Page 71 of Beacon

After several minutes she grew distracted and eventually toddled over with a handful of seashells. “Look, Owen. Pretty.”

He ruffled her hair. “Good job, Renee. We can use them for our buried treasure. Would you like to gather some more?”

She skipped off to do just that. At first she stayed near him as she searched, humming to herself as she used a twig to dig a hole in the sand to store her collected seashells. Owen faithfully kept a close eye on her…at least until he became more enthralled with building his ship. Renee’s search soon took her farther and farther away from him, and with his distraction he didn’t immediately notice.

Dread pooled in my stomach as I realized the direction this memory was headed, a fear confirmed by Owen’s paling expression. I tugged on his arm in an attempt to pull him away from the pool, but he remained frozen, his horrified gaze riveted to the scene with a look like he wanted nothing more than to look away but was unable to.

The Owen within the memory suddenly straightened with a jerk as he remembered his sister. “Renee?” He glanced towards where he’d last seen his sister playing…only to be greeted by empty beach. Dread settled over him as he slowly stood. “Renee?” His movements were frantic as he searched the beach. “Renee?Renee?”

Prince Ronan returned with the governess in tow and froze at the sight of Owen’s rising panic. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know!” Owen said. “I can’t find her. What if she…” His escalating fear overcame him as he cast his gaze in the direction of the ocean. He ran towards it, calling his sister’s name over and over…but she never responded.

“Please, no more,” Owen pleaded from beside me, and at his request I seized his face between both hands and forced him to look at me and away from the pool.

The sound of past Owen’s desperate cries echoed through the cavern…along with his sister’s responding silence, so I moved my hands to cover his ears so he wouldn’t be forced to listen. I locked eyes with him and he stared back with the desperation of a man drowning. I took several long, deep breaths and he eventually matched mine, each one gradually helping him calm down.

Eventually, the memory faded from the pool. I made to remove my hands, but he grabbed on to them to keep them there so that they cradled his face, my fingertips a soft caress against his tear-stained cheeks. Eventually, I slowly lowered them so that we were holding hands, and in this position we remained.

My heart pounded wildly as I stared at the pool in shock. I’d had no idea Owen’s past contained such a dark memory. If I’d known of its nature, I never would have shown him the pool and forced him to relive it.

For a long moment he didn’t speak, the only sound filling the cavern being his occasional sniff or stuttering breaths. “I’ll never forget that day,” he finally whispered. “The long, frantic search that followed her disappearance…and finally the sight of her body in the arms of one of the guards who’d found her. She’d fallen into the water—” A single tear trickled down his cheek as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I only wanted to play with her, but I didn’t watch her carefully enough. If I’d been more diligent, had thought to have a servant accompany us, she never would have—she trusted me, and yet I—”

Overcome, he buried his face in his hands. Unsure how else to help him, I wrapped my arm around him. He leaned into me, as if I were his sole source of strength, and in this position we sat for a very long time.

As we sat together, the scene we’d just witnessed filled my mind, but despite its devastating nature, its similarity to my own worst memory connected me to the prince in a way far deeper than any we’d forged in our time together. He was always so cheerful that I never could have imagined he’d been harboring a guilt that so closely resembled my own.

Yet he hadn’t chosen to stop talking. Instead he’d pressed forward in the darkness from his past. How could he live with such a painful memory and still have the strength to move on?

It wasn’t until this moment that I realized it was possible to carry a burden even as heavy as guilt and still keep one’s voice, making me once again wonder why I’d been able to discard mine so easily…and if, despite the horrors filling my own past, I could ever learn to accept it again.

CHAPTER25

Owen remained solemn long after the incident with the enchanted pool. My mind whirled with every dark detail of his painful memory that had caressed the pool’s surface, as well as the agony that had filled his eyes as he’d been forced to relive it, so similar to the emotions I myself had experienced in the many instances I’d subjected myself to my own haunted past.

Seeing Owen’s heartache made it impossible not to reflect upon my own. Him handling his mistake so differently than I’d done my own led me to wonder why I’d chosen the path I had. In truth I’d done it to punish myself, a penance for my irreparable mistake. But punishing myself had done nothing but deepen my wound, one that my continuously reopening it had made impossible to heal.

Owen’s pensive silence lasted until we’d left the cave and emerged from the ocean to clamber onto the rocky bank. I took in each devastated line of his stoic expression. At first I feared he was upset with me for forcing him to relive his dark memories, but when he looked at me, it was only with understanding. And although he didn’t know the details about my own past, I felt as if our mistakes served as a thread that bound us together. We both understood the burden of regret…and now, at least, Owen wouldn’t be forced to bear it alone.

I settled on the shore to wring out my wet skirts, stilling when Owen crouched beside me to rest his hand over mine. My breath caught and I slowly lifted my gaze to meet his in silent question. “You appear worried. Though it was difficult reliving the memory that has haunted me every day since it transpired, I’ve learned to deal with the grief in the best way I know how, so let me assure you, I’m alright.” The corner of his mouth lifted at my furrowed brow. “I could sense your concern. I’ve come to learn how deeply you feel for others.”

My shoulders slumped in relief that once more he’d been able to understand the words I couldn’t say. I expected him to withdraw his hand now that he’d reassured me, but his touch lingered, his fingers leaving a trail of heat as he caressed my skin, the sand coating his fingertip making his touch rough and scratchy yet somehow still incredibly gentle.

Like the moment we’d shared while building sandcastles, once more I wondered why he was touching me when there was no audience to pretend for. I hoped it was perhaps because he too felt the growing connection between us that seemed to deepen with every interaction—our friendship, our shared history, the way we understood one another…and now somethingmore. This new emotion made his caress more than an affectionate touch, rather a communication without words to express the deeper feelings blossoming inside me.

Water dripped from the wet hair plastered against his brow as I peered into his eyes, basking at the tender way he looked at me, as if he were peering into my soul to read the unspoken conversations I yearned to share with him, even as I was afraid of what he’d discover. There was a new secret concerning my developing feelings hidden amid the others that grew the more we performed the charade expected of us, one that felt less like a performance the longer we were together.

He suddenly withdrew his hand and hastily stood, his cheeks pink. He steadily avoided my eyes as he brushed the sand off his clothes before turning to extend his hand to help me up. Even after I’d stood, he didn’t release me; instead his fingers lingered to lightly caress my wrist, spreading sand all along my skin.

“Might we stay here a bit longer? I’m not ready to go back yet. Are you?”

I shook my head, pleased he seemed as reluctant to end this time together as I was, a moment created just between us rather than for the performance usually expected of us.

He grinned and cast his gaze around. “I’m hoping to see more of this island of yours. The last time I was here I didn’t have the opportunity to explore it considering most of my time went to overseeing my ship’s repairs.”

He glanced at me for my response and brightened at my nod. I was eager to show him more of my special place. I’d spent hours as a child exploring every nook and cranny. After losing my voice, those moments had become tainted as I’d instead wandered the jagged rocks in search of the wreckage of my mother’s ship in the vain hope of finding anything to contradict the event that had destroyed my world forever.

I wanted to replace that tainted memory with one more beautiful, and I could think of no person better suited for the task than Owen.

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