Chapter 25
Barath coughed, and Selene, startled, put her hand on his back. Luckily, his coughing stopped quickly, and she patted him a couple of times before lowering her hand.
Barath thought back to what had just happened.
Unless he was hallucinating, he was almost certain that what she had just done was a wink. If he could see it in his head, why couldn’t he believe it?
Winking was a form of courtship, the kind of courtship where the shields nudge the nice-smelling women to give them a look.
Is that what she’s doing to Barath Velias?
Barath glanced back at her.
As Selene was already hesitantly averting her eyes, he felt a strong urge to confirm that what he had just seen was real.
He wants this pretty girl to tell him he’s not mistaken.
He fixed his gaze on her, not wanting to miss a moment, and asked.
“What did you just do?”
His clenched fists dampened as he waited for a ‘wink’.
Selene’s eyes fluttered open.
It was a bad time and a bad idea, she told herself, but she hadn’t expected to be stopped by Sare.
She was also nervous, so it seemed more unnatural than she had practiced. He’d been wallowing in self-pity for a while when he caught his breath and his eyes suddenly met hers.
She looked at him as if he was about to pounce on her, which made her feel even more intimidated, and she quickly averted her eyes.
As expected.
“What did you just do?”
Selene felt like a mute with honey. She had a mouth, but she couldn’t speak.
His stare, waiting for an answer, grew more insistent with each passing second. How could she say she winked at him?
Averting her gaze, she rolled her eyes in embarrassment, a look that was almost as if she was ashamed.
She opened her lips slowly, as if she had no choice but to speak, and in the slow passage of time, Barath could only stare at the lips in front of him.
He was listening intently for the answer he wanted, and finally, a small voice drifted into his ears.
“The sun suddenly shone in my eyes. I must have seen the sun from the front for a moment.”
Barath felt the tension drain out of him at her answer.
His head went cold.
Now that he thought about it, there was no reason for her to wink at him.
Maybe she was just sorry and embarrassed, even if she thought she looked embarrassed.
What did he expect, he wondered to himself, stupidly off topic.
A weak laugh escaped his lips, and his head turned back to Selene as if it were a matter of course.
She was still fiddling with her fingertips.
His heart sank for a moment. Barath watched the tiny movement for a long moment, thinking it was curious and cute that those slender little fingers even had nails.
***
Returning to the inner castle, they decided to meet in the corridor in the evening and retired to their respective rooms.
Once inside, Barath opened the window. He went out onto the balcony and looked up to see if she had opened her window as well.
A little time passed and her window showed no sign of opening, but just in case, he pictured her face, her eyes winking at him as she leaned over the balcony railing.
He doesn’t understand how she can look so pretty with sun in her eyes and a frown on her face.
He shouldn’t have asked what that look was.
He should have just asked her to show him that look one more time.
In the future, he’ll never let his brain’s delusions get the best of him, and he’ll have to treat his eyes by asking for one more look.
Selene plunged headfirst into the hot bath.
She was exhausted, to say the least.
She did so on impulse when she saw him eating half the apple she offered him in one bite. She doesn’t know if it was that good, just an apple.
She wonder if she’s an idiot.
Did he really not know the difference between a frown and a wink, or did he just want to pretend he didn’t see it and turn a blind eye?
Maybe she was being arrogant, but she thought she was doing okay when she practiced in the mirror.
She didn’t have a conscience that bad, she just wanted to know that she had a cheeky side.
She just wanted to show him that she had a cheeky side.
… It would be better if he was really stupid and couldn’t tell the difference.
Selene sat still in the tub, lost in thought for a while, and then suddenly she listened.
The humidity filling the air seemed deafening in the silence.
She realised that only five people were now allowed to enter the inner castle freely.
A few maids under Anna’s command would drop in and out in the early morning hours when necessary to keep the number of people coming and going down.
Perhaps she is outside preparing dinner. Mathyle would have gone home from work, and Zart would not normally come up to the third floor. Even Barath was in his room, on the second floor…
As she held her breath, growing more and more alert, she heard a rattling on the window, followed by a whoosh.
