Page 119 of Enchanted Heir
So I opened the door and stepped out.
Sure enough, Owen was there.
I held up a finger to my lips so he wouldn’t wake Krew with his jabbering.
As soon as the door clicked shut, he was shaking his head. “No. Nope. We are not training. At least not until you eat.”
“Fine,” I groaned.
“Fine.”
We had breakfast brought to the little kitchen I always baked in with him. It was a quiet breakfast. I wasn’t as angry or reeling as the previous day, but I was still not fully okay either. I wasn’t quite sure what I was. I was breathing and alive, and that would have to be enough for today.
While waiting for breakfast to settle, we fed Rafe and checked the lake before doing an easy jog and training session in the meadow.
“So how are you today?” Owen asked as he brushed up against my shoulder on the way back in. “Better with some sleep?”
I took a deep pull of air in my lungs. “I think so? I don’t really know. I don’t know how I am supposed to be around the king tomorrow and not gouge out his eyeballs.”
“That is warranted, Jorah. It isn’t fair. You should have longer than a few days before carrying on business as usual.”
“Says the one who carried me into the forest yesterday,” I joked.
He winced. “Yeah, sorry.”
I bumped his shoulder back. “Don’t worry about it. I appreciated the gesture. Plus, you got me to finally sleep.”
He was still wincing though. “How do you feel about the dress fitting with Silvia and Flora you have in an hour? It was supposed to be yesterday, but I got it pushed to today.”
I groaned. “I guess we might as well get it over with.”
* * *
The dress was lovely.As lovely as Flora and I imagined it to be. It was a dark green with velvety leaf patterns swirling in the dress, the borders of the leaves rimmed in a sparkling material. It was soft, it was sparkling, it was leafy. And I adored it. My inspiration had been what a healthy forest would look like, and the dress was absolutely dazzling. Even if it was strapless and had a slit up the side.
Flora muttered and pinned, pinned and muttered, while she made me stand there taking measurements.
Krew was nowhere to be found, off in a meeting with his father after taking another sample of my blood.
I kept taking deep breaths, trying to focus on only the task at hand. Tomorrow I could worry about how I was to keep my cool around the king. Today I was trying on a dress a dear friend of mine got to make for the ball.
“Are you feeling all right?” Silvia asked gently, handing me my teacup for a drink.
I tried to smile at her but couldn’t. Was that the lie that Owen had told to get me out of yesterday? That I had been sick?
“Uhh.” I was tired of lying to everyone I knew about everything. There were too many secrets in this damned castle, and I refused to be another one of them. “Not really. The day before yesterday, I found out who murdered my father.”
Flora gasped and rocked back to look at me, her pincushion falling to the floor forgotten. “Honey.”
I felt the tears then. How they kept forming after I had shed so many, I had no idea. Maybe that was my personal form of magic. Overactive tear ducts.
“How?” Silvia said in horror, as she put a hand up to cover her mouth.
I ran my hands down my dress, feeling the soft and bumpy contrast around the sparkles and trying to focus on it. “Well, I always knew he was murdered by an Enchanted. Krew woke me from a nightmare the other night and wanted to figure out more information for me. So I could have closure.” I closed my eyes a moment. “I just rather efficiently got more of it than either of us expected.”
“I’m so sorry, Jorah.” Flora was there then, hugging me hard. Holding me like I know my mother would have had she been here.
Silvia gasped. “Easton. It was Easton.”
