Alabaster Cities (Kings and Thieves Book #2)

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

It hadn't quite been forty-eight hours since Jamie had landed in the Apreuna port, and she couldn't decide if she was happy to be home.

That was the wrong question, she quickly revised; because she was happy to be home.

She had missed the sun, for one. The heat of the desert had grown on her.

Apreuna was familiar, too. Safe. There were no expectations.

Jamie wouldn't admit it, but she liked her new status as a noblewoman. Having been raised in a poor village, Jamie had grown used to being regarded as lesser than by everyone around her. Now, she was noticed. Admired, even. And she played her part well, if she did say so herself. She could curtsy, and dance, and sip her tea without spilling while batting eyelashes at a young duke across the table. At some point, pretending to be a lady had become easy.

But then, that was Jamie; she'd always been good at adapting; doing what was necessary for her to survive.

She was sure she looked convincing, but on the inside, Jamie thought now, picking at a loose thread on her hem; she sometimes felt small and artificial.

Jamie considered herself fairly skilled at masking her emotions. Ben thought she was impassive; Tristran liked to call her mysterious, which was, he assured her, a good thing.

"What are you thinking of?" Ben asked her now. He'd been asleep for the past hour, but his eyes were open, now; gleaming at her all-too-perceptively across the room.

Jamie stood up immediately, hurrying to her brother's bedside.
"How are you feeling?"

"I told you; I'm perfectly fine," he coughed. "To think; you came all this way just because I caught a cold." At his teasing, Jamie gave him a hard look.

"Shut up. I've seen too many people die in the last few months."

"I know." Ben sobered immediately. "But you shouldn't worry about me, it's just a little fever. How are you?"

Jamie quickly waved it away. "I'm fine."

"Are you?"

"I'm just..." Jamie pressed her lips together. "I'm worried about my friends in Verignes."

"You're lucky to have them."

"I am." She could feel Ben watching her carefully as she poured tea from the spigot into his cup.

"You've changed, you know."

"We all have."

"Yes, but you more than anyone. The Jamie I knew was far too guarded to have friends."

She handed him his teacup. Steam rose from the brown liquid, dissipating as he lifted the dish to his lips.

"We had other things to worry about." Like surviving, she didn't say. Working towards their next meal. Dealing with their batty relatives. Back then, it had just been her and Ben.

Lyla glanced around at the canopy bed, silk curtains, the bronze gilded doorknob. Who knew, only a few years later, they'd be here?

"Do you ever think about Mother and Father?"

"Not much." Their parents had died when she was a little girl. Jamie couldn't even remember feeling sad; Ben, Jamie, and all their cousins were all raised together, anyway. A large family of dirty children and bitterness— their childhood. "I'm glad I can't remember them. Less people to miss."

"I confess— I worry about you sometimes, Jamie." Her head jerked up in confusion at Ben's words. "You've spent so much time alone, I'm worried you've grown used to it."