Page 85 of Pretense

Jalissa leaned against the wall and tucked her head in the crook of her arm. The pins holding a wig on her head dug into her scalp, but the pain matched her mood. There, hidden by her arm, she finally let herself cry silent tears.

She had just decided she wanted to fight for a relationship with Edmund. But what was there left to fight for? A relationship needed truth as its foundation.

But how could she sort out the truth about who Edmund was from the many layers of lies and deceptions and masks?

“Are you all right, amirah?” Sarya kept her voice low, even as she glared at the back of Edmund’s head. “What happened? Do I need to kill him?”

Jalissa mutely shook her head. She was not even sure what to tell Sarya. “You do not need to kill him. My brothers will do it for you.”

Sarya made a noise in her throat. “That bad?”

“No. Yes.” Jalissa sighed and let her head fall back to her arms. “I do not want to talk about it.”

It was too much, on top of everything else that had happened in the past few weeks. No, in the past year. Past decades.

She was just so exhausted by all of it.

Was it too much to ask for a few happy years with no battles, no wars? Someone to love and who loved her in return the way she had always dreamed about?

She had thought that person was Elidyr, but he had died. Then he turned out not even to be real.

Then she had believed Edmund loved her. But he was nothing but layers of deceptions.

Perhaps she would just marry Merellien. Yes, she found him boring. But boring was good. Boring was safe. There was nothing wrong with Merellien.

Everything was wrong with Edmund. The fact that he was a human was the least of the things wrong with him.

Then why did her heart still hurt so much?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Essie curled against Farrendel, pressed her face against his chest, and took deep breaths to try to control her churning stomach. In one hand, she clutched the collapsible bucket Farrendel had pulled out of his pack the first time she had puked over the side of the horse.

His horse had snorted, nostrils flaring, but it hadn’t spooked, thankfully.

She had expected to be motion sick on the train. Which she had been. But who knew it was possible to be so nauseous while riding a horse?

Riding a horse while pregnant wasn’t ideal, but it was the only way to reach Lethorel. There was a risk she would be thrown and land wrong. Especially since there had not been time to load their horses, including her mare Ashenifela, before they had left Estyra, so they had borrowed horses in the small town of Arorien.

In the end, she had decided to ride double with Farrendel. It slowed them down, but they were not moving fast with her pregnant and puking. He kept control of the horse, leaving her hands free for holding the puke bucket. And if they were thrown, she trusted that he would make sure she wasn’t hurt.

Farrendel’s arm tightened around her back. “We are almost there. I can see the glint of the lake through the trees.”

“Good.” She stifled a groan and a lurch of her stomach. Even the soda crackers and Melantha’s magic weren’t cutting all the nausea. “You are as relieved as I am, I’m sure.”

“Yes.” Farrendel’s voice had a choked note to it. As she had learned, he didn’t handle vomit well.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, attempting to swallow back the bile lingering at the back of her throat.

At least the ride was almost over. Everyone with them who hadn’t yet known she was pregnant now knew. There had been no hiding it, after all. At least the news had cheered up Ryfon and Brina and distracted them from their worries for their parents.

“We are nearly there.” Farrendel drew her from her thoughts, his breath brushing against her hair.

Essie raised her head. The lake at the base of Lethorel sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight, reflecting the perfect blue sky above and the leafy, spring trees along its edges.

At the far side of the lake, the large, sprawling tree of Lethorel held various treehouses tucked into its branches. Both the tree and the houses grown into it were smaller than Ellonahshinel, but that made it all the more quaint and charming.

Even though this was the site of her first battle, something inside her relaxed. Lethorel was a sanctuary. It was the place where Farrendel had spent most of his childhood, and he relaxed here as he rarely did anywhere else.

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