She wasn’t sure if it was the dampness or her fearful hearing, but the sound grew louder and louder, until at one point it began to sound like a shout.
Selene jumped to her feet, grabbed the first towel she could get her hands on, wrapped it around herself, and left the bathroom.
Her heart raced, her fingertips began to tremble, and her head felt lightheaded with the fear that Nephthys would appear at any moment.
Surely Barath had warned her this morning not to be alone, how could she have forgotten?
There was no time to get dressed, not with the clothes she could barely find. After failing to wipe her hair off with a towel, she snatched her cloak from the doorway and darted out the door.
She ran downstairs to Barath’s bedroom, pulling the cloak around her as she went.
Knowing it was rude, she grabbed the doorknob before knocking.
As soon as she made eye contact with Barath, she opened her mouth wide and began to cry, ‘Ugh!’
Tears welled up in her closed eyes and rolled down her cheeks, and she didn’t care that her expression must have been distorted, she just stood there and sobbed.
Barath didn’t have a chance to realize what was happening.
His vision went black as the little witch who had suddenly appeared in his room began to sob at the top of her lungs. He’s terrified of what’s going on and the blood rushes to his head.
But at least she was alive and on her feet, so that was good enough, he decided, and knelt still before her, slowly putting his arms around her.
Her damp cheeks crushed against his ear.
Unable to think of anything else, he felt a tingle somewhere, whether it was his chest or his stomach, and waited for her sobs to stop.
***
Barath checked on Selene, who had stopped crying and was still sniffling once in a while, and dragged the bed over and placed it in front of the fireplace.
He tucked her under the covers and sat down on the floor, leaning back against the bed.
As he sat there staring into the fire, she wiggled out of bed and climbed down next to him with the thick duvet.
As he watched her move the blanket around to make it more comfortable, he realised something was wrong.
He took her slowly into his eyes.
Her un-dried hair was wet and tangled, spilling over her equally wet cloak.
Her arms, which had been pulled out of the cloak earlier, had no sleeves.
Her movements were clumsy, and he couldn’t see the hem of her dress through the ankle-length hem of her cloak. No, it’s a dress, and she’s showing off her flabby calves through the flaps of her cloak!
He jerked his head away, feeling strangely guilty that he had seen something he shouldn’t have.
He hadn’t realized it earlier, in his preoccupation, but now that he thought about it, the way she had felt when he had hugged her… He meant, it’s not like there was any thickness to her clothes…
He felt like he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
He felt a little warmer and dizzy from the blood rushing through his body.
Next to him, wrapped tightly in her cloak and quilt, she sat down with her buttocks together as if she had finally settled down.
He almost asked the frantic question, ‘What are you wearing under your cloak?’
He took a slow, deep breath and asked in a tone that said, ‘What’s wrong?’
“What have you been doing all this time?”
Selen looked up at him, blinked twice, and replied with the same two-way question.
“Just washing up.”
It was a casual answer, something she would normally say, something she didn’t seem to think much of.
Barath nodded nonchalantly, but inside he was very noisy.
He rolled his eyes and looked at the nape of her neck, confirming that there was no sign of other clothing between the cloak and her white collarbone.
Gulp.
He barely managed to tear his eyes away from her, fighting back the urge to lump his throat and sob.
Only now did he wonder why she had come to him in this state of disarray and sobbed.
It’s not easy to ask her why she cried. But he can’t ask her why she’s here, because he knows she’ll leave again.
He can’t think of the right question, so he sits with his mouth shut, and then her head touches his arm.
He’s like. After all that crying, he’s sure she’s exhausted, so he lets her sleep and puts her in the duvet, but then she comes down and sits next to him and snuggles.
Before he knew it, his eyes were rolling again and he was fixing his gaze on her neck, her collarbone, somewhere in between.
He knew it.
He is not going to sleep tonight.
