Chapter 5

5

COLDEN

“ H ow did it go?” Alexus asks the next morning.

He stands in my room, closing the door behind two of the prince’s staff who are currently carrying our bags downstairs to the waiting carriage.

“Did you get the kiss you wanted or not?” He glances over the chambers, looking for evidence of a night that never happened.

I grab my jacket from the bed and stand before the floor-length mirror as I slip into the garment. “I did. And it was enough.”

More than enough. Too much. I regret every second of ridiculous yearning I felt on the prince’s account.

Eyes narrowing, Alexus leans against the bedpost, watching me straighten the ruffles of my shirt cuffs. “What, it wasn’t all you dreamed?”

I glare at him through the mirror and change the subject. “Can we eat now? I’m famished.” He smirks as I turn and stalk past him, opening the door. “Stop looking at me like that. Now are you coming, or am I leaving you here?”

He faces me with a look I loathe, the big brute. I hate how easily he reads me. I cannot lie to this man. He feels the truth.

That doesn’t mean I don’t try.

“Are you all right?” he asks tenderly as he stops before me in the doorway. “Because you don’t seem all right.”

“I’m fine.” I lift my chin, my pride getting the best of me. “Just tired, hungry, and ready to be anywhere but here.”

“Colden.” His voice drops. “If the prince was the man for you, he’d be cradling your heart right now instead of being the one who cracked its fragile layers, which I know is what happened. I heard you come back to your room last night. Sometimes we want things that simply aren’t good for us, and we have to love ourselves enough to walk away.”

I raise my brows and sweep my arm into the hallway. “I’m trying to walk away, and you won’t let me. Can we please go eat now so we can leave?”

It takes a few moments for him to give up, but finally, with a shake of his head, he exits my chambers, and I follow him downstairs. I held no worry that the prince would be waiting. I knew the moment I woke that I’d already seen him for the last time.

Alexus and I dine alone, in fact, save for the staff and one member of the Brotherhood who comes to offer the prince’s apologies for his absence. He suddenly isn’t feeling well, it seems.

“Do you want to go find him?” Alexus says as we walk to the carriage. “Do you want me to go find him? I can absolutely make him regret this.”

I stop and face my old friend, a man who cares for me more than probably anyone. “I really don’t want to see him. Nothing can fix what happened between us last night, and I don’t want to pretend that it can. I just want to go.”

He claps me on the shoulder and squeezes. “All right. Let’s get the fuck out of here, then.”

I hate myself when the carriage finally pulls away, because I look back, only to see the prince bursting out the main doors of the palace. He’s still wearing his clothes from last night, his shirt unbuttoned, his feet bare.

Alexus looks at me. “I can tell the driver to turn around.”

For a long moment, I watch the prince, his chest heaving as he stands in the middle of the courtyard. I think about what could possibly change if we tried to talk. Nothing would change, even if he begged for my forgiveness. I feel something he doesn’t, or he feels something which he refuses to acknowledge. We don’t have any more time to figure it out.

With one last look at him, I sit back in my seat. “No turning around. It’s over.”

Alexus nods, squeezes my knee, and settles in for the long trip to Quezira, then Mishan, then the Malorian Sea and Malgros. With every day of travel through the Territories, the stinging emotion that gripped me during my days with the prince lessens, though I can’t shake free of him entirely, and at times I wonder if I will ever be free of him at all.

It’s nearly three weeks before we reach Mishan’s ports. Alexus and I walk toward the ship that will carry us to the Northland Break, its deck alive with busy sailors, their suntanned skin glistening in the summer sun.

Alexus nudges me with his shoulder and eyes the ship. “All of this will pass, my friend. I’d bet a bag of silvers that you’ll have forgotten all about the prince with no name by the time we reach Winterhold.”

I sense what he’s hinting at, that a ship full of rough and rugged men will wipe my mind clear of the lovely face that won’t leave my thoughts. But that isn’t going to happen. I already know as much. There’s a melancholy spirit inside me that I don’t care for in the least, but for now, I can do no more than endure it.

Resigned, I watch the Eastland Territories fade from sight as we sail from its royal harbor toward home.

This will pass, I remind myself.

It’s only temporary.

Because it was just a kiss, one I’m certain I will soon forget.