Page 134 of Summer of Sacrifice

As if he could sense her trepidation, Cal reached out and gently removed it for her.

“Please, sit,” he said, his voice quiet, noble. How many rooms had he been in over the last year, preparing him for this very day?

Seleste sat in one of the two ornate chairs overlooking the stage from their place on the balcony. “I’m surprised the theatre is open, with a royal death having occurred.”

Cal hummed his agreement and sat opposite her. “The king didn’t wish to blacken the city. He said Charles wouldn’t have liked that.” He crossed his legs, watching Seleste carefully. “And I agree. Charles was a wonderful boy.”

Oh, yes. What rooms Cal had been in… So much had changed for him.

“I can’t stay,” she breathed before she knew the words were coming, and she watched as his face fell.

“I know. But I have a proposition for you.”

Her heart rate was determined to kill her. “I cannot be your paramour, either, Cal.”

The slightest of twinges ticked one side of his mouth up, but it was gone in a flash. “I know that, too, and I would not insult you again by asking to be.” He turned in his chair to face her as best he could in a seated position. “I only request that we meet here”—he pointed to the space between them—“in this theatre box, once a year on this date, and exchange a letter.”

“A letter?” was all she could manage, despite all the warring emotions raging through her.

“A letter,” he repeated with a nod. “As friends.”

Despair, hope, fury, grief… They all flooded her, impeding her thoughts, her cunning, her sense. “I have to go,” she whispered, standing.

His lips parted, a swarm of emotions playing out in his eyes just as deeply as she felt a storm within herself. “Seleste, please?—”

But she strode to the curtain. Pulled it aside. Lamplight from the corridor spilled in, illuminating his anguish as she peered at him over her shoulder. For a long moment, they simply took each other in, memorising. The moment, each other’s faces, everything.

“Change this realm, Cal,” Seleste finally said around the lump in her throat. “I don’t know the why’s of this happening, but it was no accident. This was orchestrated. And I can think of no one better to be next in line for the throne.” She watched as his eyes began to glisten.

“I love you,” he whispered, a tear slipping down his cheek.

“And I you. Until the day I die and thereafter.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and she stepped toward the corridor, turning back one last time. “It has a nice ring to it, you know,” she said softly. “King Caliban.”

And she slipped out into the corridor, tears streaming down her face.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

WINNIE

“Eleanor, for the love of the goddess, your horse better find another to ride in front of or I’m pushing it off a cliff.”

Laurent laughed heartily. “That’s my cue,” he said before kicking his horse into a canter to ride ahead next to Grimm and Aggie, Augustus and Anne at their flanks.

“It’s not my fault the damned beast keeps passing gas!”

This time, Tomás was the one to laugh. “Switch me places, Winnie.” He pulled the reins, slowing his horse so Winnie could ride in front of Eleanor.

Sorscha came barreling toward them on her steed, a cloud of dust in her wake that Aggie began shouting at her for creating. After a verbal battle and a fussing of reins, Sorscha convinced her horse to turn and walk in stride next to Winnie’s.

“Can we speed this uuuup?” she whined. “Asa is only a day ahead of us!”

“We can’t make time speed up, Sorscha,” Winnie snapped. Travelling by horseback in the accursed heat was on the list of her least favourite things. “Our party is massive, therefore slow.” Not to mention the amount of magic they were using to cloak everyone.

Sorscha turned and sneered at the carriage jostling behind a few rows of soldiers and Druids. “If some of us weren’t having to travel like royalty, maybe we’d be faster.”

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