A Court of Innocents

33: Conversation

The sun had fallen from its throne when I awoke. Through the windows, which were now open, the night sky blinked down at me. Clear enough that I could glimpse the stars. They weren't half as vivid as they would have looked from Velaris, but the sight was still beautiful, and I wondered if that midnight blue backdrop would always be my favorite thing in the world. I may have left the Night Court, but it still had a white-knuckled grip around my heart.

I adjusted along the chaise lounge. It wasn't cold in the room. In fact, with the doors open and spilling out onto the terrace, the summer breeze was warm. The blanket Tamlin had draped across my sleeping body wasn't out of necessity, but rather to provide the simplest of comforts.

Dishes clattered behind me, and I craned my neck to find Tamlin closing the door to his chambers with his foot, balancing two silver platters in his hands. He smiled triumphantly when he lowered them to the table without a single spill. The sight of a High Lord taking such care over something so mundane... I may have laughed, if I hadn't still been so tired.

The fatigue hit me again, along with the reminder of those crashing waves. I didn't drown beneath them this time, but they stayed at the edge of my mind, ever present and leering.

Tamlin noticed me watching him. The expression on his face... I couldn't quite call it a smile, but it was... warm and gentle. Another comfort.

"I brought us dinner." At my curious expression, he explained, "I thought you might be hungry when you woke."

"And the curtains?" I motioned to the windows. They had been shut tight when I'd fallen asleep.

"I thought you might want to be reminded of home." He looked at me with clear, focused eyes, and I wondered how he had passed the time while I'd slept, if it hadn't been with a bottle of liquor.

It was a peace offering, what he was giving me. The blanket, the food, the windows—all of it a gift, a bridge to close the chasm of time and distance and misunderstanding that had separated us.

"Thank you." It wasn't half of what I wanted to say to him, but it was all I could get out with the tightness in my throat.

He motioned to the silver platters, revealing colorful plates of blackened shrimp and steaming rice of saffron. I noted the glass bottle beside the plates, filled with a pale liquid. White wine.

I had eaten an entire breakfast before I fell asleep, but that had been at least twelve hours ago. The aroma of lemon and other seasonings that coated the shrimp filled my nose, and my mouth watered. Tamlin didn't have to tell me to dig in before I allowed myself to indulge. Only when I was finished did I realize Tamlin had barely touched his food.

"Is shrimp not satisfactory for a High Lord?" I asked, a measly attempt at a joke.

He smiled with amusement, but it didn't reach his eyes, and I knew it was just for my sake. Somehow, that made me cringe even more. He admitted, "I don't have an appetite," and reached for the wine bottle.

I moved faster than he could anticipate, swiping it from his reach. "I want to play a game."

"Yara..." That sigh told me more than his words did, whispering logical remarks of this isn't a good idea and we're much too fragile for games right now.

And that was precisely the problem. We were much too fragile. At some point between distancing ourselves and licking our own wounds, our relationship had begun to fracture. Up until a month ago, our relationship had faded away from centuries of silence. Coming to the Spring Court with Lucien had helped fix that. We'd begun to repair our relationship slowly but surely, in the exact same way we were repairing his court—kindly, selflessly, with raw, open vulnerability.