The knights kept glancing at Kael.
They all knew how much that lady meant to their prince. Theron had been doing things none of them had ever expected of him, waiting, searching, bending his own habits and temper around a woman who had somehow become central to all of it.
And now they were leaving.
Without her.
One of the senior knights finally stepped closer to Kael, his voice lowered with genuine concern. "How will that little woman survive this forest?"
Kael swallowed.
That, he thought bitterly, was not the right question.
The question was how they were supposed to survive without her.
Since Aveline had entered Theron's life, the prince had been almost… relaxed. Less sharp-edged, less impossible to endure. She had taken up so much of his attention, so much of his time, that the rest of them had, for once, been allowed to breathe.
Now, the thought of what would happen when he grew bored again made Kael's stomach sink.
