Dare (Foolish Kingdoms Book 2) by Natalia Jaster

Author:Natalia Jaster [Jaster, Natalia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-07-27T18:30:00+00:00

21

Ice

Jeryn awoke in yet another ghastly state. The remnants of sleep obfuscated his vision while the rest of him came to life, rallying the center of his body. A chronic occurrence that demanded his attention as usual. Muscle, tissue, nerves. They hardened into a shaft, as though welded that way.

He needed to rid himself of this incessant thing. He’d not had to neglect himself before, not in his castle chambers. A previous luxury, no longer available. Not in this cave.

Not with Flare this near.

The palm leaves crinkled beneath him. Sand scratched between his toes. The ocean breeze swooped through, doing nothing to assist him.

It would abate eventually. Until then, he shifted and breathed through his irritation. He fixated on the ceiling, enduring the discomfort. The thrum of it.

Unproductive. He would not recommend this to another man.

Jeryn considered vacating his pallet and securing a confidential spot in the cave or the forest. It would not be the first time. But unlike him, Flare was a notoriously light sleeper. If she had been privy to his condition in the past, she hadn’t indicated it.

The sun peeked in. Thin rays stretched across the marks that Flare and he had scratched onto the wall. Delineations that declared, three years, three months, six days.

When Flare had turned nineteen, he made her a special oil. One from a plant that he believed would help preserve her nets, knowing how she mourned the lack of carminseed here. He just…thought it might give her hands a rest from weaving.

When he gave it to her, her rapid blinking made him feel like a moron. It was a practical gift. Unimaginative. He should have made her the hand salve that he’d been considering, scented with plumeria.

“Never mind,” he had said. “It’s stu—”

She grinned and hugged him. At which point, thinking at all became impossible.

From then on, he made sure she had a regular supply of oil. And hand salve.

Weeks ago, it was his turn. He had turned twenty.

As a gift, Flare had drawn him a vial pendant in the sand. Inside the pendant, she placed the island, intertwined with symbols. A snowflake. A yule owl. A fur cloak. His scalpel. His parents’ signet rings. Flora that he’d turned into medicines. The siren shark. The stick insect that had bitten him during their second year.

Words: cold, patient, jackass, healer.

Be it commoner or Royal, the vignette’s quality would have stupefied any recipient. It had encompassed and lauded every bleak and positive thing about him. He had not known what to say. How to process to his own gratitude.

Flare had taken care of that, swinging her arm toward the image. A trinket fit for a prince, she joked.

His chest had hitched in amusement. “Thank you,” he said.

She had begun to master the craft of sand art. Accomplished by using supplies such as stems, branches, leaves, shells, plumes. And her hands.

Jeryn rubbed his toe against the snake scar on his ankle. That particular event had incapacitated him for weeks.

Flare had a similar scar on her lower back.

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