Chapter 2
QUINN
One might imagine that, after centuries, I would be immune to laughter at my expense. And yet it still managed to wound.
“You can't be serious,” Mav said, half choking on the words.
My lips pressed together in a thin line. “Though I see you find humor in the notion, I meant no jest.”
“You…” He leaned forward, a tendril of his chestnut hair slipping into his face. “You are serious.”
“Entirely.”
He regarded me as if I had grown wings or horns—or worse, spoken honestly. I was unaffected. I had long since grown accustomed to the unblinking stares of disbelieving men and had learned not to shy beneath them.
The rain had ceased, leaving only the crackle of the fireplace to fill the quiet between us.
Mav, as he had named himself, had not moved in some time.
One arm rested on the worn table, the other tucked near his ribs—a gesture hinting at some lingering hurt.
Whether it was an old wound or recently sustained, I knew not.
His brow remained drawn in a state of what one could only assume was disbelief.
“I presume an explanation would be helpful,” I said, placing my hands in my lap.
A flicker of wariness passed through his hazel eyes. “That’d be a good place to start.”
I dipped my chin, schooling my tone into something forcibly conversational. “Once, many years ago, I was offered a crown by way of a marriage proposal.”
“From…whom?”
“The crowned prince of Avandria.” I tilted my head, watching the firelight dance upon the oil-dulled grain of the table. “I declined.”
His lips twisted into a shape that could not decide whether it was a smirk or a grimace. “Let me guess. He didn’t take it well.”
“No, he most certainly did not.” A lock of damp hair clung to my cheek as I shook my head. “A binding spell was cast upon me.”
The moment hung in the air. Although his countenance remained unchanged, I could sense the shift in him—as though he stood upon a cliff’s precipice and had only just realized the mist obscured the drop.
“What kind of binding?”
“I sleep for one hundred years,” I said, as plainly as one might recite one’s name. “Then wake for a fortnight.”
The spoon slipped from his fingers and struck the bowl with a sharp clatter, a sound that served to mark his astonishment.
A hard swallow pressed against my throat. “Whilst I sleep, I do not age, dream, or breathe. I merely endure the passage of time. And when I wake, I am…here.”
He passed a hand along the rough edge of his jaw and released a breath, as though uncertain the air would bear it. “Saints above.”
“Twas not the Saints who cursed me,” I clarified, my voice ironed flat. “Only a petty man with an abundance of power and a fondness for control.”
His fingers drummed against his chin in a thoughtful rhythm. “And during the two weeks?”
“I am bound to serve,” I explained. “To offer aid. A tether forms between myself and the first soul who accepts my help.” I met his gaze. “On this occasion, that soul is you.”
He gestured loosely toward the road that had brought us here, as if it might offer clarity I had somehow missed. “You mean the fight?”
“The moment you agreed.”
He shook his head as though he could cast off reality like rain from a cloak. “Help me how?”
“With a quest.” I sighed. “If the quest is fulfilled, the tether loosens and I return to sleep at the fortnight’s end. If I do not assist someone with a quest, sleep claims me sooner.”
The pause between us stretched as his doubts simmered.
“Quinn,” he said slowly. “How old are you?”
I raised a brow. “A rather impolite question.”
“Fair.” He nodded once. “But still. How old?”
“Twenty-seven,” I answered.
He leaned toward me, his voice dipping low, colored now by something nearer to caution than disbelief. “And how long have you been twenty-seven?”
Silence unfurled between us before I spoke. “Three hundred years.”
Mav blinked, slow and deliberate, then leaned back.“Three centuries?”
A faint smile curled at my lips. “More or less.”
His mouth parted, then shut, then parted once more, words fighting for shape but refusing to land. “Seems I’ve suddenly developed a taste for older women.”
I held my tongue, though warmth crept into my cheeks. The remark had been meant as suggestive, that much was plain—but I was not in the habit of indulging such advances from men I had known scarcely an hour.
He cleared his throat. “That sounded better in my head.”
“I have endured worse torments than poor flirtation.”
We remained fixed across the remnants of our meal, silence thick between us, when Wren reappeared.
“You gonna wash dishes,” he grumbled, tossing a rag over his shoulder, “or just make eyes at each other?”
Mav groaned into his hands. I smiled politely and reached for the pouch at my hip, placing it gently upon the table.
Wren squinted at it. “What’s this then?”
