Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I’m settled carefully onto the rounded edge. Quin sits across from me, the two of us perched above the silhouetted kingdom.
Quin is a soft smile in the dark; he coaxes two candles to life, and looks over at me. “Took you long enough.”
I scowl at him. “The time I needed to denude all your pearl heart.”
His eyes gleam. “You’re a glutton for punishment.”
“It takes two to tease.”
Quin hands me the package with a soft smile and watches as I open it. A hand-bound book, with illustrations, on the rarest plants discovered. My breath hitches and I look over at him, swallowing. “Quin . . .”
He reaches across the board and covers my hand with one of his. “Happy birthday, Cael.”
And for once, I’m speechless.
SUPERSTITIONS AND SOULMATES
Florentius looks just as shagged as I do after a long day of teaching alchemy and vitalian crafts to the eager and the . . . mischievous.
“Honestly, who’d have thought we’d be taken down by six-year-olds?”
“There’s a toad thumping about in your desk drawer.”
“That was me. Had to save it from the crown prince’s toad-loving cat.”
I pull the poor thing out and free it into the pavilion pond, Florentius following along, his amusement glinting in the moonlight.
The pond ripples as the toad vanishes into the reeds. The night air still carries the faint scent of crushed herbs from the day’s lessons.
Florentius breathes it in with a small laugh and plucks off a naughty note stuck to my cloak. “That boy loves teasing you.”
I turn a grin into a scowl. “He takes after his father.”
“In brilliant mind and godlike appearance indeed,” comes the voice that has a way of slinging shivers through me.
Quin is watching from the rooftops, cloak whipping heroically behind him. I can’t help the dreamy sigh that slips out of me. Traitorous thing! I slap a hand over my mouth too late, and Florentius clears his throat. “I’ll take my leave. Akilah’s waiting.”
“You’re marrying in three days,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. “Aren’t you supposed to wait until she picks you up on the big day?”
“If I don’t visit daily, the mess in her chambers will be far worse to clean up.”
“Excuses.”
Florentius’s lips twitch into a smirk as he disappears into the shadows.
I turn back to Quin riding the wind to land before me.
“I thought you were busy,” I murmur, stepping towards the heat of him.
“You’re the busy one these days,” he murmurs, his arms spreading open. “Come here, Cael.”
I sink against him and he steers the cloak around me. With the whisper of his lips grazing the top of my head, the wind surges, curling beneath my feet, lifting us effortlessly into the sky.
The capital and the royal city glitter below, and I point to a stray cloud. “Can we sit here a moment?”
We perch on the cloud buffered with Quin’s magic and our legs dangle off the edge, mine bumping lightly and insistently against Quin’s boot. “You’ve still to give me boots.”
“I’m still superstitious.”
“I won’t run away. Promise.” I nudge him playfully again. “Want me to make it a contract?”
“I want you to make it a marriage,” he says, like it’s the most obvious step in the world.
My breath snags; my leg freezes against him. Marriage. To Quin. My mind scrambles for a quip, something easy, something that won’t acknowledge the hopeful heat surging in my chest. “But you’re already . . . you have a queen.”
Quin takes my hand and holds it in both of his. He looks out at his illuminated kingdom and the sparkling stars above, and then settles the softest gaze on me. “I have a paper marriage. Not one of my heart.”
I swallow thickly, squeezing his hand back, so hard. So desperately hard.
The softness in his gaze is simple, unguarded, and . . . and hopeful. Like mine. Hesitantly, Quin reaches out and takes my clasp. My cloak puddles to the cloud, but it doesn’t matter, I’m far from cold here with his warmth right beside me and my own heart pounding heat through me.
Quin removes his flutette and holds it and my clasp together. Magic, in a glowing golden thread, loops around them, tightening, binding them together. He slices a cut on his palm and the blood seeps through the thread. “This is my oath. Until death.”
I shake my head.
Quin stills, his magic pulsing fast, like it’s mimicking the race of his heart.
My voice comes out a whisper. “That’s not long enough.”
The pulse evens. He raises a brow.
I cut my palm with my glorified letter opener and press it against our love tokens too. “Pledge our souls. We’ll only ever be truly happy if we find one another in all our reborn lives.”
He exhales softly, watching me. A flicker of something crosses his gaze. Surprise? No, something deeper. Then, quietly, “Finding a past soulmate . . . that might take hundreds of years, Cael.”