Page 60 of A Crown of Hopes and Sorrows

She looked at me as though she didn’t believe my words. “It’s just for this. Nothing is changing between us.”

“Of course.”

We stared at each other. Everything was changing, our relationship included. And I had no control over the situation. I’d just have to appreciate what friendship we had and accept that her fate pulled her away from me. That sliced through me, though. I hated it. But what could I do?

When we parted ways after the sun stretched out bright and golden in the sky and Temi went inside the residence to sleep for a few hours, I made my way out to the stable. Valerian scooped barley into a feeding trough, the sweet smell of it sweeping into the air as a horse dropped its snout towards the meal.

“Val,” I said.

He turned, color draining from his face, and he wrung his fingers around the scoop. “Hey, Epiphany.”

My guards shifted, their feet scraping against the gritty ground, and I moved back to face them. “Would you wait outside for me?”

Their brows furrowed, but they bobbed their heads and strode out of the barn. Once the space stretched empty, the earthy smell of hay and crunching of the horses eating the only thing remaining, I walked closer to him and grabbed his hand.

He swallowed, his eyes trailing over me. “Did you sleep well?”

I hadn’t, actually. Temi wasn’t the only one up most of the night. I’d lain in my bed, sore in ways it’d never been before, my mind drifting back to Valerian, his body bared, his flesh scraping mine. I shook my head, my cheeks warming. “Okay considering. You?”

He chuckled. “I suppose I could say the same.”

Tension hovered between us like something palpable, an energy we could reach out and grasp greedy handfuls of, tuck it into our pockets. I tightened my fingers. “I guess this is kind of awkward.”

He kneaded his neck with his free hand. “A bit.”

“About last night…”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You’re sorry?”

He dropped my touch and combed both of his hands back through his hair. “We shouldn’t have, I mean… Obviously.”

Blood drained from my face and down my limbs, leaving my body feeling cool and tingling. “You regret it.”

“Do you not?”

“Of course I don’t.”

He blinked at me for several heartbeats. The horse nearest us huffed a hot breath, and Valerian sighed alongside her. “Soon we’ll return home. You’ll be back to your life… to your future. And that doesn’t include me.”

His words came like a smack, bringing blood rushing to my cheeks, my face warming. “What do you mean it doesn’t include you?”

He frowned. “You’re going to marry, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I thought you and I… might… I mean…”

Shock colored his expression. “You believed we would get married?”

Warmth swept over me again but no longer with the bite of anger. Suddenly I felt ashamed and young and foolish. “You don’t want that,” I said, and my words came so pitifully mewling that I wished I could cram them back into my mouth and swallow them.

“Oh, Pip.” His eyes glazed. “I would want that more than anything in this life. But”—he wrung his fingers together—“we know that isn’t possible for us.”

“I don’t know that.”