Page 41 of Emylia

Heat crawled up my neck as passersby muttered their irritation, stepping around us like we were nothing more than a inconvenience in their day. It took everything in me not to rise to the challenge–to snap, to spit fire, to show them just how inconvenient I could really be.

“I’m fine.”

Dusting myself off, I started walking again but this time in the opposite direction, back towards where we’d come from.

“Where are you going?” Sebastian asked, standing in the middle of the path so everyone had to walk around him, his arms crossed against his chest, his biceps bulging at the movement.

I was starting to think I had a thing for that specific part of the male anatomy.

“I think I might get some fresh air.”

Sebastian looked at me like I was crazy, and then looked around him as if searching for something he couldn’t see. “We’re outside, all the air is fresh.”

“I know. I think I just need a couple of minutes… alone.”

A dark brow rose skeptically. “I’ll come with you.”

The sound of my teeth gritting together crunched loudly in my ears. “I’ll be fine.”

“Look, Em, I was just teasing; I swear I’ll cut it out.” The hurt in his eyes almost convinced me to cave. But I wasn’t very good at giving up power, it made me feel too vulnerable, even with Sebastian.

I wasn’t sure why–I just need a moment. A single breath to think.

Between losing my father, the tangled mess unraveling between Maalikai and me, and the storm I couldn’t name simmering just beneath the surface with Sebastian… it was all too much.

I needed a second.

Just one.

Before everything swallowed me whole.

“Please, Bastian.”

Sebastian studied my face for several minutes, probably weighing up every scenario he could possibly think of until finally he caved.

“If you need me, I’ll be helping set up the feast.”

I nodded, ready to be alone and decompress. Everything felt too overwhelming.

“Oh, and Em, don’t be too long.”

“I promise. I’ll come and find you as soon as I’m done.”

I watched Sebastian walk away until the last blur of color disappeared in the distance and, for a second, I was free.

ChapterTwelve

Meandering without a purpose, I found myself trailing down the path towards the archery targets. Each footstep left trampled flowers in my wake. I planned on examining the puncture holes from the competition earlier that day—I hadn’t had a chance before the sword-fighting competition.

The circular hay targets were spaced ten feet apart. The starting line sat eighteen paces away, stretching farther with each new mark. I started walking, eyes sweeping the field, half-lost in thought—until something caught the corner of my eye.

I froze.

Lying beside one of the targets was a bow. Just… there. No guards, no handlers, no training soldiers nearby.

Abandoned.

Forgotten.

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