A Royal Wedding(49)

“I was not his to give,” she said, but her voice was soft, as if she felt this same, strange tenderness. Her eyes moved over his face.

“And you wanted me, too,” he reminded her. “Duty and desire, all at once. We were lucky, Princess.”

Memory and desire shimmered between them, like need. Like heat.

“I remember you, Adel,” she admitted in a stark whisper.

She swallowed, nerves and memories and something dark in her gaze. “I do. But that doesn’t mean I can be who you want me to be. Maybe not ever.”

“I will protect my country,” he said, though he suspected that was not an answer she would like—that she might not even understand why he said it. Or the stark truth of it. “No matter the cost. Nothing means more to me than that.”

“Not even the throne?” she asked, incisive yet again.

“There is nothing I would not do for Alakkul, nothing I would not sacrifice, and no one I would not betray in service to my country, if my duty to my country demanded it.” His voice was so sure, coming from deep within him. Why did he want her to understand? Why did he want her this much—so all-consumingly? So overwhelmingly? She gazed up at him and there was an expression on her face that made something in him twist over on itself. “I cannot pause in this and make you easy with the role you must assume. I would not even know where to begin.”

Something pulled taut between them, dark and glittering. She pulled in a breath, then another, her gaze unreadable.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice tense. Almost sad. “I told you—I remember. I know exactly who you are.”

“No,” he said, his voice harder than it should have been, though she did not flinch—and he admired her for it, almost grudgingly. “You don’t. But you will, soon enough.”

Lara woke slowly, aware that she was stiff and that her dreams had been wild pageants, complicated and emotional and much too heavy. It took long moments to dispel them, to remember where she was, and why.

And then she looked out the window and wondered if she’d woken up at all.

The great valley of Alakkul, mystical and secretive, spread out before her—ringed by the sharp, snow-capped mountains on all sides. Her half-remembered homeland sparkled in the morning light, white snow and deep green fields, the rich browns and greens of the forests, and the deep crystal blues of the clear mountain lakes. From high above, she could see the remotest villages and the farmer’s fields, the bustling towns and the bigger, busier cities, tucked into the foothills and spreading across the valley floor.

She did not merely see, Lara thought in a mix of elation and despair—she felt. It was as if a great wall within her, one she hadn’t known was there, began to crack into pieces, to fall. Her eyes drank in the bright red flowers that spread across the high mountain fields like a boisterous carpet in the summer sun, so cheerful against the deep greens of the grassy meadows and the smoky blues of the far mountains. All of it seemed to resonate within her, as if she had been hiding all her life and only in this moment had stepped into the light.

You are being fanciful, she cautioned herself, but the plane was dropping closer and closer to the earth, and she could not tell the difference between memory and reality—she could only feel. Too much. Much too much. The spires and steeples of the sacred city appeared before her, until they flew directly over the ancient palace itself, its turrets and towers arching gracefully toward the summer sky above.

Home, she thought, and felt that word ricochet through her, leaving marks.

Lara found she was holding her breath, but even that could not seem to stop the great swell of emotion inside of her, that seemed to rip her into pieces. She could not tear her eyes away, not even when the plane continued its inexorable descent and bumped gently down on the runway.

She could not breathe. She was afraid she might be sobbing and she couldn’t even tell for sure, because her ears were ringing and she could not think—and the plane was taxiing to a stop and this was really happening. She was really, truly here, after twelve long years.

She rose in a daze, and followed the smiling air hostess out into the morning light. It was so blinding. So clear and pure. The high mountain air was so crisp. She walked down the stairs to the tarmac, and noticed almost distantly the way the people standing there reacted, bowing and crying out her name in their language. But her brain couldn’t quite process what they said. What that meant. Her attention was on the view all around her—the mountains, the trees, the magical palace—all of it clearly Alakkul and nowhere else. She knew, suddenly, that she would know where she was if she was blind. She could smell it, sense it. Taste it. Feel it deep in her bones.