Page 79 of The Half King
“Oh, my child,” Father Padron said. He strode to her and gripped her upper arms. “You didn’t receive the Sight, did you?”
She had already forgotten it was her Claiming Day, but she let him assume that her tears were of disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Cerise,” Father Padron told her, and to his credit, he sounded sincere. He didn’t gloat or lecture or make any reference to his warning about her love for the king and what it might cost her. At least not yet. The chiding would doubtlessly come later. For now, he only shook his head. “I was so certain,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “I sensed something in you… I still do. And I’m so rarely wrong.”
General Petros cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, my girl.”
“So am I,” Daerick added. “But you don’t have to be an oracle to change the world. You told me that once.”
She nodded and dabbed her face with her shirtsleeve. She had said that.
The only members of the group who didn’t offer their condolences were Kian and Nero, who each stood with their arms folded, their heads tilted at a nearly identical angle as they studied her with matching expressions that were impossible to read.
“Yes, well,” Kian began, and then he turned to Nero and changed the subject. “We should discuss our provisions before we break down the camp any further. It might be a good idea to take the day to hunt and forage. We lost a lot of supplies when we left behind the wagon. I know the Petros Blade will move again at the next full moon, but we won’t find it if we starve to death first.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Nero said. “It’s best to hunt in the hour before dawn, when the deer are active. But we should be able to track one or two.” He nodded at Blue. “If we take the ugly hound with us.”
Blue whined. Cerise rubbed behind his ears to assure him that he was the most beautiful pup in her world. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded to give her permission. Blue needed to hunt anyway.
“We can smoke the meat over the fire,” Nero went on. “It will take all night, but by tomorrow morning, we could have enough jerky to last us a week.”
“Then it’s decided,” Kian announced. “We’ll stay here for one more night. Nero and the general will lead the hunt. Blue will go with them. Father Padron, I want you to ride along as well to protect the kill. We can’t have the scent of fresh blood drawing any unwanted attention from predators.”
Father Padron pursed his lips in displeasure, but he bowed his head. “As His Majesty commands.”
“As for the rest of us,” Kian said, “we’ll reassemble the tents and then go foraging for sand melon and whatever else we can find.” He clapped once. “Let’s get to it.”
As half of the group prepared for a hunt, no one questioned the king’s motives. But Cerise knew what he was really doing—sending them away so she could talk with Daerick in private about what had happened at the boulder. In the wake of her fight with Kian, she had nearly forgotten about that, too.
As she watched Blue lead the hunting party to the west, she almost wished she could go with them. She wasn’t in the mood for talking, not even to Daerick, who now sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire and sipped his tea, patiently waiting for someone to inform him of why the group had been divided. As brilliant as Daerick was, he had to know there was a reason Kian had told him to stay behind.
“Well?” Daerick asked Kian.
Instead of answering him, Kian held up an index finger and then slowly made his way around the campfire to where Cerise stood. He stopped in front of her, leaving an arm’s length of distance between them.
“Are you really upset about your Claiming Day?” He took a step forward and used his thumb to brush a tear from her cheek. “Or is this because we argued?”
Cerise stared into the distance and folded her arms tightly across her chest. The writhing inside her had died. Now she felt like her ribs might spring open, and it was all she could do to hold her body together.
“Ah, I see.” Kian released a sigh. “We had a lovers’ quarrel, Cerise. The first of many, I’m sure. Conflict is an inevitable part of life. There’s no avoiding it.” He tried to tilt her chin to face him. “Will you look at me?”
She jerked free of his grasp.
“Enough of this,” he said, his temper flaring. “We don’t have time for games. The others won’t stay gone forever, and we have bigger problems than a squabble. You have to talk to me so we can move on. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Even if she wanted to tell him, she couldn’t put her thoughts into words…at least not words that she was willing to say out loud. She didn’t want to admit how she truly felt: weak and pathetic, half mad with the fear of losing him. But then an odd sensation came over her, a disconnect between her body and mind, as though she were a puppet with an invisible hand inside her chest. Before she knew what was happening, she whispered, “I’m scared that you’ll never see me the same way again. That I let you down so badly this might be the beginning of the end for us.”
Oh, goddess, she shouldn’t have said any of that!
She didn’t know what had come over her, but she clapped a hand over her mouth to stop any more words from slipping out. Silence filled the air, interrupted only by the occasionalcracklefrom the fire. She glanced at Kian to find his face frozen in shock.
“What?” he breathed. “How could you think that?”
She shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“How?” he repeated, pulling her hand away from her mouth. “Tell me how you could think that.”
She swallowed hard. “It was the way you looked at me. And then it was the way you wouldn’t look at me. I thought…”
