“Please,” he said a little softer. “Step aside.”

I moved away from the door and watched hopelessly as Soren stormed out of it.

I collapsed on the sleeping platform, my knees weak and wobbly. I knew he was going to be mad that I hadn’t said anything, but I hadn’t realized he would be hurt. Because underneath the glares and growls, I could feel it inside me, like he could most likely feel my despair, and while anger was there, what really radiated all around him was hurt. Because we promised to be truthful to each other and I didn’t trust him. Not with this. That was why I was barely able to get a few sentences out about Lydian and Ragnarök before he stormed off—that wasn’t what was causing his pain. It was me, keeping a secret from him for so many months.

Which was fair. I’d be angry too if I were him.

For a moment I contemplated following him and continuing to try to fix this mess, but I realized it would only probably make it worse. Soren needed some time to cool down.

I ended up wandering around the palace, making sure to give Soren his distance as I did so. The place was so large and cavernous that I found myself constantly wishing to be back in Soren’s manor in the High North, not here. In all likelihood I would never see it again. It wasn’t like Soren could retire from being the Erlking and me, the stag.

How ironic to finally accept a place as your home before having to leave it for another. I missed the wood and iron, the simple and not-so-simple designs carved into everything. It was the type of decoration that was subtle but intricate, and I’d spend hours sometimes looking at them, following them with my fingers. And the work. No matter what race or species you were, you worked, and here, the boredom was killing me. Or, well, it would’ve been if it weren’t for a particular voice in my head.

I sighed. But his manor wasn’t a place we could go back to anymore.

I ended up in the stables, watching the horses as they slept. They were such magnificent animals, but they still were painful to look at ever since I’d lost my horse, Panic. He’d been bonded to me, we’d been closer than rider and horse, we were something different all together. But still, ever since I became the stag, animals liked me a lot more than they did when I wasn’t. Which was saying something because I was the kid who used to get chased by vicious geese daily, and unfortunately, I couldn’t put arrows through due to them being our farm animals. I smiled at the memory.