15. Like a Dream

Chapter 15

Like a Dream

T hree hours of interrogation, and Mariel was exhausted.

Four times she and Erran had recounted their story to Rylahn, Damian Law, and Argus Strong, the men hanging off their words like they expected them to change. Samuel had advised them to keep the core details the same but to add minor details to color out their stories on each retelling. He explained that was the way memory worked, revealing more and more layers as you explored deeper, and the stewards would know that as well.

They’ll be hard on you, dears, but you will understand in the end, Hestia had warned them both, her red-rimmed eyes swimming with unspilled tears. She’d forsworn her colorful attire for a black gown that was borderline prophetic. Trust it’s necessary and do what is asked.

“What’s still unclear to me is why the two of you decided to address the matter of Destin’s ship when he was jailed for suspicion of brigandry.” Damian Law shifted a deep frown from Erran to Mariel. His eyes gradually pinched into slits. “Would it not have been a more suitable endeavor for once his name was cleared?”

“I knew—” Mariel said right as Erran blurted, “You see?—”

Erran bowed his head in contrition and nodded for her to go.

“I knew my brother was guilty only of public indecency, a terrible result of his overfamiliarity with spirits. And while his disruptive behaviors were uncalled for, anyone who has spent five minutes with him would ken he’s not half fit to care for himself, let alone...” She left the words to finish themselves.

“And you decided to spite me?” Rylahn asked, looking at his son. “When I told you to leave matters alone?”

“Father, with respect, you told me not to go to the jail, and I did not,” Erran said carefully.

“Is it nay true you still intended to go there? And would have, had you not met trouble with the ship?”

“To the jail?”

Mariel cringed. Erran’s attempt at naivete was painfully unimpressive.

“Aye, the jail. Your mother was nay convinced when you said you’d leave matters lie, and I had my own doubts.”

Erran skated his gaze over the other men, his hands twisting in his lap. Sweat speckled his collarbone. Mariel hadn’t realized what a terrible liar he was. He’d never needed to practice over the years, to perfect an ease in telling any story to any person to make it believable. Any remaining doubt he was fibbing about all the lasses in the keep disintegrated as she listened to him stumble through their story. “I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.”

“And would ye have? Done it?” Argus Strong asked. It was startling to Mariel how much he and his son, Hamish, resembled one another, right down to the “intimidating” knit of brows. But he wasn’t the problem, nor Steward Law. Rylahn needed the most convincing.

“I don’t know,” Erran answered. “I got little chance to think on it.”

“Balingers require a crew. Five or more just to make her seaworthy, up to thirty for a proper sail.” Rylahn hadn’t shifted away from Erran. “You’re usually more deliberate than this, Erran. Taking such risks isn’t how I taught you.”

“Aye, aye, but we were just trying to navigate the coastal waters, which I didn’t expect would need an entire crew, Father. Nothing we haven’t done before when shifting port.”

“On smaller vessels,” Rylahn replied, holding his intensity.

Mariel shook her head. “My brother has taken her out alone before. It was... It was my reckless suggestion the two of us could handle it.”

“And my son was perfectly capable of refusing.”

“Nay, because...” Mariel cut her sideways glance toward Erran, who stared at his hands as if they alone contained the answers to their conundrum. “He was trying to appease me, and I knew it, which was why I asked him.”

“You manipulated him?”

Mariel sighed. Erran was still fixated on his lap. He looked ready to break. It was on her to finish this. “Aye, I suppose that’s what I did. He’d been naught but accommodating, and I pushed it... pushed him.”

“You’re saying it’s your fault?” Damian asked. “That you enticed him to this act?”

Mariel swallowed. “Aye.”

“Nay.” Erran whipped his head up with a drilling, solemn gaze around the table. “It’s mine alone. I’m the sailor. She is not. If I hadn’t believed we could manage the route, I would have procured a crew for the task. I miscalculated, and we both suffered for it.”

Rylahn cocked his head. “Are you aware of the whispers coming out of Sandycove?”

Whatever had been on Mariel’s face at the moment froze there. “Well, I?—”

“I’m asking my son.”

Erran shook his head tightly. Mariel noted his knuckles paling as he wrung his hands harder.

“Allow me to enlighten you on what I have been dealing with these past weeks.” Rylahn cleared his throat. “It came to my attention that Samuel paid a man, Edwin Banner, a sum of gold to keep quiet about what he thought he saw. It involved a woman coming to his home, threatening him...”

Threaten him! I didn’t even speak with him! Mariel ground her jaw to stop herself from correcting him.

“And ultimately fleeing for the Devon coast, his men in pursuit, whilst she cried out that she, and not some capable, cunning man, was the Flame. Seems there are whispers from some that this woman is none other than Mariel.”

