Page 53 of A Rose Among Snakes

My nerves sparked as he helped me down the rocky path, his warm hand wrapped around mine. The roar of the ocean was not as loud, but the pull on my soul was the same. I didn’t know what it was that had such a hold on me, but I didn’t even notice we stood still in the sand.

“I’d never seen it before coming here,” I whispered.

Velian squeezed my hand and I glanced up at him. He was staring at the midnight blue waves crested with silver, his face a mask of serenity.

“When I was younger, I dreamt of being a sailor, so I would come here and imagine I was waiting for my ship to dock and take me away on adventures.”

“Only when you were younger?”

He laughed. “Alright, fine, I still dream about it.”

Despite my surroundings, I was unwilling to look away from him. “Why would you want to leave a place like this?”

“It wasn’t the place so much as the people.” A muscle feathered in his jaw, and regret curled in my chest. He closed up every time the conversation turned to his father, so Ichanged the subject.

“Have you never been on a ship then?”

“I have, several times now, but not until I was seventeen.”

“And was it everything you dreamed of?” I wanted him to keep talking, to keep opening up to me. I was intoxicated by the feeling that I might be the only person he’d admitted these dreams to.

“It was, and it wasn’t. Just boring business necessities with my father.”

“Oh.”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, catching me staring at him, and smirked. A blush bloomed on my cheeks, but I hoped the moonlight washed it out.

“Come sit with me,” he said, leading me over to a log of sun-bleached driftwood. We sat down, barely any space between our bodies. Then he released my hand to unlace his boots and remove them from his feet. I watched him with raised eyebrows, as he tore off his stockings and set his boots to the side, stretching his legs out in front of him, burying his bare feet in the sand.

Velian looked over at me and said, “Your turn.”

I shook my head.

He turned his face up to the sky. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

It felt too intimate, and while the voice was quieter, I could still hear my mind telling me to run away. But my heart—my heart wanted to soak up every minute of his attention, especially since he seemed so much happier than he had that morning. Biting my lip, I bent down and began unlacing my boots. I slipped my feetout, removed my stockings, and buried my toes in the cool sand as he had. It was soft and slippery as silk; gritty, too, but in a good way, like scratching an itch just before it becomes annoying.

I looked up at him, matching his smile.

“Nice, right?”

“Very nice,” I agreed, wiggling my toes.

“Tell me about your life in Roben.”

I folded my hands in my lap. “There’s not much to tell.” Then remembering when he appeared in the woods to help me with Jehiam, I asked, “Have you ever been there?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug and said, “I’ve passed through.”

Indeed.

“Well, it’s a small farming village, so my days were spent helping my mother around the house and pestering my father out in the fields.” I chuckled at the memory before sobering. “After he died, my mother had to take over all the farm work and I had to take care of the house and my siblings. We spent the next three years just trying to survive, but when I turned eighteen, I began working as a maid for a widow in Frommhelm, the neighboring village. I was the only maid she could afford; she was kind, and it was close enough that I could go home every night. She decided recently she was too old to live alone, and it was time to move in with her son in Clavo. So now I’m here.”

“Do you miss your home?”

I thought for a minute. “Sometimes. I miss the closeness of the community, though no secrets were safe, which was irritating.But they all came together when Ziffem overtook the village. Everyone took care of each other, and no one was left to fend for themselves.”

Velian blinked twice. “Do you miss your family?”

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