Chapter 52
Chapter
Fifty-Two
A fter several days pass, we remain by the door to guard it and watch for shipments. I don’t tell Nemeth about my knife, though the secret of it weighs on me more with every passing day. It’s just…at what point do I speak up and tell him of my knife? What if he’s upset that I’ve kept it a secret for so long? What if he’s unhappy that Erynne has been plotting his murder since I arrived? It would look bad for the Fellians to know that the queen of Lios has been plotting murder, so I keep the secret, and feel guilty that I do.
In some ways, I’m still protecting my sister, and I hate myself for that.
We leave the doors wide open. If no one’s coming, there’s no point in closing them. I’d actually welcome an intruder because it would mean someone remembered us. I don’t understand how we could be so easily forgotten.
Everyone knows about the tower. Everyone. Hasn’t it been drilled into my head since I was born? What about the clergy at the Alabaster Citadel? They devote their lives to the gods, and surely they’d make sure that those of us that gave our lives to the tower would be fed.
At least, you’d think that. Turns out, not so much.
Worse than the knowledge that we’ve been forgotten? What this has done to Nemeth. My strong, scholarly Fellian has not been himself. His eyes are ringed with fatigue, and his very stance is one of defeat. It hurts me to see him like this.
So we need a new plan.
I wake up one morning with determination in my belly. We’re going to get through this. I’m not going to give up. I roll over in bed to wake up Nemeth, only to see that he’s already awake, staring up at the ceiling with a listless, apathetic expression. “We’re not going to give up,” I tell him. “It’s out of the question.”
Nemeth sighs. “I haven’t given up, Candra. I just don’t know what to do. If I could leave…”
“Yes, well, you can’t. That’s the entire crux of this situation—neither of us can leave.” I keep my voice cheerful and light, my expression full of renewed energy instead of despair. If he’s going to be sad, I’ll be the happy, positive one until his mood changes. We’re a team. Since he’s feeling low, I’m going to pick him up. “Let’s think of ideas. Here’s the first idea. We learn how to eat books.”
He snorts.
“It’s the only thing we have a lot of,” I tease. “Books and my dresses. And I can tell you quite honestly that my dresses taste awful.”
He shoots me a sidelong glance. “This is a serious situation, Candra.”
“Oh, I know it is.” I sit on my knees, clasping my hands in my lap. “And since we’ve nothing to do with our time but think, let us think our way out of our current situation, shall we? Let’s start with the obvious. You have magic. Can you send your people a message of some kind through your magic?”
“I’ve tried.”
His admission startles me. I haven’t seen him casting spells or even approaching his books in the last several days. When was this? Is he keeping secrets from me?
Then I feel guilty all over again as I think of my knife. He’s not the only one keeping secrets. “You tried? In what way?”
“I attempted to contact my brother, Ivornath. He’s the king of Darkfell.”
“And he didn’t answer you?”
Nemeth turns his head toward me. “I’m not supposed to speak of Fellian magic to outsiders.”
“I’m not supposed to marry a Fellian,” I reply tartly. “Lucky for you and your knot, I’m a rule-breaker.”
That brings a smile to his face. “You always bring up my knot.”
“It’s my favorite part.”
He sits up halfway, propping himself up on one elbow, his wings folded behind him like a rumpled cloak. “Your favorite, eh?”
“I told you I was a lusty princess when we met.” I reach out and pat his knee. “Now quit distracting me with thoughts of your knot and tell me more about Fellian magic and the message you sent.”
“It’s a spell,” he says slowly, as if the words feel forbidden to even speak. His gaze lingers on mine. “I write out the missive and burn it in a candle upon the Gray God’s altar. One of the god’s sacred spirits takes it and delivers it to my brother, who must receive the message via a trained evoker. Every court in Darkfell has one. Several, actually. But when I send my messages, they go nowhere.”
“Go nowhere?” I ask.
