Page 23 of The Prince or the Bard?
Yet within days of returning to the castle, Queen Fiadh’s fearsome headaches are back.
My steps are heavyas I return to the kitchen, ready to fix the special tea I make to ease Fiadh's suffering. Only this time, as I enter the kitchen, I freeze as if my slippers were just bolted to the floor.
There, leaning over a plate of bread and cheese, chewing and telling a story to the rapt kitchen staff—including the cook, who stands with her arms crossed, but still listens—is Cillian called the Cloudtongue.
My bard. He’s back. He’shere.
He notices me in the doorway after a moment, his grin broadening. He forsakes his meal at once—one he needs, for he looks dreadfully thin now—and closes the distance between us in long, well-traveled strides.
“My dear Laoise,” he says, wrapping his arms around me. His slender fingers caress my hair and travel the line of my jaw, as if refreshing his memory.
I should be angry. I should give him a piece of my mind for being gone for so long, for arriving and not seeking me outfirst. “Cillian,” I open my mouth to say.
And then his lips are on mine, and it feels so right, I almost forget he was ever gone.
Chapter Thirteen
One month, filled witha fresh round of headaches for both my royal cousin and I, goes by. Cillian was barely at the castle for half of it.
It was sweet while he was here, with our passionate kisses and our stolen moments in the hallways. Our nights were always too short, and I too tired to perform my duties during the day. Yet I would not return to my own chambers at night, afraid to miss even a moment of his presence here.
I wish homesickness was all this broken heart was. But I am still grieving the absence of my bard, even as I swear to myself that he’ll return to me soon.
He arrived at Connor Castle without warning before. He might well return again, any day or night. So he isn’t adept at keeping in touch by letters—but when the rest of him is so wonderful, how can I be sour about that?
Except, as the weeks wear on, he loses a bit of that shine. And all I can think is,Will he be gone even longer this time? And how long will the next time be?
I start to feel as though I’m trying to hold back a wave, or grasp a beam of moonlight—the only thing, these days, that ever caresses my hair.
Then three more months go by—and then another month still. It’s been almost as many since I last had word of Cillian Cloudtongue, from him or anyone else. My skin almost aches, missing his touch, and I begin to wonder just how many other maidens are drawn to him as I was.
What if I’m not the only one? What ifthat’sdelaying his return?
With every month he’s gone, I feel my passion for him growing a little bit colder. With Fiadh’s condition, thoughts of him begin to feel like a flight of fancy. A dream I once had.
Was he only ever that?
Slowly, devastatingly, the suspicion that I’ve been an utter fool creeps over me like the final frosts. For winter has long-since arrived and now prepares to leave, loosening its bone-chilling grip on the high court with painful slowness.
With the change of the season, my own head pain begins to ease at last.
If only I could say the same for Fiadh. These days, I have little time to fret about my bard.
Besides, if Cillian wants to swan around the human world, then it’s not as though I’ll wait for him. I’ve ample duties to keep me busy as it is, and more so now that the queen's health has taken another turn. I’m even learning to knit, something that takes up the hours at Queen Fiadh’s bedside and gives me some direction for my worry. Cable knitting is a beastly thing.
I don’t need my sweet Cillian to return. Clearly I was wrong about his feelings for me. And clearly, he isn’t as sweet as I believed.
But that’s just it. My poor, foolish heart can’t accept that what it felt was some fantasy, that Cillian wasn’t touched by our time together, too. That his honey-sweetness was all a ruse.
On days like today, I still grieve him. Like a ghost, I wander the cold gardens alone, kept company by my own raw feelings, the clouds of my breath, and the occasional tear. Queen Fiadh has refused lunch again and sent me away early, giving me too much time alone with my thoughts.
Before I realize what I’ve done, I’m in the star garden and my eyes have landed on the very spot where Cillian performed, where he made me feel as though he played and sang only for me. The place where, just a couple weeks later, we first made love.
Where I first felt I’d never be parted from him again.
But that’s the way of life, isn’t it? I thought I’d always be home in the Seaglass Court, with other púcaí around me. I never dreamt I’d move so far from Diarmuid's Row, and never wished to be so far from the sea. Yet I’ve found myself settled in, almost a year older and a fair amount sadder and wiser, too.
Queen's maids aren’t the subjects of storybooks. We do not get such happy endings. It is enough, I think, to see the way the high king dotes on our queen, to see one of my own kind held in such regard by the ruler of all earthly fae courts.
