Chapter 9 - Jael
Jael
IX
The night was warm and dry, and the grass beneath me was long, fragrant, and arguably more comfortable than the thin, lumpy mattress inside.
Moonlight filtered through the leaves overhead, and I leaned against the rock face behind me to take it in.
The moon wasn’t full, but it shone bright enough for me to make out the details of the woods.
For a long while, I simply sat and waited for Kalla to return, breathing in the soft scents of the forest. It was the first peace I’d had in years, and I knew it was an illusion.
Kalla’s question about the future hadn’t disappeared with her, and as I sat in the silence, I was struck with the realization that the rest of my life was now an unknown.
I was the only Coynfare member who had survived our mission.
Our leader was dead, and I’d been his second, which meant I was now the leader of the Coynfare waiting at home.
But the idea of returning to Soldara and looking the others in the eye, telling them what had happened, taking Zath’s place, made my stomach twist. More than not having the first idea what our next move in the rebellion would be, I shied away from losing myself to that anger again.
I’d only had a night or two of distance, but out here in the woods, the void inside me had become less of a burden.
With no one’s expectations sitting on my shoulders, with no one constantly double-checking that I remained dedicated to the cause, I could breathe.
To put my neck back into the yoke would be unbearable, but my oath to the Coynfare mocked my lack of action.
I’d sworn to give my life to take Leonine down.
What did it make me if I turned my back on my fellow rebels?
The longer the silence wrapped around me, the more mired I became in thoughts of our failed ambush, of the betrayal that had guaranteed that failure, of Leonine’s smug smirk and the pressure of his blade in my flesh.
I looked around for Kalla, but she hadn’t returned. I wondered what had chased her away, because I doubted she’d needed to feed. The way she’d looked at me before she’d fled… as if she hadn’t wanted to leave me at all. Quite the opposite.
Now that I had a moment to myself without living in a haze of pain, I picked apart her behaviour towards me.
Her lack of questions. Her easy acceptance of my presence.
Her desire to keep her distance. I didn’t get the sense that she lacked curiosity—interest shone clear as the sun in her blue depths—and I doubted it was sensitivity towards my wellbeing.
If anything, I suspected it was a matter of scope.
She’d asked why we were out here. Vampires were outlawed in Golthwaine, so if this was her home, no doubt she was scared her secret would be revealed.
She had nothing to fear from me, but it did make me wonder why she’d saved me. She would have been safer if I’d died.
Although hope had become as unfamiliar to me as laughing, a small ember flared in my chest that her reason for bringing me here was tied to the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t looking or the way she touched me more than absolutely necessary.
An interest in me. Not for how I might serve a cause but for the fae I might have been if Leonine had never gotten his hands on me.
But that line of thought led me back to the nightmares I’d been working to avoid.
Needing a distraction, I scanned the area and found a hollow reed that must have made its way from a nearby river.
The reed was a familiar weight in my hands, a painful reminder of a past that had shaped me—had, arguably, led to my ruin.
But I pushed those thoughts aside as well and set to work crafting a simple flute.
Years of practice made it a simple matter to know where to place the holes, and the delicate work was a blessing for my overburdened mind.
Lost to everything except the fine movements of my dagger, I soon had a finished instrument in my hands.
And I couldn’t find the courage to bring it to my lips.
Instead, I flipped it through my fingers, peered through it to the world beyond, and waited for Kalla. My choice of distraction had become a torture in itself, leaving me within easy reach of my once greatest passion and unable to stomach using it.
Footsteps moving lightly over dried leaves made me snap my head towards the sound, and I released a breath when Kalla came into view.
“Did I scare you?” she asked.
“Hardly. Just took me by surprise. You move quickly.”
“Vampire perk. All the better to sneak up on our prey. But I didn’t mean to stop your heart when you’re recovering. That was rude.”
I chuckled, and again the sound surprised me.
“Why do you do that?” Kalla asked as she dropped into the grass. Her eyes were bright and her skin flushed from her recent meal, and I stared at her mouth, eager to catch sight of those fangs.
I forced my gaze to the flute in my hands, reminding myself why it was better to feel nothing. “Do what?”
“Look startled every time you laugh. Does it hurt when you do?”
Her teasing rattled me, how quickly and easily she saw through me.
Since joining the Coynfare, my fellow rebels had often upbraided me for being too serious.
I’d wrapped myself so carefully in the void that I never allowed any emotion other than anger to show.
I’d worked to keep my expression blank, my soul empty.
For six years, I’d been untouchable. I wouldn’t have thought the habit would fade so quickly, but this woman made it impossible to stay locked down.
My throat strained with the force of my swallow. “I guess I’m out of practise.”
She nodded, shifting over so she leaned against the rock beside me. Without her penetrating gaze on my face, I relaxed again.
“That’s too bad,” she said. “You have a sexy laugh. It’s rough and grumbly. I bet if you did it more often, you’d have all the rebels spreading their legs for you.”
