A Word so Fitly Spoken: (The Severed Realms) by T.A. Lawrence

Author:T.A. Lawrence [Lawrence, T.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: T. A. Lawrence
Published: 2022-10-09T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 45

ASHA

I swallowed, my mouth apparently deciding it wanted to imitate the climate of the Sahli all of the sudden.

The anticipation of a thing is more fulfilling than its reality. What did that even mean? And why did it have me noticing the way he propped himself on his hand as he leaned over me from where he perched on the side of the bed, how that very hand seemed to have snuck its way close to the lump in the sheets that marked where my thigh rested.

Not good, not good, very, very not good.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept that,” I said, my voice coming out hoarser than I meant for it to. Something boiled deep within my stomach.

The way he looked at me, the sorrow that hid behind those molten eyes, was it for himself? His inability to enjoy the riches that his cruel father had left him? Or did he actually pity me? As if he thought, one day I would experience the same things and come to the same conclusion. That life did not live up to its reputation.

“Ah, because if you, Asha, Queen of Naenden, don’t accept something, that makes it less true. Less real,” Kiran said, his fingertip tracing the pattern woven into the bedsheet, dangerously close to my now trembling thigh.

Okay, I definitely wasn’t imagining things. Kiran had most certainly scooted closer to me at some point in this conversation.

How I hadn’t noticed earlier, I had no idea.

Perhaps because you were the one who slithered your way up to him.

I changed the subject.

“You say you and Fin aren’t close, but why did you react so strongly to his princess’s advancements?” I asked, hoping to throw him off with what I imagined was a sensitive topic. Still, it was a subject that piqued my curiosity. My magic had presented the king’s story as if the murder of the princess had been an act of an inseparable bond between brothers. But why such rage if he and his brother had never been close? Had my magic been mistaken, or had it doctored the story for entertainment value? I had always thought my magic had possessed some otherworldly knowledge, but I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with the idea that it might feed me falsehoods from time to time.

Kiran’s eyes narrowed at my question, but he didn’t back away as I had hoped. Perhaps he could sense what I was trying to do. Trying to avoid. But he answered me anyway. “Just because the close-knit relationship between my brother and myself has been fabricated by the palace’s diplomats, does not mean I do not wish it to be true.”

Even my rounded human ears perked at that comment.

“You went to visit Fin to make amends? To bond with him?” I asked.

He nodded, and I expected his eyes to falter in shame, but he kept my gaze. “After all those years of enmity, I decided to act upon that longing to be close to my siblings. It seemed that Fin’s heart was more likely to soften towards me than Lydia’s.

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