A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

I’ll make him a calming draft for tonight.

MORGAN ASKED me today if I’d felt the shift in the wind. “It feels like something’s coming,” he said.

I laughed at my apprentice and patted his shoulder. “Of course not,” I said. “Everything is fine.”

I hate lying to him.

THE KING executed a thief today.

It came out of nowhere. One moment the man was being judged and most likely faced a few days in the dungeons, but then the King said he needed to set an example.

“Death,” the King said. “By beheading.”

I was too surprised to say anything.

“Are you sure?” Myrin asked him. “It doesn’t seem—”

“Are you questioning me?” the King asked.

Myrin bowed in deference.

The man screamed.

An hour later the executioner’s ax was bloodied, and that was that.

MYRIN AND I went for a long walk today.

It’s been some time since it

was just the two of us.

I held his hand.

He kissed my cheek.

He said, “I wonder what it would be like if this was all different.”

He smiled at me when I asked him what he meant.

And that’s okay. I’m just happy to be with him.

THEY’RE CALLING him the King of Sorrows now, for all the strife he’s brought down upon his people. He won’t listen to me, no matter how hard I try.

I don’t know what to do.

IT WAS Myrin.

It was Myrin.

It was Myrin.

It was—

“YOU LOVE me,” he said.

“I do.”

“Then why?”