Excerpt

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You still thinking about Nerida?” Kellen asked, as he delivered Nyssa to the women’s quarters.

 

“Hmm?” Nyssa looked up at him, confusion crossing her face. “Oh, no.” She smiled. “I was just thinking about home.”

 

“Home?”

 

“Well... the one I just came from,” she said. “I left it so suddenly, people will be wondering where I am, what happened to me. I need to let them know I’m okay.”

 

“Do you want to go back?” A spark of fear weighted Kellen’s heart.

 

“Only to say goodbye,” she said, resting a hand on his shoulder and looking into his eyes. “And to collect a few things.”

 

“What things?”

 

“My mother didn’t have many possessions, but she left me the few she cherished. And there are items of my father’s I’d like to have, and I have to tell my work I’m not coming back, and my flatmate.”

 

“You don’t want to go back for good?”

 

“No.” She stretched up to kiss his lips. “I don’t. I want to stay here, with you, for good.”

He smiled then, the tension draining away. “Glad to hear it.”

 

“We’ll need to go soon. If I don’t show up Jane will pack everything up. She’ll need to let my room out to someone else, sooner or later–she can’t afford the rent on her own. I can’t just disappear off the face of the earth and leave everyone wondering what happened.”

 

“We will, tomorrow, or the day after, as soon as possible, I promise.”

 

Nyssa’s face relaxed. “Thank you,” she said, moving in for a kiss before turning to enter the green veil Kellen could not cross. That familiar fear reared its head and he had to fight the urge to break with taboo and enter the women’s space after her.  They’d almost had a fight, over Elfric, of all people, and now she was talking of returning ‘home’. Did she even realise she’d used that word? Did it mean that this was not home to her yet? She’s barely been here a week - you can’t expect her to feel at home already. No, he replied to his inner thought. But I would have hoped she’d feel at home with me.