Chapter 63 #2
I swirled my glass of dry red and sipped on it, savouring its rich, velvety taste.
From the corner of my eye, I could see a broad-shouldered man with red hair that reached his shoulders, often glancing my way.
I noticed he got closer and closer each time the tavern echoed with laughter and clinking tankards.
“Oh! I have a good one,” a slender, unkempt male with a missing tooth said, before rasping the opening words of his eerie, never-ending joke.
I covered my face, laughing at the disgusting but hilarious punchline.
When I lowered my hands, I noticed that Red was standing at my side.
He rested his hand on the back of my chair.
His light green eyes moved from my mouth to my eyes when he said, “I have to admit that I enjoyed your laughter more than the joke itself.”
“And that wasn’t even my best laugh,” I replied flatly.
He barked out a laugh of his own that ended with him biting on his lower lip.
“Then perhaps I could get a listen or two of those beautiful laughs of yours while we danced?” he asked, offering me his palm.
I was fairly certain that any other woman in here would have taken his hand, walked him towards the crowd, beyond it, up the stairs, and straight into the bedroom. Whereas I—with a broken heart that still burned for a different green-eyed male—stammered.
“Oh, I—uh—”
“Sorry, pal, she’s with me,” Marshen said, leaning closer and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. He let it down the second Red turned on his heels.
“I hope I didn’t ruin a good night for you,” Marshen said.
“You didn’t. Thanks.”
I cut the silence by saying, “Vinnie said we should reach the Florentine Port by tomorrow evening and two days after that, Frostmouth.”
“Yep,” Marshen said, head bobbing.
“My offer still stands, you know.”
“We’re going together.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
“I don’t want to die either…but I want to return home more. There’s someone I must find.”
“Let’s go back to Ramel. Tell Aegir. That’s what we should have done; it was selfish of me.” The thought had been lingering in the back of my mind since Jebel. I persuaded Marshen to take me to Silch, and assured him that I would be enough. But what if I was not enough?
King Ryvar’s bargain specified that he return in the company of a Water Wielder or a Nymph, and I was neither.
We should have sought Aegir, at least for the sake of the people of Ilma, for Alma, for Blake.
He could have used his powers to further ward the island, especially from the Phoenix.
And he could have provided safe passage to some, to travel with us to Nivaria—Marshen’s bargain would have been more than met, then.
But my stubbornness and my jealousy—and my pained, selfish heart—clouded my better judgment, and so I found pretexts not to return home.
The conceiving ritual was no true excuse.
The guards at the tall house’s doors were no true excuse.
It would have taken hardly any effort. I could’ve easily wrapped a beige veil around my head and pretended I was a Sand Priestess.
I could’ve bribed Tomas…I could have sought Eldric. Now guilt was slowly creeping up on me.
Will I be enough? When was I ever enough?
“Are you fucking kidding me. We’re three days away, we’re not turning back now.”
“What if the king doesn’t accept me?”
“He will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re you.”
I looked at him in confusion. “What’s t—”
“I think you should worry less about me and start worrying more about yourself,” Marshen said, lifting a brow while sipping on his ale.
“Why do you say that?”
“What will you do after we deliver the message?”
“I’m not sure. I have a mare to get to in Kalnar. I’m considering bringing her here.”
“A mare?”
“Mmhmm. A desert horse. Her name is Cinnamon.” My eyes prickled. Then they burned at Marshen’s question.
“What about finding answers about your family? I’ve never asked you this, but you—why were you so eager to leave the place that held your answers?”
“Whoever gave me that intel I once told you about also tried to trick me. I asked everyone on Mistgeil Island, I sought answers around the village, and inspected every nook and cranny of the hut. My answers weren’t there. The intel made no sense, and I, too, felt like I was chasing ghosts.”
The thought of telling the Ice King about the people of Ilma, the thought of their liberation and their safety, gave me a purpose in life, a sort of acquired identity.
I could be something—someone. Yet the prospect of them being discovered by the Phoenix, of me failing to deliver the message on time, made my stomach clench in urgency.
Not to mention the possibility of failing Marshen…
that, too, would label me with an unsettling identity I did not want to ever reflect.
I knew it was something I could never forgive myself for.
It felt as if precious lives could be lost either way.
I closed the door behind me with the faintest click and tiptoed past Marshen’s room. I knocked gently on Vinnie’s door, and he answered with a low grunt, rubbing away sleep and hangover.
“We leave now, pack everything and meet me downstairs.”
I asked for breakfast to go and went to the livery stable to prepare our mares for the daylong journey. The rain softened to a gentle drizzle. I hoped that Jebel was blessed with a few drops from the storm that originated somewhere in the south of Myrkvein
“All packed?” I asked Vinnie and Braun, who mumbled a yes and mounted their mares with a grunt.
“Let’s g—”
“Seriously, Delia?” Marshen said from behind me.
He threw a gold coin—the same gold coin I had given Flora to keep Marshen at the inn for another week, until I sent for him—at my chest. Then he threw at me the letter I left him, which was now crumpled into a ball.
“We’re going together and that’s the end of it.”
I let out a long exhale and pinched between my eyebrows. “Fine, you can join me until Frostmouth.”
“I’ll join you until Nivaria,” he countered, saddling his mare. “Did you at least bring food for me?”
I nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.”