This is an ongoing companion piece to be read after completing the Snakesblood Saga. Because it takes place during the final chapter of the last book, it will be very full of spoilers. It’s also unedited first draft fluff… just for fun! Read at your own risk, and expect installments no closer together than once a month.
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“I’ve tried not to bring it up. I know it’s uncomfortable. I find it uncomfortable.” There was no preamble to soften the harshness of the subject; it was easier that way. Rune had spent enough time avoiding questions. He simply needed to know. To understand, and to temper his expectations. He held them now, mindful that they not stir his temper or any other feelings. “But we’ve never discussed moving on. What led to it. What made you decide I wasn’t coming back.”
For a long time, he’d assumed it was anger that kept them apart. He knew better now, but it hadn’t brought him ease. Whether or not she’d been angry didn’t matter. Things had still ended with the two of them separated.
With her choosing to make a life with someone else.
To his surprise, Firal sighed, her expression one of relief instead of the dismay he’d expected. “You made that sound as if it would be far worse.”
What else had she imagined he might ask? He couldn’t fathom. “I can ask something worse, if you’d prefer.” He had plenty of those sort of questions, too, but starting simply was important. If they were to build anything of substance, they needed a foundation, and setting reasonable expectations was the most logical first brick.
Whether he could build with the answer she gave him, he did not know.
“We’ll start with the easy things.” She tried to smile, but it was false and fleeting, and she paced beyond him to meander down the garden path. “I didn’t give up easily, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He hadn’t meant to make any such accusation. “Even if you had, there would have been a reason for it.”
Firal shrugged. Maybe it made no difference to her. Yet she did not continue with her answer for some time.
He followed a few paces behind her while she thought, his hands clasped behind his back. He was not a patient person, but his teachers had done a thorough job of hammering diplomacy into him, and it was a skill that helped now.
Eventually, she stopped beside one of the patches of sword lilies. They were a cheerful splash of color, even in the night, though their blooms were the last of the season and not as bold as the early flowers. She touched the stem and tilted it to let her see the lilies better. “It was… for Lulu. If I am to be honest. It was a difficult decision, and one that went against everything I desired. But what I what I wanted with you, I was encouraged to find elsewhere. Or, rather, with Vahn, specifically. We married right away for her safety, but it wasn’t… that is, I don’t think we saw it as anything other than a political arrangement for a long time.”
Rune offered a slight nod as confirmation he was listening, though he gazed at her without really seeing. He had already known the reasons for their marriage. That was not why he asked. “And when you decided it was more than political?”
She lowered her hand. “That was something I learned over the course of many years.”
Duty. Not abandonment. Not even a desire to let go. It soothed as well as any healing balm she’d ever given him. He shut his eyes.
Firal turned and gave him no reprieve. “And you? What drove you to look elsewhere?”
He should have anticipated that. The question still made him flinch, but she was forthcoming; he should be, too. “Alcohol.”
One fine brow arched, though the rest of her expression remained unimpressed. “Then perhaps you should quit drinking.”
“Probably.” He’d recognized that failing in himself long ago. There simply hadn’t seemed to be a point to addressing it before the last few months, and in those months, he’d found it harder to let go than he’d anticipated. But she was right. He’d downed liquor earlier to dull the edges of unpleasantness that royal events held, yet even that dullness agreed with her. “I tend to make bad decisions when I drink.”
She stepped closer with a white lily in her hand. “And is this a bad decision?” Her tone was light, almost teasing, as she lifted the flower to tuck it behind his ear.
“No.” That answer came easy—as easy as raising his arm and letting his hand find her face. Her skin was soft beneath his fingertips, unlike anything he’d ever known. “This is the best decision I’ve made in a long time.”
A ghost of a smile brushed her lips and she tilted her face upward beneath his touch.
It be easy. The thought weighed so heavy on his mind that it was a wonder he could think at all. Yet for a moment, there were no thoughts, just his eyes settling on the inviting fullness of her lips and the innate concept of all that might follow. It stirred his pulse and a blossoming warmth in his chest, awakening cravings left dormant in his travels but always present, a seed of longing he’d carried his whole life. To be known—accepted—without doubt, without question. Something she had offered years ago, something he’d missed and wanted back with every ounce of fire in his soul.
She leaned closer, her eyes half-lidded, and the movement slid his thumb to the corner of her mouth.
His attention slipped to it, to the creases in the back of the joint and the rough edge of his nail, and the wave of uncertainty that followed was wholly unexpected.
This was what he wanted.
What he’d fought for.
What was meant to solve everything.
Yet having it now, touching her skin, seeing in stark contrast all the ways he’d fallen short—
Rune lowered his eyes and turned his face away. He almost withdrew his hand, but Firal lifted hers to catch it and hold his fingers in her grasp.
The gesture brought no relief, but he let his hand curl until his fingertips brushed her polished nails.
“I guess you like this version of me better.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. The alcohol, maybe—another poor decision to add to his ever-growing list.
Yet inexplicably, color rose in her cheeks and while she squeezed his hand, it felt more like nervousness than eagerness.
“It’s… an adjustment,” she said. She did not meet his eyes. “I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.”
“You’re allowed to say it. I know I was never…” The rest of what he meant to say escaped him, his thoughts a little too loose. Thinned out, like the moving clouds that veiled parts of the night sky.
The blush in her cheeks only intensified.
Rune studied her with a growing frown. “You do like it.” It almost wasn’t a question. He could see no alternative.
In spite of it, she pulled away and gripped her skirts, red to the tips of her ears. “Is it so terrible to think I could find the man I married handsome?”
Terrible wasn’t on the list of words that crossed his mind.
Then again, the list was sparse, and he faltered a moment, struggling to get even one of them to reach his lips. “I—that—”
Of all the things she could have said, he never would have imagined that.
That the one thing he’d allowed to keep him away, that he’d convinced himself was all that stood between him and the life he wanted, had never been any obstacle at all.
That in spite of everything he was and had been, it was enough.
It always had been.
Firal looked as if she had something more to say, but when she looked back to him, she froze.
A second later, a rough, familiar clearing of the throat demanded attention, and Rune turned.
Behind him, Garam stood with a stern expression and his arms crossed. “Your presence has been requested.” The former captain’s eyes flicked to Firal. “Both of you.”