Page 79 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Half envious.

Half curious.

It was my chance to see how a family felt like, the dynamics, the banter, the simplest of interactions. Always by observing others, that’s how I’d learnt what a family is supposed to look like.

The noise grew the more students came out to crowd the yard, the more the bell signalling the end of classes chimed, the more I watched their parents wave and call to their children. It grew intense. Buzzing. Blurring. Drowning.

One moment I was sinking beneath the noise, and the next, it was all gone.

Entirely quiet.

At least until the same pulse I’d heard before began overtaking all my senses. Humming against my skin. Reverberating and bouncing around my own mind. Coursing down to the tip of my fingers until I could almost touch it, feel it against my skin.

Lifting a hand forward, I swiped it across the thick snowy breeze, letting it graze my skin. Every snowflake that clung to my fingers pulsed against them with the same heartbeat I could hear and feel beneath my soles, and against my back braced on the pear tree trunk.

It was everywhere.

It felt…it felt like I stood right in the middle of a heart. All four walls were beating against me.

A hand rested on my shoulder, and then, just like that, it all went quiet. Malik’s brows were pulled together as he watched me. “Where did you go just there?”

“I’m fine.”

“Wasn’t what I asked.”

Looking around, I shook my head. “Thought I heard something.”

“Just like you thought you saw something the other day?”

The sort of accusing and doubting look was annoying me. “The way you’re saying it is making me look a little mad.”

“Nothing wrong with that. I’ve accepted you as you are. Flaws and all.”

“Malik—”

“I would murder in cold blood for you to just stop calling me by my ministerial name.”

“You’ve already murdered in cold blood.”

“Not right at this moment.” His eyes slowly rolled up to some point over my shoulder. “Plausible to change.”

Casting a quick look to where he was glowering, I said, “Leave Elias alone.”

“Why is he stuck to your hip and tits, too?”

“Be kind to my right-hand man, he stuck with me no matter what I’ve put him through. He’s my friend.”

He didn’t like that. Malik didn’t like that at all. It was why I had said it. It was true, nonetheless, but it was not like I went around making that announcement. Especially when Elias Venzor was supposed to have a neutral stance to me in court. A lord couldn’t be my friend.

“Been making a lot of friends, little bird?”

“What can I say? The position was empty and many were willing to fill it.” In his defence, I did omit the fact that Elias had been forced into practically being everything to me and did not really have a choice otherwise.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You little shit.”

“That isn’t very nice.”

“No shit.”