Everyone at the long table went silent. The only sound was leather shifting on seats.

Then Erran erupted into laughter. He threw his head back and slapped the table. “Mariel? My wife? An outlaw ? The Flame ?”

Chuckles passed through the other men as well, Damian lifting his brows at Argus as if to say, I told you it was nonsense.

Mariel silently stewed through the necessary but insulting dismantling of her accomplishments. A little too convincing there, Errandil.

“Aye, well, it had to be said, and now we can move on,” Rylahn answered gruffly. “You hit the Eastern Shelf, which you’ve captained more than once before...”

“Aye, and were caught by a rogue wave. Actually, I was caught off guard, was thrown into the deck wall, and the rest is...”

“A blur,” Mariel said. “Until I came to on the shore.”

“If not for her, I wouldn’t be alive.”

“Well, we’d have starved if not for you. You had fish for us on the second day, and the boar, the one that almost killed me? Let’s not forget my foolishness, getting my ankle twisted.”

“You’re the one who pushed us to find the well. The cabin.”

“Which would have done us no good in the long run if you hadn’t saved my arse from the boar.”

“You saved mine first. And you kept me sane.”

“Sane? I couldn’t even identify a hallucinogenic mushroom properly?—”

“All right!” Rylahn lifted his hands. He tapped the air. “We’ve been at this for hours. I think I’ve heard enough. Stewards?”

“Aye, I ken we have,” Argus said, nodding.

“The two of you have been on quite the adventure,” Damian said, “but an adventure is all it was. Erran, Mariel, we’re so pleased you’re both safe and back home, and would discourage you from any sea voyages in the near future, lest you tempt the Guardians further. Rylahn, we’ll send you our full report within the week.”

“Aye.” Rylahn stood and shook their hands. “With gratitude, men.”

“It was our honor, mate,” Damian said. “Send for us if more is required.”

“That will nay be necessary.” Rylahn watched them leave. He flattened his hands to his vest and stepped away from the table, then came around to where Erran and Mariel were seated.

He knelt before both of them, bowed his head, and pressed a hand to each of their knees.

Mariel wanted to look to Erran for a read on what was happening but was too stunned to do more than gawk at her father-in-law, crouched in front of her in what almost seemed like submission.

“I promised the Guardians my entire kingdom for your return. If they ever come to collect, I will pay my debt with gladness.” Rylahn pursed his lips and breathed in. “Welcome home, son. Daughter. I apologize for the interrogation, but may we now all put this unfortunate incident in our past, where it belongs.”

“Thank you, Father.” Erran leaned in and kissed the top of Rylahn’s head.

It was over. Obsidian Sky was over. There were many moments she could assign to its ending, but Erran’s father being confronted with her identity and dismissing it seemed the one most fitting.

And if it were so easily undone, had it ever truly mattered?

Rylahn used Erran’s chair to push to his feet. He flexed his cheeks, clearing emotion to make room for business. “Get some rest, both of you, because we leave for Warwicktown at first light.”

The revelation pulled Mariel from her gloom. “Warwicktown?”

“Lord and Lady Warwick have invited us to celebrate the birth of their second child, a daughter. Esmerelda. Lord Warwick has chosen Erran as Esmerelda’s father-in-honor, so his presence is required.” Rylahn stood but halted midway, his tight expression suggesting painful discomposure. “I should tell you, Yesenia and her husband will be there as well. They’re visiting from the Easterlands for a few weeks, and she herself is coming as the bairn’s mother-in-honor. I can assume this will nay be a problem?”

“Nay... of course not,” Erran murmured. He scratched at the beard he hadn’t yet shaved, shifting in his seat. “Not at all.”

Mariel watched the way he tried to hide his uneasiness. That he had to hide it at all was troubling.

Inch by inch, the island felt more and more like a dream.

“I hoped you’d say as much. I’ve invited your brother as well, Mariel, in gratitude for his role in bringing you both home. Rest up, and I will see you both at dawn.”

Erran couldn’t take his eyes off his bedchamber door. Mariel was already inside, readying for a bath or already in one, and the only place he wanted to be was in it, with her. The longer he delayed, the longer it would be before he could assure her the Yesenia matter was nothing to be troubled by.

Instead, he was dancing around his sister’s attempt to pull some admission or reaction from him that would feed her gossip mill.

“You know why they’ve invited us, don’t you?” Sessaly was saying.

“Because all the great houses are coming,” he muttered, sighing.

“Nay.” She shook her head animatedly. “Nay, only us.”

“What?” Erran cringed at how fast he’d reacted to her predictable ploy of presenting something ridiculous for reaction. “I need to bathe, Ses, unless that wasn’t already pungently clear.”

