Dark One Rising(97)
“I can’t accept that from you.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“Accepting a gift isn’t wrong.”
“It is if the gift is from you.” He started to say something but she did not let him answer. Instead, she frowned at him and said, “My affections will not be bought.”
He was silent for a minute, slightly confused by her statement, then realized what she was implying. “It’s not what you’re thinking, I assure you. I’m not trying to win your affections or woo you into my bed. I just felt that something that brought you obvious joy shouldn’t be wasted hanging on a merchants cart. It’s in no way a gift to win you over; it’s just a gift.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry for accusing you of impropriety, but I still don’t think it would be right to take it. We’re not lovers, therefore, I cannot except a gift as such.”
“How about a gift from a friend? I consider us friends. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do, but it’s not exactly the gift a friend would give another.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well. It’s bought and paid for, and I can’t return it. Besides it wouldn’t go at all with my hair color. It would look much better with red.” She smiled a bit at that, his subtle joke intended to lighten the mood. “You don’t ever have to wear it. I won’t be insulted if you don’t.”
She smiled at him thinly and picked it up off the table. She stared at it for a minute or two, her mouth turning up in a small smile at whatever memory the gift stirred. She curled the chain up in the palm of her hand and looked back at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She clutched her hand around it and stood up from the table again, him standing politely. As she was leaving the room he said to her, “It seems to instill some sort of pleasant memory in you. I would be most intrigued to hear about it someday, if you’d ever like to share it.”
“Perhaps someday.”
She left him standing in the dining room, alone. She headed out into the garden. The cool night air brushed her bare shoulders, and she shivered momentarily, but then got acclimated to the breeze. If she were still in Aaralyn, she would be wrapped in her woolen cloak right now, and instead of dainty slippers on her feet, there would be woolen boots. The raw cold still held on in her province. She feared they were headed this way. She shivered again, but not from the air. She thought about the things that were happening on her side of the kingdom, things she knew would hit this side soon enough. The unseasonably long cold weather, the dry creek beds, and the towns who had lost an entire seasons crops overnight. Things that made no sense. Things that frightened her. She remembered overhearing her father and Kevaan talk about disturbing reports from all the way into Xenos, reports about unexplainable things. Kevaan had ridden to some of the villages to look into the reports but had no explanation or solution for any of them. Alek was riding through to see for himself the carnage and oddities in his own realm too.
This perplexed her. All her life she had feelings that things were happening, that there were things coming, things that bode ill for everyone, but she could never explain those feelings and never had anyone she trusted enough to express them to. She trusted Kevaan, but he had his own worries to think about, and she thought the feelings were just her own paranoid delusions, that they meant nothing. Now though, those thoughts from before came back into her head, and this time she didn’t think it was just the crazy inklings of a silly girl.
She didn’t feel right telling Dain of her thoughts, but she wanted to learn more. She felt so out of touch on this side of the kingdom, so far away from everything that was important. She missed her brother. She missed her home.
She sighed. Whatever this business was all about, she hoped they would find the reasons and the solution and be done with it. Then she could go home where she belonged.
CHAPTER 22
When Melenthia awoke she spent the day wandering around the castle exploring some of the rooms she hadn’t been able to peek into since she had been here. There were so many. She opened a door at the bottom of the hallway down from her apartments and found a large sitting room. The walls were painted in a light sea foam green, and the furniture, although sparse, was soft and comfortable.
There were paintings on the walls, mostly landscapes, and she was impressed at the expertise in the renderings. She walked over to a particularly beautiful one and looked at it closer. It was a rendition of a mill, with a large water wheel, and a field of flowers flowing down a hillside on the back side of the small rustic building. She remembered seeing that exact building before. On their trip into the city they had passed by it. There was so much detail in the picture that she felt she could walk right into it and get lost in the lush green countryside. She could almost hear the water rushing through the giant wheel, pumping it out the other side. She peered down into the lower corner of the picture and stood up erect in surprise. It can’t be. She leaned over again just to be sure she was not imagining things. The signature was the same as on the other pictures, but it was also the same signature that was on the supply order she had watched Dain sign weeks ago. Dain was an artist. She wandered around the room, looking at all of the paintings there, each one different, but with the same steady and talented hand. She wondered why he had never told her he was a painter, and an extremely talented one at that.