Chapter 118 Cravings

Chapter 118 Naville palace
VAN POV
After hours of discussions, we go home.

The estate is quiet by the time we reach our room.
The evening has come in while we were in the hall, and the grounds have that particular quality of settled darkness: the torches lit, the altar candles visible from the bedroom window, a warm thread of smoke rising from the temple complex where the night prayer is beginning.
Zephyra sits on the edge of the bed and reaches behind her neck for the clasp of her gown.

I help her out.
“Evander.”
“Yes.” The gown pools to her waist and she turns to me on the bed, tugging my arm down.
“Can you tell Naville to follow us to the palace when it’s finished?” I pause.
"I checked the rooms earlier, and it’s big enough for her taste. She can arrange it as she pleases.”

“Naville isn’t your immediate relative.” She blinks,so I add
"Only the king’s family and staff stay in the palace.”
“She’s your sister. My sister-in-law. She has two relatives there.” I look at her again and my chest spreads with heat.

She wants me close. This is how she says things she won’t say directly.
She meets my eyes, and her eyes is replaced with something honest and quietly desperate underneath.

“She’s the only person I..." She stops and starts again. “She knows when I’m pretending to be fine and when I actually am. She knows which of the council members make me want to call on Altairan and which ones I simply find tedious.” She moves closer to me slightly.

“When I sit in that palace and there are a thousand people around me who call me queen, I would like there to also be one person who calls me by my name and tells me when I have something in my teeth.”
The room is quiet.
My chest goes many different route and comes back to beating fast.
I'm falling in love with my wife again and again.
I look at my wife- this woman who stood before a goddess and severed a bond and faced down her abusers and accepted a crown in front of hundreds of strangers without flinching once, is asking me, in the dark, if she can please keep her friend close.

And she cannot bring herself to order it plainly, so she is saying it like this instead.
“Moreover,” she adds, with recovered composure
“considering she’s dating Ronah, that’s three relatives.” My nose scrapes up.

“Naville and Ronah are not dating.” She lifts her eyes at me.
“They so are. I see it in their eyes.”
"They don't. I mean, they both recently agreed they're not fit for each other"
Her eyes go wide. She straightens fully, all pregnancy fatigue apparently forgotten.

"They dated before?!”
I stand up, definitely not getting involved with where this is going.
“Yes, they did.” She grabs my arm and drags it back down with both hands.
“Evander. Evander look at me. They dated. They broke up. And now they are...” she gestures broadly with one hand
“..looking at each other with those eyes?”
“What eyes.”
“Those eyes! The eyes people have when they’re trying not to have eyes!” She is fully sitting forward now, gripping my arm as if she's forcing me to reveive critical intelligence and see her point .

“How did I not know this? How does nobody tell me these things? I’m the High Priestess...”

“That’s not relevant information for a High Priestess.”
“Naville and Ronah dating is relevant to me!” She releases my arm to press both palms to her cheeks.

“Oh goddess. Oh no. Naville must be going through so much. She never said a word..”
“Because there’s nothing to say. They broke up ten months ago. Before you came."

"Oh" She deflate and lean back. Her two palms stretche backward on the bed, head tilted.
Then she looks at me with eyes that have a lot to say

"They're done Zephyra. It’s done.”
“It is clearly not done, Van.
I stand up.
“Yes,it is.” She tugs my arm back down.

“Oh my. Oh my.” Her grin spreads wide and she claps her hands, all composure from the appointment hall completely dissolved.
“They’re falling in love again.”

“Zephyra, don’t say that out loud.”
“Oh please. Ask Ronah, he’ll tell you.”

“I’m not asking anyone anything.”

“Why did they break up?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean by you don’t know?”

“What do you mean by what do I mean by I don’t know? It means I don’t.”
“Naville is your sister. Ronah is your friend. How could you not question that?!”
I stand, and this time I walk faster away from her.

“Because I don’t care.”
"You're close to both of them. You must have seen them eat away their feelings or notice them coming back out with swollen and red eyes because they went to cry, yet you never see to say "Hey, sister, tell me what Ronah did to you so I can bury him"? "

I stare at her, suppressing a laugh. Not at the whole speech, but at the end. At her horrible imitation of a deep voice. Bopping her head with each word

"I didn't " Seriously,I never thought it's my place to ask

"Or Hey Ronah." She pauses, stands up. My eyes widen watching her grip my collar then she imitates a throw punch. Then grip my collar with both hands, looking me dead in the eyes with furrowed forehead

"How dare you break my sister's heart??" I can't hold it.
I hold her fists and burst into laughter.
My stomach tighten, body heaving up with sweat heading my skin
How is my wife so adorable?

"It's not funny! You didn't? " I hold her fists and sit us back down.
"No I didn't Zephyra. If they wanted to tell me, they'd have. "
"How are you like this?!” Gosh. She's not letting this go.
I stand, and this time I walk slightly faster toward the window.
“Because I don’t care.”
“EVANDER.” I turn back