Page 42 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
When we were within a few feet of the hamina, Kieran held up a hand.
I sat back on my heels.
Ahead of us waddled a pale yellow ball of fluff, roughly a foot tall and a foot wide. With each step, its tufts of fur shifted from side to side.
I was just lamenting that I couldn’t see its face when it turned. Its small, round ears perked at some noise that was too faint for us to hear. Its large eyes were heart-meltingly cute, and its nose was a pink speck that barely stood out against all its fur. With a twitch of the fluff that must have been its snout, it returned to snuffling through the grass.
I watched its retreat, my heart swelling.
This was what I came here for. To see. To learn. To just…experience. The hamina were harmless, which meant that theLibrary was full of information about them, dating back to the earliest days of The Awakening. It was one of the few magical creatures that we even possessed photographs of.
But what was a photograph compared to the real thing?
After some time, I became aware of how close Kieran was beside me. The sleeve of his shirt was barely brushing my arm, his cheek just inches from mine. With his eyes trained on the hamina, I could take in his profile. Notice how the view highlighted his sharp features. The fullness of his lips. The definition of the muscles of his neck.
His eyes cut to mine, startling me. “What do you think?”
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the hamina.
A moment too long, because a slow smile spread across his face. “Now,” he said, his voice low. “What would yourEnforcerfriend think of you looking at me like that?”
“I think he’d say it’s time to catch up with the others,” I replied. My face was on fire, and I couldn’t decide if I was more annoyed with him or with myself.
I stood. And when I did, I surprised myself by shoving him. Hard enough to tip him over, I hoped, as he was resting on the balls of his feet.
Instead, he whipped out his hand and grabbed my upper arm, using my own momentum to pull me down with him. We were facing one another when we flopped on the grass, the crunch of our fall sending the hamina scampering away with a squeal.
“It’s like we’ve been here before,” he said, his silver eyes twinkling. “Except last time, you almost puked on me.” I tried tojerk my arm away, but he tightened his grip. “Did you seriously just try to push me over? You’re like half my size.”
“I am not!” I cried indignantly.
He raised his brows and frowned, full of sympathy. “You’re not much bigger than that hamina.”
I grunted in frustration. I was trying to come up with something clever to say back, but I was drawing a blank. Why did this always happen with him?
I sighed, deciding to speak honestly instead. “Thank you for stopping with me. I know you all probably see creatures like this all the time, so it’s nothing to you. But it’s a big deal for me.”
“Anytime.” After a moment, he added, “Did you know the hamina are good for the forest?”
“I did,” I replied. “The aura they give off is like a fertilizer for plants, helping them to grow. And for plants that are already full height, it still encourages them to become healthier and flourish.”
“Of course,” he laughed. “I forgot the whole reason we met is because you’re the expert on all things magical. On the whole world, probably.” He idly picked at a few blades of grass.
I scoffed. “I highly doubt that.”
“Come on, don’t be modest. Name one thing that I know more about than you do.”
More than a few things came to mind. But I wasn’t about to mention any of those. I propped my head on my hand and took a deep breath. “Well…for starters, I can’t swim.”
He flung a piece of grass at me. We both watched it flutter uselessly through the air and land between us, nowhere near hitting me. “That’s nothing. I can teach you to swim.”
“Really?” The thought of knowing how to swim was exciting. The thought of what all him teaching me would entail was nerve-wracking.
“Sure,” he said. “Some other time, when we’re not about to potentially be swallowed whole by a sea monster.”
“Right.” His words filled me with a cold, creeping dread. But I tried not to let it show on my face.
Eventually, we tramped back through the underbrush in the direction the group had been headed in. There wasn’t a moment of silence as we walked. We drew comparisons between daily life in Cyllene and daily life in Ersa Estates. We lamented that neither of us had much in the way of “free” or “leisure” time, but shared the things we enjoyed on the rare occasion that we did get a moment to ourselves. He educated me on the adrenaline rush of sparring and surprised me by looking genuinely interested when I talked about my world of books.