“I’m serious, Erran. The Laws, Strongs, Garricks, Leecasters... None of them are coming. And why should they? Wee little Esmerelda is only a lass. Hardly a cause to roll out the finery.”

“It’s custom to hold a fete when a lady is born. You, the princess of tradition, know that.”

Sessaly flicked an affected glance at the door and leaned in, lowering her voice. “Father wants to put the whole messy Yesenia affair to bed. He’s going to parade you and Mariel around like prize cattle to show everyone you’ve moved on.”

Erran’s hand went cold on the door’s knob. “I have moved on. And he wouldn’t... He’s not one for games.”

“You were made a fool in Warwicktown. Only there can you be unmade.”

“Me? You’re the one who just sat there while Yesenia had you about the neck, which you deserved, by the way, for goading her.”

“All the more reason for Father to show everyone there’s no more trouble.” She lifted to peck him on the cheek, winked, and scampered off.

It was maddening that Sessaly’s words had landed at all, how they’d crawled under his skin and burrowed deep. Adding to his misery was that what she’d said did make sense. Yesenia returning to the Southerlands was an opportunity to set the past to rights, at least in Rylahn’s eyes. In his own...

He hadn’t thought of Yesenia at all after he and Mariel had become intimate on the island. It was Mariel whose touch he needed to calm the tempest brewing in his soul—Mariel he already missed in the short time they’d been apart.

So why was he still standing in the hall?

Erran shoved inside. The sitting room was empty, but steam was rolling from under the privy room door.

He walked in and found her half-asleep in the water, her head rolled back and her arms draped over the sides. Her fingers brushed just above the stones.

Quietly, he shed his own clothing. Her eyes fluttered open, watching him undress. She said nothing, and there wasn’t anything on her face he could read.

Erran peeled her away from the edge and gently nudged her forward before climbing in behind her. He settled his legs on either side of her and eased her onto his chest. Her head rolled sideways, her breath trickling into a sigh.

He reached for the crate with the soap and lathered some onto a sponge. Mariel closed her eyes as he ran the gritty, porous material along her neck and chest. He lifted first one arm and then the other from the water and washed them, pulling the sponge down and along each finger... around her nails. He dipped it again but left it under the water, reaching forward to clean her outer thighs, avoiding the old gash still healing. Mouth pressed to her shoulder, he washed her toes one by one. As he dragged the sponge along the inside of her leg, at last she shifted, murmuring a soft moan that was almost lost to the quiet.

Erran abandoned the sponge in the water and nudged her legs to the sides with his palms. “I want to make you come, Mariel.”

She nestled her face tighter to his chest with a nod.

Erran choked down a lump of desire. Seeing her come undone under his hand, his mouth, his cock... there was nothing better. Nothing more beautiful, more erotic. He’d never said the words aloud because he didn’t know how, but her openness to receive as much as he gave was a blissful contrast to his past experiences, which, with time, continued to be redefined.

He massaged her inner thighs as he worked his way inward, spreading her with both hands. She adjusted from the warm intrusion of bathwater. The heel of his palm settled into place, kneading ever so slightly.

Mariel twisted under the water. Her hands cupped under his thighs, her fingers digging deeper. Mere moments later, she whimpered, crashing.

When her shudders subsided, he lifted and turned her so she was sitting astride him. But it wasn’t sex on his mind, despite the throbbing evidence to the contrary. He could only control his actions though, not his reactions.

He kissed her tears and eased her against his chest, wrapping both arms around her to convey what words could not.

“I should be glad we were rescued,” Mariel said, her words warming against his heart. She climbed until she was settled over him and sank down, taking him in, but instead of riding, she curled back against him and said no more.

Erran kissed the top of her head over and over, his thoughts a heavy, twisted mess. He understood her perfectly. He should be glad they were home. He was... mostly. But he couldn’t shake the terrible fear he’d left a part of himself on that island—the most critical piece. Mariel’s sad distance only reinforced his dread, like she was, in her own way, saying good-bye to something they’d both only just opened their hearts to.

Mariel’s heart was an ironclad fortress, built for self-protection. Her pulling away was not about a change in her own desire, but the fear he had changed, that he was incapable of feeling what he felt for her without the “magic” of the island. The only way for him to conquer it was to show her how wrong she was. About that. About Yesenia. Mariel had shut down at the exact moment Yesenia’s name had been mentioned, and only he could fix it, by assuring her there was no place in his life, or heart, for the past.

First, he needed time with his own thoughts on the matter. Even before the island, he’d made his peace with the situation and had accepted the past was past. Hadn’t he?

Erran knew what he wanted, but he had little time to clear his head of any remaining confusion.

If Mariel picked up on even a speck of it, the door they’d opened on the island would close, and he was not confident it could be reopened.