Land of Light and Shadows

Chapter 40

***Fair warning, some NSFW content ahead!***

Chapter 40

There were three things Lyv did once she was back home.

First, she made her way down to the kitchens, grabbed one of the empty grocery bags the staff had used for their morning shopping trip, and filled it up with two loaves of bread, vegetables, and four bottles of wine. No one had questioned her, even though she received quite a few curious looks.

Second, she found herself going to Gideon and Thia's rooms. Unlike Gideon was known to do, Lyv knocked before entering, finding her two best friends just finishing up packing up their own things into bags, their weapons and armor laid out and ready to go. At first, they didn't realize it was Lyv who knocked. They were holding tight onto one another, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed.

Lyv stared, heart twisting in her chest.

Gideon was the first to meet her gaze. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said with a shake of her head. "I just...have a favor to ask of you. Can you make sure Elys gets to bed at a decent hour tonight? You won't have to watch him for the rest of the day or even tomorrow since he'll be with Eamon. I mean, check up on them, but you know how they are. They're getting more fiercely independent by the day and I..."

"Are you going somewhere?" Thia asked, raising a brow.

Lyv nodded. "I just...I want alone time with Jai since we're...since we..." She huffed out a breath. "I know you two want the same, which is why I only ask that you make sure he gets in bed on time."

Gideon's answering smile wasn't teasing. "Of course, we will. We'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

And just because she wanted, Lyv rushed over and hugged them both.

Her third and final task was to stop at the infirmary for something she kept hidden from sight but knew right were to look for it – both her and Jai's contraceptive tonics. Before she could change her mind, she quickly downed her own and pocketed Jai's before heading back upstairs.

She had to pause just outside the infirmary door as her stomach twisted and press her forehead to the cool stone. Usually, she didn't feel any sort of change in her, not since the very first time she took the tonic when she was seventeen and had just began her physical relationship with Balian, then again when she was with Jai as Amory. Now, though...now, that same tingling sensation started through her body as the tonic settled in...before her magic, both light and dark, seemed to almost hiss at it. Was it because she hadn't taken it on time like she had over those last few years? With everything going on, she was a few days late in taking it. Or was it something else?

Fine. She would be fine. It was just nerves because of the coming war, but also in that it would be the first time she was going to be with Jai in several weeks, even after they made a pact to not.

Jai came to her not a quarter of an hour later, walking into their rooms just as she pulled her bag from the wardrobe. He looked like he'd been running around all morning by the sweat that beaded on his forehead and the dirt and grime that clung to his shirt and exposed skin. One look at Lyv as she placed their folded-up clothes, the food, and the bottles of wine in her bag and he paused, raising a brow.

"Are you going somewhere right now? Plan on eating and drinking the night away?"

She nodded, looking down at the tonic vial, the one he couldn't see hidden on the other side of her bag. "Not just me, though. You are, too."