Page 60 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

She gave him a quiet smile, tugging her mind to the present with a considerable effort. Avial was blowing hard and had clearly reached his limit. She glanced behind her, and could barely see Blaive and Wen in the distance.She hadn’t meant to leave them so far behind. She’d just needed to taste freedom for a while—maybe even more than the mare.

Caiden grinned at her. “Those two old women will catch up eventually. Don’t worry about them.”

“We should wait.” She pulled the mare to a stop, and Caiden followed suit with Avial.

He was very close to her; she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, the sand clingingto his jacket. His dark eyes met hers. “Why do you care so much about them?”

Notthem.Certainly not Blaive. She considered telling Caiden about the temple, but decided against it. “I’m still betrothed to Wen.”

Caiden gave a careless wave of one hand. “A technicality. I told you: We’ll get you out of it. I’ll talk to my father. Let him figure out how to appease the Empress.”

She stared at him.“You’d do that?”

“Of course.”

Did Caiden mean to imply thathewould start courting her when the betrothal was called off? Caiden was the heir to the Ruen-Dahr. If she married him, she’d become Baroness, stay for the rest of her life on the edge of the world, the sea singing forever in her ears. How long before she couldn’t resist anymore? How long before she went mad? Unless he was seriousabout going to Enduena with her and seizing the Empire.

“You nearly lost us back there!” came Blaive’s airy voice.

Talia glanced back to see Wen and Blaive riding up to meet them. Blaive’s cheeks were flushed with obvious annoyance, and her hat had shed a few of its feathers along the way.

Wen sat rigid in his saddle, looking carefully past Talia.

“Wen—” she began.

But Blaive cut her off.“We really ought to keep our party together, Lord Estahr-Sol,” she admonished Caiden. “What would my father say if you lost me?” She smiled.

“I’m sure I don’t know. Wen, do you want to lead the way from here?”

Wen shrugged. “If you like.” He didn’t meet Talia’s eyes as he rode past her, and she felt uncomfortably exposed. She still wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t know how to do it in frontof Blaive and Caiden.

The group continued on in silence, riding inland away from the sea and into a long stretch of low, hilly ground. Patches of heather showed purple against crumbly gray dirt, and here and there white star-shaped flowers struggled up toward the sky. The riding party followed a narrow track that wound through the moorlands, Talia bringing up the rear. She twisted in her saddlefor a last glimpse at the ocean, and the haunted thread of music fell away from her. She felt a strange twinge of loss.

The track led them southwest for several miles, widening a little as it went, and then all at once the four of them were riding down a hill to the Ruen-Shained. Wen’s holding was a simple two-story stone cottage with a low outbuilding on one end and a fenced pasture between.A cow snoozed in the field, and a half dozen sheep grazed in the hills beyond the house.

“Here it is,” said Blaive, far too brightly. “The future home of Master and Mistress Aidar-Holt.”

Wen didn’t say anything, a hard line pressed between his eyes. Caiden scowled, like he’d forgotten the entire pretense of their outing. Talia watched them both, feeling entirely helpless.

“Shabbier than I remembered,”Blaive added to no one in particular.

They rode into a gravel yard, and a black-coated servant and a blond-headed boy came up to take their horses. Talia dismounted, her legs wobbling beneath her, and handed the mare’s reins to the servant.

“Welcome to the Ruen-Shained,” he said in a voice that sounded so much like Ahned’s Talia had to wonder if they were brothers. He took Wen’s reins as well,leaving the boy to collect Avial and Blaive’s mount. “Anira has lunch in the garden for you when you’re ready, sir,” he said to Wen. “I know you’ll want to show Miss Dahl-Saida about.”

And then he and the boy led the horses down to the outbuilding, leaving Talia, Wen, Caiden, and Blaive to stand staring at each other in silence. The wind rustled through Blaive’s hat feathers. “Well?” she said.

Caiden cast a scornful eye at Wen. “The tour is yours to give, brother dear,” he said dryly.

“Why did you even come?” Wen snapped at him in a sudden flare of temper. “Never mind. I know why. This is all a game to you, just like everything else.”

“If you’d gone to Od you wouldn’t have to participate in this one.”

Is that what Caiden thought Talia was? A game?

“Should we go in?” said Blaivesmoothly. Her glance flicked anxiously between them.

“If you wish,” said Wen.

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