Elven Legacy

Chapter 92

Dharkan

"You know," he said, "I always thought someone meditating next to me would have a nice relaxing effect. Turns out, it's doing the exact opposite."

Jaden sighed, and in the mix of darkness and moonlight that dusted their room, Dharkan saw the Felleran king stretching out of his uncomfortable-looking seated position.

"Might as well stop trying." His voice was quiet, with an edge of scorn that was unmistakably directed at himself.

Dharkan's eyes roved after Jaden as he crawled into his small bed, nestled into the corner of the room. His fair hair caught a faint glint of moonlight as he pulled the sheet up to his chest and threw his arm up and under his head. Dharkan looked away.

He turned to his other side in a rustle of sheets, so that the fresh night wind brushed gently over his face. It was a beautiful night; they'd left the window wide open. Gorgeous view too, from the third floor they could see the vast pale sand beaches below, with countless thickets of palm trees. Jaden had let Dharkan have the window-side bed – apparently his incomparable niceness hadn't scampered off along with his zen-mastery.

Honest truth, this was a cozy inn. Plus they had access to the beach. Dharkan had gone for a swim earlier and his skin and hair still smelled like the sea. Southern Azurians sure knew their stuff. How to attract folks, make them want to stick around. The city was called Jenez, some 160 miles south-east of Azuria. Autumn nights were delightfully warm here. In Fellera it sure as hell would be snowing by now.

The last of their coins had gone into paying for these rooms. For the rest of their trip to Chyulin, they'd be sleeping under the stars.

For a moment, Dharkan was lulled almost to sleep by the soft touch of the wind and the distant roil and crash of steady waves.

Then Jaden sighed.

Gods' sakes, here we go again.

Directly followed by some equally obnoxious noises of the tossing and turning variety. Dharkan abruptly flipped himself back to his other side and glared into darkness.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dharkan asked, mock-pleasant.

Our last night spent in a nice cozy inn. Yeah. Too bad we both can't fucking sleep.

To be fair, Jaden wasn't being that loud. The main culprits for Dharkan's trouble nodding off were his own dumb thoughts, restlessly, annoyingly meandering back to Kitera. You'd think, after knowing for certain she just wanted to be friends, moving on would become easier.

Ah fucking hell, Kitera. Could you believe I miss you already?

Yeah, she probably could. You're like a fucking parrot. Change your tune already.

"Do you?" came Jaden's retort, slightly mocking as well.

Irritation prickling at him, Dharkan closed his eyes and fell on his back. "Come on now, just try and be quiet, yeah? There are people trying to sleep. We've still got a long way to go to get Your Majesty's special magic jewelry back."

Silence.

Guilt swam into Dharkan's chest, making him sigh and open his eyes again. He stared broodingly at the moonlit ceiling. Oh for fuck's sake.

But he didn't have time to figure out how best to apologize.

"You're not usually such a light sleeper," Jaden mused. "Rather the opposite. In fact, I seem to remember you normally snore loud enough to make any thunderstorm envious."