Free Minstrel's Serenade by Aubrie Dionne Page A

happens this way.”
    Danika nudged closer to him, afraid to scare him away if she came on too strong. She wasn’t his mother even though the longer she spent with him, the more she wanted to be. “What do you mean?”
    He picked a strand of long grass from the ground and tied it into a knot. “Before the wyverns came, Ma asked me to stay inside with her and help her bake sweetbread. Instead I ran into town to see the butcher’s new pair of goats. I never saw her again.”
    Danika took his hand. She’d never held such a small hand before. So small, smaller than her hand when she’d lost her mother. The need to comfort him overwhelmed her. “’Tis not your fault.”
    “Maybe not. But I should have helped her with the bread. Just like I should have stayed with Thunderhooves. It was the last time I’d ride him.” He threw the knotted grass on the ground. “Whenever I make the wrong choice, the gods take things away from me.”
    She smoothed his curly hair behind his ear. “Gods do not punish little boys for being little boys. All you can do is appreciate what you have before it’s gone.”
    “I have nothing.”
    She squeezed his hand. “You have me.”
    Nip leaned against her. She sat holding him and watching Bron clean the horses. The boy fell asleep and she carried him inside. Valorian tossed in a feverish sleep, lying in fresh bandages. Her mother clanged bottles in the back, perhaps creating some new herbal remedy to help him. Danika placed Nip on a cushion on the floor. She should stay by Valorian but the small cottage suffocated her. She needed fresh air. She denied the thought that she needed Bron.
    * * * *
    Twilight had given way to early rays of golden sun. She put both arms on the splintered balcony as Bron brought their horses to the fountain and cleaned their hooves.
    He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You were right to ask her aid.”
    Danika squeezed the railing, the wood slivers pricking her skin. “I don’t trust her.”
    “You have every right not to.” He threw a clod of mud under one of the cherrywoods and went back to work picking her horse’s hooves.
    “Why do you still bow before her?” Danika couldn’t hide the hurt in her voice.
    “Because I took an oath to protect and obey every member of the Ebonvale household. She is still my ward, but that doesn’t mean I don’t harbor the same feelings racing through your heart. Do not forget, I was there, too, Princess. I witnessed the pain she caused you and your father.”
    Pain that was still as raw as the day she’d read that dreadful note.
    “You must find a way to forgive her or at least give her a second chance. Even if your heart forbids it.” Bron had finished with the horses’ hooves and walked to the balcony, gazing at her like a lover reciting a poem. “’Twill benefit your sanity and peace of mind. She is lending you aid. She saved us. Maybe she wants to set her wrongs right.”
    “They will never be set right. She cannot give me back the ten years I lost with her.”
    “So, use the time you have left.”
    Danika harrumphed and turned her head away to the gray morning sky, ravens circling the dark part of the forest from whence they’d come. The time she had left? While their kingdom hung in the balance, rekindling her relationship with her estranged mother would be the last path she would choose.
    Bron’s touch brought her out of her musing. He reached up and laced his thick fingers through hers. “Stubborn to a fault. That’s my princess.”
    Her gaze traveled to his, locking in place. It was the first time she’d truly seen him since the start of their journey. The first time she’d let him in. My Princess. Valorian had called her the same thing. But, coming from Bron, it excited her in dangerous ways.
    His hot touch lent her strength, a different kind of strength than Valorian’s songs. Danika blushed and guilt overcame her for having such feelings while the minstrel lay wounded. Her gaze wandered to his