Page 26 of A Theory of Dreaming
Frowning, Preston glanced down at the book. “I didn’t know the exact timeline. Ardor is sometimes given the epithet ‘The Blind Poet,’ but I never really thought to delve deeper than that.”
“I know it’s not your specialty,” Effy said, “but how could he have done it? By touch, or...”
“I would suspect through dictation,” Preston replied. “It was actually fairly common for the wealthy to use scribes. Literate servants or slaves who would take down the words of their masters. Though usually it was just for rather quotidian purposes. Letters, accounting, things like that. Notart, per se.”
Effy mulled this all over. “The Ardor household would have had plenty of servants, I suppose.”
“Certainly.”
“Though...” She paused, bit her lip. “Doesn’t it seem odd, thathe would be so concerned about formatting, if he couldn’t even see the words?”
“A bit odd,” Preston agreed. “To be honest, I never thought much about it. Ardor’s work isn’t... especially exciting to me. But,” he hastened to add, “it’s been a long time since I’ve read him. Maybe I could change my mind.”
Effy couldn’t help but smile. The Preston she had met months ago, at Hiraeth—that stodgy and arrogantP. Héloury—would’ve rather perished than so readily admit he might be mistaken. In the lamplight, his eyes were lambent and gentle, searching her face.
“Well, Ardor is a romantic,” she said. “That’s one of Rockflower’s main arguments. Ardor loved widely and deeply, and his work reflects that.” Effy raised a brow. “So maybe that’s why you never found his work exciting or profound. Too much of a cynic.”
“I’m hardly acynic. At least, not anymore.”
Preston looked more affronted than she’d expected, and he reached out and took her hands. With his thumb, he tenderly brushed over the knuckle of her fourth finger—the absent fourth finger, which the Fairy King had taken from her as a child, both a prize and a promise that she would never belong to anyone but him. It was the finger that, ordinarily, would be fitted with a wedding ring.
It was such a small thing, but as Preston touched the place where he might have—would have—put a wedding band, Effy felt her heart crack. She had been ruined long before he had ever laid eyes on her. How could she have so cruelly beguiled him into loving such a fickle and broken creature?
Lying harlot, indeed. Effy curled her remaining fingers into a fist.
Preston looked up at her with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. And in that moment she was as terrible a liar as he was.
“I’m sorry,” Preston said, and the words seemed to rush out of him, desperate and harried. “I think perhaps I’ve been—distant from you. I don’t mean to be. It’s just...” His throat bobbed and he trailed off.
Effy was genuinely alarmed. It was so rare for him to be lost for words.
“It’s all right,” she replied. “This has been difficult for both of us. I know it’s burdensome, to feel as if you have to care for me—”
“No,” he cut in. His voice was sharp, and behind his glasses, his eyes flashed. “That’s not it at all. You aren’t a burden to me or to anyone. If anything, it’s the opposite. I don’t want to lay this on you. You’ve been so strong, for so long—stronger than I could be. Than I’ve been.” He swallowed, giving a small shake of his head. “You deserve to rest.”
Effy felt her eyes prick. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, so terribly wrong. That any strength she might have had was withered now, a slow-dying, pale-stalked flower, like those in Ardor’s garden of stone.
She let out a tremulous breath. “You don’t have to worry so much about me.”
“It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?” Preston smiled softly, almost sadly. “Whatever faults I might have—and I have plenty—justknow that I think of you, always. My mind is never empty of you. Not in waking; not even in dreaming.”
The tears were gathered along her lash line now, threatening to spill over. Effy blinked to hold them back, then leaned forward and kissed Preston passionately on the mouth.
He let Rockflower’s book fall unceremoniously to the floor so that he could fold his arms around her waist. In a deliberate, delicate maneuver, without even breaking their kiss, he drew her onto his lap.
“So you can speak like a poet after all,” Effy whispered, when at last she pulled away.
With her own arms braced around his shoulders, her hands cupping his face, they were pressed together so tightly that she could feel his pulse, fluttering and urgent with her closeness.
“Only for you,” he replied. And then again: “Only for you.”
Ten
The third category of historic surnames from northern Argant include concepts such as personal splendor and brilliance—power, dignity, eminence, veneration. From the old Argantian wordsheluou(“serious”) andri(“prince”) comes the rare modern surname “Héloury.”
—fromArgantian Patronyms and the Age of Kings, by Yann Arthur, 184 AD
