ETAN
He didn't even bother with breakfast. He'd slept past the normal meal hour, anyway. Slept far too long and woken with an itch in his skin. Ayleth was too far away for him to sense her location and everything in him wanted to go hunting for her. But he knew he couldn't.
Instead, he would take his horse out for a long ride alone in the hills on the other side of the forest, let the animal have its head, perhaps jump a few hedges. They both needed to get out of this suffocating castle and away from its cold and prideful people.
How his Ayleth had developed into the bright and loving heart that she was in the darkness of this place, he had no idea. But he was grateful for it. And grateful that he need only pretend not to love her for another eleven days.
Then he remembered that she was riding out with Trystan this morning and all the good feeling that had grown in him at the thought of her was crushed into a prickling ball in his chest.
