I opened my eyes, and I had no idea what to say as I looked up at him. All thoughts scattered as he dragged his thumb along the curve of my cheek and then over my lower lip, sending a shivery wave of awareness through me.
“Good morning, Princess.”
“Morning,” I whispered.
“You slept well.”
“I did.”
“Told you.”
I grinned even as my cheeks heated and despite the conversation I’d overheard. “You were right.”
“I’m always right.”
“Doubtful.”
“Do I have to prove it to you again?” he asked.
My body woke up and was fully on board with that idea. However, my brain also started functioning. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Shame,” he murmured. “We have to get moving.”
“Okay.” I sat up, wincing at the stiffness in my joints. “I just need a couple of minutes.”
Hawke’s hand found mine after I peeled myself free from the blanket. He helped me stand, straightening the tunic I wore. His hands lingered on my hips in a familiar, intimate way that tugged at my chest. My gaze lifted to his, and even in the shadows of the Blood Forest, the intense way he looked down ensnared me.
“Thank you for last night,” he said, his voice pitched low for only me to hear.
Surprise flickered through me. “I feel like I should be thanking you.”
“While it pleases my ego to know you feel that way, you don’t need to do that.” His fingers threaded with mine. “You trusted me last night, but more importantly, I know that what we shared is a risk.”
It was.
He stepped closer to me, and all I could smell was that pine and dark spice of his. “And it is an honor that you’d take that risk with me, Poppy. So, thank you.”
That sweet, swelling motion swept through me, but there was a strange heaviness to his voice. With our hands joined, I opened my senses, something I hadn’t done since the night of the Rite.
I felt the now-familiar razor-sharp sadness that cut so deep inside him, but there was something else. It wasn’t regret, but it tasted lemony. I concentrated until his emotions became mine, and I could filter through them and understand what I was feeling. Confusion. That was what I felt. Confusion and conflict, which wasn’t surprising. I felt a lot of that myself.
“You okay?” Hawke asked.
Severing the connection, I nodded as I let go of his hand. “I should get ready.”
Feeling his gaze on me as I stepped to the side, I looked up. The faintest gray light was filtering through the leaf-heavy branches. My gaze connected with Kieran’s.
He’d been watching us the entire time, and the set to his jaw said that he wasn’t happy.
Kieran looked concerned.
Whatever worry I had that the conversation with Kieran would change Hawke’s behavior faded before it could even take form. The relief swirling through me should’ve been a warning that things were…well, they were escalating.
They had already escalated.
I shouldn’t be comforted. If anything, both of us being reminded of our duties was very badly needed, but I wasn’t just relieved. I was thrilled and hopeful.
But what could I be hopeful for? There was no future for us. I may be Poppy now, but I was still the Maiden, and even if I was found to be unworthy upon the Ascension, that didn’t mean there’d be a happily ever after for me with Hawke. I’d most likely be exiled, and I would never expect anyone else to suffer that.
It wasn’t like I thought that what we were or what we meant to one another had grown to a place where Hawke would go into exile with me. That was silly. That was…
That sounded like the kind of epic love my mother had felt for my father.
Either way, last night had felt like a dream. That was the only way I could describe it. And I wasn’t going to let the what-ifs or the consequences ruin the memory and what it had meant to me. I’d cross that bridge when it came time to do so.
Right now, all I could really focus on was not falling off Setti.
My cheeks stung from the icy wind as we traveled through the Blood Forest, the red maple leaves and gray-crimson bark a blur.
We had moved into the heart of the forest, where the trees were less dense, allowing more light rays to come through. The sun didn’t warm the air, though. If anything, it got cooler the farther in we went, the trees even odder.
Trunks and branches twisted, spiraling upward, their boughs tangling. It couldn’t be the wind. All the trees stood straight, and the bark…it seemed wet, almost as if the sap was leaking.