“A gesture,” I said.
He loosened the strings of the worn pouch. The soft clink of coins followed. A sliver of gold caught the firelight. Wren froze, then turned to Mav as though beholding some newly anointed Saint.
“Mercy,” Wren whispered. “Is this real?”
“Naturally.” I motioned to the purse with a wave of my hand. “Is it sufficient to settle the debt?”
Mav winced. “Quinn—”
Wren held up a hand, silencing him. “It’s enough to buy my tavern. Twice. With enough left over to bribe every magistrate from here to the capital.”
“Then I trust you will consider the matter closed.”
Mav appeared as though slipping beneath the table had become a desirable escape. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I find it…efficient,” I said, “to resolve such obligations.”
Wren gave Mav a jarring clap upon the back. “Come on, now. A beautiful woman just handed me a purse full of coin. This is the best day of my life! Don’t ruin it.”
Mav sagged where he sat, grumbling beneath his breath about pride and principles.
Wren paid him no heed, eyes fixed upon me. “Any more like her, Bassiano? Fair of face, fat of purse, and with poor judgment of companions?”
“Just the one,” Mav mumbled.
Wren gave a coarse snort and ambled off, his tune warbling out of key as he vanished behind the bar.
Mav drew a weary hand down his face, as though attempting to scrub away the moment. “I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or grateful.”
“They are not mutually exclusive.” I offered a mild shrug.
The clatter of crockery and the scuff of chairs diminished as patrons finished their meals and wandered into the night. The tavern emptied until the air felt thin.
Mav adjusted his posture, one hand rising to knead the back of his head as though dislodging a thought. “About this whole being bound thing…”
I waited.
He spoke again, though his eyes did not rise to meet mine. “What does it actually mean?”
There it was. My sleeves clung damply to my wrists. “It means that for a fortnight, I am here to assist you.”
His elbows braced upon the table, his eyes narrowing. “So, what do I do with you now?”
I swallowed a splinter of doubt as it surfaced.
This being my third awakening, I had borne two tethers before.
Both were fools and lesser men who saw in me nothing more than carnal use and ornament.
Mav did not seem cruel. Only…unmoored. As though ruin had claimed him, whether by his own hand or another’s, I could not yet say.
“That depends,” I said. “What is your quest?”
“Quest?” His brows drew tight, gaze steeped in incredulity. “I don’t have a quest, I don’t even have steady work.”
“Used to,” Wren called from behind the bar. “He was a knight.”
Mav groaned. “Stuff it, Wren.”
“You brought her into my place, you get what you get,” Wren replied.
A knight. That was the shape of the ache he carried. Not simply a lost purpose, but one discarded. I had noted the way he moved: careful, observant, a man who once wore duty among layers of armor. My suspicion had been nameless until now.
“Surely you desire something,” I insisted.
A breath escaped him that may have passed for laughter, were it not laced with resignation. “I desire quiet. A warm room. Enough coin to waste at taverns. That’s it.”
“That is survival, not purpose.”
He looked at me, searching for offense in words that bore none.
I had offered them gently, as one might set a salve to a bruise.
We had only just met, but I knew the manner of man he was.
He was not without scars, but he had long since learned how to remain standing when there was nowhere safe to fall.
The bench scraped sharply against the floorboards as he rose.
He did not bid farewell or ask if I would accompany him; he turned on his heel and left.
I stood and was compelled to follow. The connective tether between us pulled taut the moment he stepped away, as though an invisible spool within me had been drawn forward.
The tavern door groaned on its hinges as it closed behind us.
Outside, night had ripened to its fullest dark.
His shoulders slumped when he noticed my presence. “You really don’t have to—”
“I am not following you,” I said. “I am following the tether. It despises distance.”
He spun around, walking backward now, one brow raised in disbelief. “Are you a Tether?”
“No.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I am not.”
If I were a Tether, one of the higher-order magical gifts capable of connecting and contracting souls, I would not remain in my centuries-long predicament and could have freed myself by now.
The look he gave me neared pitiful. As if my lack of agency worsened our circumstances. Mav led us around the side of the Withering Whistle and through a decrepit alley where moss clung to the walls. The air smelled of soot and damp rot.
“I’m not used to being followed,” he muttered as we reached the base of a narrow tenement; three stories of slanted stone barely standing against the wind.
“You will grow accustomed to me,” I stated.