we could set up a house on the cliff’s edge—a quaint little cottage with a thatched roof where Karus and I would walk the beach everyday, collecting the shells long since broken. They glittered in themorning sun as the waves brought them to the shore, the ocean letting us gaze upon the beauty it brought and wonder at the power it possessed.
“You look good here, Rev.” She pressed into my shoulder, sitting her chin upon it. “Well, everyone looks good at the ocean…but you especially belong inthislight.”
“I remember that,” I chuckled. She had recited the first words I’d spoken to her as she’d stepped into Viridis for the first time.
“I think this might be your Viridis. I think you might have found the light you belong in.”
“Ah, Karus,” I took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “I found that light many years ago.”
I filled my lungs again with more breath than I ever had in my thirty years. “Thank you.”
Her smile enchanted me, the perfect rival to the beauty of the sea.
“We didn’t travel out of the way just to look at it, Rev.” She was already pulling her boots off, tossing them on the sand and sinking her toes into the soft grains. She turned around and ran backward, her arms out and free, her hair whipping in the wind as a challenge for me to follow her movement.
She sprinted to the waves, and they lapped over her legs, soaking her skirts as her laughter flew through the air.
I loved her.
I loved this place.
I loved us.
We arrived backat the carriage, boots in hand, the bottom half of our legs soaked in seawater. Mychael spoke to the driverand two other guards while Philius watched Parvus and Rauca play in the tall grass on the cliff’s edge.
“You’ll be cold now, on the way to the village.” Mychael’s lips lifted in amusement seeing us attempt to wring out our clothes.
“We have magic for that.” Karus shrugged, her cheeks flushed, her lips rosy. She called out to the lumens and the Prince, ready to continue our journey.
The four of us sat inside the ornate carriage, embellished with the long gold, crimson, and midnight blue tassels which represented Hyrithia. It had been a short journey to the sea; a detour Karus insisted we make, but one I’d never forget.
At our departure from Hyrithia, Moira insisted she fly ahead, claiming she had no patience to wait for a human contraption to slowly take her there. That was more than fine by me. I didn’t want to listen to her complain on the road for two days about human ways of travel.
We planned to stop at a small village about a day’s ride from Felgren and rest there at the inn. I squeezed Karus’s hand as she looked out the window at the fields of wheat we passed, long since harvested for the year. The dry stumps rose from dark earth, an expanse of dreary rows of what would not bloom again until next spring.
She turned to me, and I glanced at the Prince and then back to her, a sly smile creeping across my face.
Her eyes darted to Philius and she rolled them, huffing loudly.
He rested his chin on one black hand and stared out the window while he tapped at his leg in clear frustration.
