Falling Kingdoms
But tonight, after leaving such a tavern and beginning their walk to the inn to rent a room, they were cornered by a few large, rough boys who took her weighty sack of coins and left them with only a precious few found at the bottom of Nic’s pockets.
Cleo cried for the first time since they’d arrived. It was a clear sign to her that their trip to Paelsia would get worse before it got better. Barely any money meant she’d soon have to return to Auranos, admitting failure and accepting punishment for running away from home to chase after myth and magic.
Not wanting to waste what little coin they had left, they slept in a dry, dusty riverbed, Nic’s arms wrapped tightly around Cleo to stop her shivering. Her large, baggy cloak was drawn around the both of them for warmth.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “It’ll be better tomorrow.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right; I don’t. But I can hope.”
“We haven’t found anything. Nobody believes there’s a Watcher living here.”
Maybe there wasn’t.
She let out a long, shaky sigh and pressed her cheek against Nic’s chest to listen to his heartbeat. The stars above them were bright in the black sky, the moon a shard of silver light. She’d never studied the sky for so long before, only looking up now and then in an absent kind of way. But she’d never seen it, not like this. So clear and vast and beautiful even in such a hopeless moment.
“Why would a Watcher be exiled from their home, anyway?” she asked.
“They say that some fall in love with mortals and they leave voluntarily. Once they leave, they can never return.”
“To do such a thing for love. To leave paradise.” She swallowed. “It seems like a waste.”
“Depends who you’re in love with.”
This was true.
As Cleo looked up at the stars, she thought about Theon and wondered if he too might be looking up at the same moment. She knew he would have been furious to learn that she’d left and that she’d lied to him. At the time, she hadn’t worried about it, thinking she’d return victorious before too much time had passed and all would be forgiven.
I’m sorry, Theon, she thought. I wish you were here with me.
As much as she adored Nic, the thought of instead having Theon’s arms around her to keep her warm made her heart begin to race. She’d run away from him, from his stern looks and serious words—but now she missed him desperately. There was nothing about Theon she would ever change, not even the fact that he wasn’t royal. She hoped that he understood why she’d had no choice but to come here. That he’d forgive her. Eventually.
“What do Watchers look like?” she whispered. “I never paid attention to the legends.”
“Hardly anyone believes them anymore. The Watchers are all young and beautiful. Light shines from their golden skin. They spend their days in endless green meadows surrounded by splendor.”
“But they’re trapped in that paradise?”
“That’s what the legends say. Since the Kindred was lost, they don’t possess enough magic to leave. It’s their punishment for losing what they were supposed to guard.”
“But they can still watch us through the eyes of birds.”
“Not everyone, I’m sure. Some they’d find quite boring to watch. Aron, for instance. All they’d see is him drinking wine all day long and admiring himself in a mirror. How dull.”
She laughed despite herself. “You might be right about that.”
“I just had a thought.”
“Uh-oh. What is it?” She looked up at his face.
“Imagine what Aron would say if he saw us like this. Sleeping in each other’s arms. Would he be jealous?”
She grinned. “Insanely. Especially of the fact that we’re broke and starving and freezing to death, with not a drop of wine between us.”
He closed his eyes, his lips quirking at the edges. “For the chance to die in the arms of Princess Cleiona, it might just be worth it.”
He constantly made silly comments like this. She normally brushed them off as only humor, but sometimes she wondered if her sister had been right—that Nic might be a little bit in love with her.
The worry drifted away as she fell asleep and dreamed instead of Theon.
• • •
“This is it,” Nic said the next day when they resumed their search. “If we find nothing today, then we need head back to the harbor and go home tomorrow. Agreed?”
Disappointment and weariness thudded with every step she took. “Agreed.”
Nearly out of money and with no clues to give them hope, it was time for this adventure to end and for Cleo to accept defeat.
She squeezed her eyes shut as they walked and said a rare prayer to the goddess for assistance in their search.
Her stomach grumbled unhappily as if in reply. They’d found some dried-up fruit on some dried-up trees that morning, but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy her.
“Yes, excellent,” Nic said. “We’ll follow your inner gurgle like a compass. I think it’ll help.”
She smacked his arm and tried not to grin since it was the last expression her face felt like making. “Don’t tease. I know you’re starving too.”
“We’ll have to choose between a tavern or an inn tonight. Can’t have both.”
It was so unfair. Just as Cleo had begun to look on Paelsians as kind and hardworking people, they’d been mugged, renewing her previous assumption that they were all desperate savages.