“They are not received. Whatever evoker is there at court with my brother will not receive my messages.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” His mouth crooks into a half-smile. “No one knows of the lusty princess I’ve mated yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then there’s no reason for them to ignore you?”
“None. That’s what worries me.” His expression grows more dire by the moment. “Either the evoker is sick—or dead—or my brother is choosing to ignore our plight. My plight.”
Right. Because no one knows we’re a team yet. “That doesn’t explain why no one would come from my people, either. There must be something going on that’s preventing both groups from bringing supplies to us. A problem with crossing the water, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” Nemeth agrees, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
“Can you pray to the Gray God to answer you? To intercept?”
He shakes his head. “The Fellians are the children of the Gray God and he gave us his magic, but he will not interfere with mortal trifles.”
It doesn’t feel like a mortal trifle. It feels like a big deal for us to be forgotten by everyone. But I know what he means. Mortals lost the goodwill of the gods when we lost the ability to call them by their names. I’m surprised Fellians yet have magic. Stories say that humans had it once, but it was stolen from us when the gods abandoned our kind.
And yet…I do have magic, of a sort.
The secret of my knife gnaws at me. Do I confess it now? Do I yet keep it a secret and hope Nemeth never finds out my sister’s plans? It seems unfair given that he’s shared a Fellian secret with me. “I need to tell you something, Nemeth.”
He arches a brow at me. “Oh?”
I fuss with the folds of my gown. I’ve been sleeping in my clothes for days now, just in case someone would arrive with our supplies. “Humans don’t have magic. Not really. But we do have a few magic objects.”
He grunts. “Because you’ve stolen them from Fellian owners.”
I wince. He’s not wrong. Humans are the children of the Absent God, who made us from simple clay. It is the Fellians who are the children of magic, the offspring of the Gray God and his benevolent shadows. The only way we acquire magic is if it’s gifted to us, or we steal it. And since we’re sworn enemies with the Fellian people…it’s almost always stolen. I decide to avoid the sticky accusation part of things and go right for the meat of the topic. “I have an enchanted blade. It’s the one you stole from me, actually. It has magic.”
“I see.”
I can’t tell what he’s thinking from his neutral tone, so I continue on. Best to get it all out in the open quickly, like pulling a thorn from my foot. “She wanted me to be able to have some sort of connection to the outside world, so she gave it to me just before I came here. If you ask the knife a question, it can answer with a yes or a no.”
“I see,” he says again.
Hmm, that’s not a good sign. “I’ve been using the knife to check on my sister and my friends at court. When I left, my sister was very pregnant and I was worried over her. She had a baby boy and it seems she’s pregnant again.”
Nemeth thinks for a moment. “Kind of her to send you a gift so you can keep in touch with her. Strange that it is a knife.”
“Isn’t it?” I say brightly, determined not to take the bait. No matter what happens, I am absolutely not going to tell Nemeth that my sister wants him dead. “Strange indeed, but I suppose if it’s a stolen item, she didn’t get to choose what was ensorcelled and what wasn’t. I imagine if there would have been enchanted hairbrushes lying around, she would have sent me one of those, but alas.”
My mate gives me a look that tells me he doesn’t quite believe me. That’s all right. I suspect I’d be more than a little anxious if I found out that his people were giving him special knives, too. “I don’t bring it up to worry you about something new. I bring it up because, well, I asked the knife about our situation. I asked if anyone was coming, and it said no.”
“It said no?” he asks again.
I nod. “Well, sort of. The knife pulses if the answer to my question is yes. If it’s not, it doesn’t do anything.”
He furrows his brows. “May I see it?”
I fight back my unease. How ironic that I trust Nemeth with my body, both in bed and out of it, and yet the thought of handing him my knife makes me pause? Is it because the knife reminds me that he’s supposed to be my enemy? That I’m supposed to use it to kill him? Why is it that I’ll let him give me a dose of my life-saving medicine every night and let him knot me, and yet this makes me hesitate?