And just like that, I stiffened, more that one part of my body too hard for me to sit comfortably. “Excuse me?” I sputtered.
She turned her head towards me, and her eyes were filled with laughter. “What? Are you Soldarans prudes? I never would have guessed that about the fae.”
“I—I—no, we’re not—we’re pretty relaxed about sex.
I just—” Had been working hard not to think about sex with you.
The words were there, but I didn’t say them, not wanting to add to the awkwardness.
Instead, I huffed. “I understand now why we’re taught to kill vampires on sight. You’re too much trouble.”
“Just as we’ve been taught to kill fae on sight. You can’t be trusted.”
“I guess we’re destined to be enemies, then.”
I said it with a smile, and Kalla’s answering laugh danced through the darkness and up into the stars, where I swore it sparkled among them.
She’d been trying to set me off balance with her comment, and listening to her glee, I didn’t resent it.
I tightened my grip on my flute, old habits setting aside notes I might once have played to accompany the sound.
Unfortunately, the movement of my hands drew her gaze to my lap, and interest flickered to life in her eyes. “You play?”
My chest squeezed. “I used to.”
Such an understatement. There had been a time when I couldn’t pass a day without playing something. A day without music had been a day without sunshine. Without air. Music had been my entire life.
“It sounds like you used to do a lot of things.” Her voice had lost its teasing edge, gentled into something that wasn’t quite sympathy but skirted the edge of compassion. As though she’d deduced more than I’d told her.
I should have been upset about that. I didn’t want pity—or strangers guessing my secrets. But somehow I found it easier to be in her presence knowing she’d put some pieces together and hadn’t pushed me on them. It felt less like I needed to hide.
“I imagine Soldara is full of music,” she said softly as her attention shifted once more to the sky. “The fae strike me as a people who enjoy a good revel. Feasts and galas, dances, concerts.”
“We do,” I agreed. “Those with the good fortune to enjoy them, anyway. I remember many days spent idling, playing music that people danced to. Lots of laughter and light.” Not wanting to follow that train of thought, I turned the conversation. “What about vampires? Are you musical?”
Kalla laughed again, joy transformed into sound, so real I could almost believe happiness was tangible.
“No one wants me to play. My best friend told me if I ever came within walking distance of a fiddle again, he’d smash it over my head and garrote me with a string.
But yes, some of us play. We don’t have access to a lot of instruments in all our ignorance”—she narrowed her eyes at me, and I couldn’t help the quirk of my lips in an unpractised smile—“but every once in a while, someone comes home with a drum or a flute.” Her gaze swept down to the one in my hands.
“None of us are skilled enough to make them out of nothing. For the most part, we talk, we tell stories, we fuck. Some of us knit. When you’re outlawed, you don’t have the luxury of a wide variety of hobbies. ”
I was only half listening and processing the fact that she wasn’t alone out here in these woods.
The rest of me was trying to hide the fact that my cock was so rigid that I needed to shift my weight to avoid the press of stiff flesh against my borrowed breeches.
Was this woman intentionally toying with me, or did she not notice the effect she was having?
“Is it hard?” she asked, and I shot her an incredulous look before she added, “Being a rebel? We must share a lot of the same problems. Always hiding, keeping our heads down, never letting ourselves be recognized for what we are. You can go out in the daylight, at least, but still.”
It took a moment for the haze of my desire to clear enough to answer her.
“It’s, um, yeah. It’s a challenge. Most of us were members of Leonine’s staff, which means the guards know our faces.
We keep to the outskirts of the capital—close enough to gain information, but far enough not to be tracked down. ”
“Were all of you… Are you the last one?”
I shook my head. “We held back the few of us not able to fight, and those who could step up to take over if we failed. They’ll be busy now, I suspect. But they’ll fill the ranks easily. There are enough people in Leonine’s court who want to see the bastard burn.”
Silence stretched between us, and I heard all the questions Kalla refused to ask. I’d already told her more than I’d intended and kept spilling my secrets to her at every turn, and I wasn’t ready to dig into the rest of it when I had no idea what my future might look like.
“What about your fury?” I asked, figuring it was only fair to lob a question her way. “Do you mind being tucked away in the middle of nowhere?”
I expected her to deny the others existed or to point out all the struggles they dealt with on a daily basis, but she drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Usually? No. I love my family. My friends. The thrill of the hunt. But sometimes, yeah, it gets overwhelming. Being around the same people all the time, stuck in the same routine. I guess I’ve fallen into a rut.
All I want is to keep my fury safe—but also… I don’t know. Gain a little freedom?”
Her tone was wistful, and she caught the corner of her lip with her canine. My attention snagged on that lethal fang. Then she released her bite and let out a laugh that was more bitter than anything I’d heard from her so far.
“But freedom’s not for the likes of us, and just wanting it puts me at odds with my family, so I guess I’m as much of a failure as you are,” she said.
I nudged her with my knee. “At least you’re in good company.”
She smiled at me, but it lacked the warmth I’d come to appreciate, and I found I didn’t like that.
Not at all.