Spiffiness Abounds

Revas’s legs were now laid across Neve’s lap, and Neve’s fingers curled into the dark red fabric she was idly stroking. “Bellara, keep reading,” she begged.

“Oh! Sorry,” she said, pulling the book in front of her again and scanning the page to find her place. Finally, she cleared her throat to read the next line. “She doesn’t, though.”

The girls lamented in unison. Revas swore she wasn’t going to ever read another Swords and Shields again. Solara tossed an almond she’d been turning in her hand at Bellara, and Neve called for Lucanis to bring more wine.

Solara watched him tend to the women with a genuine sense of entertainment. She was sitting with her back against Harding’s legs, now and then reaching up to hold her aunt’s fingers in her own.  She held up a glass for Lucanis to pour, and he filled it only a portion of the way, also presenting a newly-steeped mug of lemon tea. 

“Drink that, and you can have more,” he said, his voice lower and pointedly just for her. Solara smiled into the rim of her glass. They were both still sobering up by the time the book club came to session, and a headstart on the others wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

She pushed her toe out to touch his ankle as he passed by, and he gently kicked her back before returning to his post near the fireplace. He sat back comfortably in his chair, whetstone in hand, rapier across his lap, a wool blanket of knives unrolled on the dining room table, and a small smile never quite leaving his lips.

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The wooden slab on the table had been rationed away to half its former glory. Harding sat beside Solara on the floor, a blanket scrounged up at some point and wrapped over their shoulders. In the green velvet couch sat Lucanis, brought in again on wine duty but not allowed to leave. Bellara had the brilliant idea for him to read some of the passages as well.

“It’s the accent,” she admitted, drawing a hum in agreement from Solara before she realized she had made a sound. 

Neve and Revas had traded places, and Neve combed her fingers through Revas’s hair, slowly twisting tendrils into loose braids and brushing them out again.

Lucanis needed a little bit of coaxing to read aloud, although he was perfectly happy to stay and listen. Bellara poured him a generous glass of wine. “Bottoms up!” she said, and he shrugged and kicked it back in a few long swigs. 

Now, he held the book like a treasure, well into his second chapter, the words beginning to slur with drink. “He slides up behind her, hands on her hips to spin her around to face him, earning a girlish giggle from her—a sound he should very much like to hear again.”

Bellara giggled as if playing the part, and Neve snorted softly.

Lucanis smiled and continued. “‘I will leave you to it,’ he informs, pressing a final kiss to her lips, much less desperate in fear of them not leaving this room for the foreseeable future. ‘Ar lath ma, vhenan.’” He said the Elven slower, sounding it out, his Antivan tongue rolling through the first part of the admission.  He looked up at Bellara, who had her fingers pressed to her lips, eyes glistening with the tears of an immersed romantic.

“What does that mean?” he asked, chuckling as he turned the page.

“I love you, my heart,” Solara replied. She said it quietly, as if recalling a memory, but her eyes were settled comfortably on him.

Lucanis’s smile faded, but not away. His lips parted with the sudden understanding of why Elven was such a cherished language. It had threatened to become lost over time, but thousands of years of elves professing their love to each other kept it alive for a generation longer, so it could be published in books, so it could be read out loud and then translated by a woman he didn’t deserve, but so desperately wanted.