It’s stupidity. It’s Erynne’s actions poisoning my mind against my mate. Nemeth has been trustworthy and reliable ever since I arrived. He’s saved my life twice now—once when I was sick, and once when the men broke in and attacked us. I love him. I hate that I hesitate. I hate that I’ve been so poisoned against the Fellians all my life that even now it affects me. I nod and get to my feet. “I keep it upstairs. Let me get it.”
By the time I return with my knife, I’m calm again, all worry gone. It’s only that I’ve kept this secret for so long that it makes me fret to reveal it. I hand the knife to Nemeth, who’s now seated on his stool, and then I settle myself in his lap. He puts one arm around me, nuzzling at my ear, and I feel a little better. “Thank you, milettahn . Show me how it works?”
I pull it out of the decorative sheath and lay it flat in his big palm. Really, it’s ridiculously small compared to Nemeth’s size, and I wonder what Erynne expected me to do with this knife. Poke him to death? “You ask it a yes or no question aloud. Sometimes it picks up my thoughts, but I prefer to ask aloud. It helps me focus.” I lean forward, addressing the knife. “Is my sister alive?”
There’s no answer.
My heart thuds for a terrifying moment.
“Which sister?” Nemeth gently reminds me. “You had two of them.”
I exhale with relief. Oh gods, he’s right. “Is Erynne alive?”
The knife shivers in his palm, visibly trembling.
He grunts, wrapping his fingers around it. “Let me try.” He thinks for a moment and then asks, “Am I mated to Candra?”
The knife shivers again.
“Are we going to have a dozen children?”
I prickle uncomfortably at the question, and I’m not surprised when the knife doesn’t move.
“Am I in love with Candra?”
Shiver.
“Do we have enough food to last for the next five years?”
Nothing.
“How can we make it last for five more years?”
Nothing.
“Do you know what I am?”
Nothing.
“Do I have wings?”
Shiver.
Nemeth grunts. He takes the knife by the tip and holds it back out to me. “I know this sort of spell. It’s not a yes and no question as you say it is.”
I frown, holding the knife tightly in my grip by the small, gleaming blade. “It isn’t?”
“The spell is more specific than that. Or rather, it is not as powerful. It is enchanted to only reply if you ask a very specific sort of question that can be answered with a ‘yes.’ It does not have a setting for a ‘no’ because that would involve a second spell to give it the ability to answer ‘no,’ and then a third spell to force the knife to decide between the two answers. So in this case, a lack of response is perceived as a ‘no’ but that is not always the truth. It’s simply not a yes. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so.” I never thought of it as more than one spell…or any spell, really. Just that it could answer me. “I asked it if someone was coming to bring us food supplies, and it didn’t answer me.”
“Ask it again.” There’s a desperate look in his gaze. “Just in case.”
I hold the knife flat in my hand, extending it between us. “Is Lios sending food to me?”
No response.
“Is Darkfell sending food to Nemeth?”
No response.
“Perhaps that’s too specific,” Nemeth says quickly. “Ask it if anyone is sending supplies to us.”
I do, and the knife is as silent and cold as before. A knot of despair forms in my throat. “There has to be a reason why,” I say to him. “Something must be wrong. They wouldn’t cut us off.”
“They would if they knew we were mated.” Nemeth’s gaze is solemn. “If you reported back to your sister that you’d become the mate of the enemy, they wouldn’t feed you.”
I’m a little stung by his accusation. “I wouldn’t report back to her. How can I?”
“You think she doesn’t have a little blade just like this? You think she doesn’t ask about you?”
I hold the knife up by the tip, so that if the blade shivers, it’ll jump out of my grip. “Have I reported back to Erynne about my relationship with Nemeth? About anything?”
The knife doesn’t move.
“Does she know about us?” I continue.
Again, the knife is motionless.
“I am wrong,” Nemeth says in a soft voice, squeezing my waist. “My apologies, milettahn .”
“And you?” I accuse back. “Were you reporting back about me?”
He’s silent.
The knife is not. It shivers in my grasp.