Page 78 of A Kingdom of Shadows

She mentioned him on purpose.

I look at my hands, my nails short and brittle. "What about him?"

Since last night in the maze I haven't seen him, not even during supper had he come.

"I imagined you would have made up by now."

"Why do you say that?"

She arches a brow, leaving some of my waves to frame my face. "It is pretty obvious something has occurred since I caught you two the other day."

Well, there is that. I snort out a chuckle, shaking my head. "He and I are always on bad terms. He angers me, I annoy him, he is just—"

"Someone you've come to care for deeply."

My chest compresses against the tight bodice. I meet her stare. Yes, I have, and regardless of it all, him kissing Faye has not changed that. "If you told him that, he would rub it in my face," I half joke with a smile.

It almost makes her smile, but it's so distant like doing that simple act costs her dearly.

"And Aeron?" I ask, and she pauses midway, placing a crescent hair brooch in my updo. "What is he to you, other than part of the sentinel?"

She's silent, staring at the brooch in an effort to escape me.

I twist around and cup the back of the chair with both hands. I rest my chin on my knuckles like a child peering up in thought as I say, "You're not the only one who notices things."

"It doesn't matter what he is to me," she whispers. "Everything changed when he became part of the Terranos army."

"Why did it?"

"A royalty like me cannot marry someone like him."

I nibble my lower lip, pensive and curious. "Your father did it with your mother."

She barks out a humorless laugh. "That was under different circumstances. She was a commoner, yes, but Aeron..." I watch her suck in a breath and turn away from me as she walks around my room. "When you swear into the Terranos army and become a soldier for the king, you are also making an oath where you must give all your life to it, to never marry, to serve and protect the royals until death."

My shoulders sag at that thought. Even a princess suffers.

She leans against the wall. "I knew him from a young age." Her gaze is elsewhere, reminiscent and content. "He was a stables boy, and I a quiet girl—a stuck-up princess, he used to call me. We grew up despising each other, so I'm not sure what changed, but it just did. And from then on, we made plans. We even wanted to run away together until he decided to serve my uncle instead."

Arlayna seems to have been transported back to that time, she's still not focusing on me, and I imagine she likely thinks of this a lot. I know I would.

Now I understand what Golrai meant when she mentioned Aeron used to be a stables boy.

"I don't think I've ever felt pain such as that day of his ceremony." She huffs out a laugh—a lonely, miserable laugh. "It's the cruelest thing to have witnessed."

I decide to ask her a question I already know the answer to. "Were you in love?"

Her eyes—grey and almost like a strike of thunder connect with mine. "Everyone thinks they know the meaning of loving someone, but very few know how to love." She takes a breath. "So, yes, you could say I am one of those few."

I believe her.

I believe she still does. That her love for him is no match compared to others and a love like that... is something she deserves to have.

She sucks in a breath, straightening from the wall and feigning a smile. "Shall we head off? Tonight, is a special evening, where we hope for the stars to shine brighter than most nights, and I'd hate to keep you in here too long."

There isn't a chance for me to say otherwise. She's already marching towards the door, and I am heading over to Tibith to wake him up.

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