Felt like Wyldon deserved a say in how the story's going :P. Short and sweet, but there's more to come! Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, faved, etc this story! It really means a lot!
Night Owl Redux
This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch,
And with his knee the door he opens wide.
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch:
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied. –The Rape of Lucrece
When Wyldon looked up and saw her standing there, just watching him, something inside him had wrenched fiercely. She was rain-drenched and travel-stained and so very alive. Her hair, turned a russet-gold by the summer sun, was darkened with wet and curled damply against her ruddy cheeks. Her eyelashes gathered together to form dark points around her glittering eyes; her full mouth was red and slightly chapped from the weather.
He was so overcome that it took a few moments for his mind to reassert itself and remind him of who and where he was. It was with a very embarrassed hand that he snatched off his spectacles. Yet for all the awkwardness of being caught out in one of his weaknesses – perhaps he would see a healer in a few years, when it got so bad he couldn't read in full daylight, but not until then – he was pleased that she had stopped to talk. He would never admit that he had waited up for her, but he was still gratified that she'd delayed her own comfort for his sake.
Don't get comfortable, he told himself sternly even as he recommended she go wash up. She sees you as a father figure, nothing more.
It was then, feeling the deep thrust of pain in his chest, that Wyldon realized for the first time just how deeply he cared for Keladry of Mindelan.