Page 75 of War Bound

“No, Essie...”

She cut him off with a quick kiss. “I know you want to be the one to sacrifice this time. That it will kill you if me or my brothers or your brother died to save you. I get it. I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. But I know my brothers. And I think I know yours. If you’re captured, they won’t rest until they rescue you, no matter what I say. So please promise me you’ll fight with every breath in your body to get back to me.”

As her hands were still in his hair, she felt more than saw his nod.

That took some of the frantic energy from her fingers. She rested her head against his shoulder, snuggling into him as best she could with his hands bound behind his back. “This won’t be like last time, you know. The trolls will plan a trap knowing how your brother will try to rescue you. But they won’t know how to anticipate my brothers. They are about to find out just how big a mistake they made in having us snatched from Winstead Palace’s grounds.” She curled one hand into his shirt while she reached behind him and clasped his cold fingers with the other. “I wonder why they did it. It is sure to bring Escarland into the war, and that can’t be their plan.”

“They want to incite a war between Tarenhiel and Escarland again.” Farrendel rested his cheek against her hair. “My brother will be furious that I was captured while under your brother’s protection. And if your body were to turn up abandoned in some ditch in Tarenhiel, your brother would blame mine.”

Another reason Essie needed to escape. She wasn’t about to let her corpse be used as a catalyst for a war. “We won’t let that happen. If I can get proof that the trolls executed an operation like this on Escarlish soil, it will be an act of war. Parliament won’t stand in Averett’s way any longer.”

“I do not know what we will find at the border, but I would surmise the trolls will have sent some of their soldiers. If they intend to take me alive back to Kostaria, they will need to provide the elven traitor with help to cross Tarenhiel.” His voice vibrated in his chest beneath her ear. A strangely soothing sound, for all that they were talking about war and death and forever goodbyes.

“Then I will do my best to snatch something to act as proof, if I can do it without risking my life or my escape.” Essie stifled a yawn. Her headache was going away, fading against the warmth of Farrendel’s chest as the train continued to clatter rhythmically onward.

“You should rest. You will need to be alert when we arrive at the border.”

“I don’t want to sleep away our time together. Not if...” She couldn’t finish. A tear coursed wet and scalding down her cheek and onto her chin. But she wasn’t sure she could just sit here either, knowing each clack of the wheels took her closer to having Farrendel ripped from her. “I don’t think I can do this. I don’t want you to die.”

The last word was a sob. She didn’t want to be weak. She didn’t want to fall apart into tears.

But she loved Farrendel and he was probably going to die and if that wasn’t a good enough reason to take a few minutes to cry, then she didn’t know what was.

He held still as she sobbed, his cheek against her hair, his fingers squeezing hers.

As she sniffled and hiccupped her way to silence, Farrendel pressed a kiss into her hair. “Please, no matter what happens, do not stop smiling. I could not bear it if you became broken. Not because of me.”

Broken like he was. He didn’t say it out loud, but that’s what he meant.

Right now, she didn’t know if she could promise that. She’d always thought she could smile through anything. That she didn’t have to face life crying.

She couldn’t smile about this. If he died, would she ever manage to smile again?

When she’d married him, she’d told herself her happiness didn’t depend on him.

But it did. Oh, how it did. Love was painful like that.

She had to tell him something. “I’ll try.”

“I know.” He kissed her hair again. “These past few months have been the best of my life.”

It would’ve been sweet. Romantic. If he wasn’t saying it because he thought he would die when this train got to where it was going.

Though, perhaps that made it all the sweeter.

“They were pretty amazing.” Essie snuggled closer, tracing the end of a scar visible at the collar of Farrendel’s shirt. “But far too short.”

“If I had known, I would have skipped the months our brothers spent negotiating that meeting and offered to marry you right away.”

That brought a smile. A small laugh, even. Not something she’d thought she’d manage right then. Making him laugh was her job. She hadn’t expected he’d do it for her. Was it possible to love him more because of it?

She needed to follow his example. Did she want to spend her last moments with him crying? She could gift him this. Laughter. Smiles. Tears could come later.

She forced a lightness to her tone, a contrast to the weight in her chest. “It wouldn’t have done you any good. I probably would have refused, suspicious why the youngest elf prince had suddenly decided he wanted to marry me. The whole arranged marriage thing only sounds like a good idea if it’s my idea.”

That earned her a rumbling, almost like a chuckle, inside his chest.

She curled tighter against him. In her flat dancing slippers, her toes were growing cold. Her fingers too. A silk dress would not have been her first choice of outfits to be kidnapped in.

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