Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Hours after we leave the cottage and set up camp for the night, I catch a large hare.
Before heading back to camp, I scrounge for some herbs to season the meat.
The image of Mayah’s pleased expression—eyes closed in delight, a half-smile curling her lips—when she ate the roasted hen flits through my mind.
I’d do anything to see it again.
Back at camp, I skin the hare while Mayah starts a fire. The currents in the air thrum—there’s a storm coming.
When a loud boom of thunder cracks the silence, Mayah yelps, dropping the wood she was holding. She whirls, eyes wide with fear.
Lightning strike me. She’s afraid. Of me.
In the beginning, I wanted to terrify her. And now, the frightened pinch of her brows cuts something deep inside me.
I offer an apologetic smile, hoping to put her at ease. “That’s not me,” I murmur, pointing to the sky. “It’s a natural storm.”
At first, she doesn’t say anything, chest heaving with sharp pants, but the wind screams, and she whispers, “Can you—can you make it stop?”
The vulnerability in her voice makes me want to cradle her against my chest. Make her feel safe. Never let go.
“I wish I could. But I can only control storms that I summon myself.”
She nods quickly, but the next crack of thunder breaks through her bravado, hands jerking at her sides. Her energy signature, which usually pulses softly like a gentle stream, now thrums violently.
“Come here.” My voice is hoarse. “Rotate this over the skewer for me,” I add when she sits beside me.
“Have I told you about the time Lev and I tried to run away?” I ask, hoping my words will distract her.
Her smile is weak as she shakes her head.
“We were nine. Faramir had pushed me down a particularly steep flight of stairs—claimed I tripped, but I distinctly remember the feel of his hand on my back. The shove. The overjoyed laugh when my head cracked against the marble. I was trapped in bed for days until the medic cleared me.”
Her wide eyes are riveted to my face, body completely still beside me. She hasn’t rotated the skewer since I started speaking.
Carefully, I wrap my hand around hers over the thin branch, helping her turn it. She gasps softly at my touch, but doesn’t pull away. Our eyes lock briefly, and then her gaze slides to my lips. My fingers tighten around hers and—
A sharp crack of thunder shatters the moment. She startles, tearing her gaze away. I take the opportunity to scoot closer.
“What happened after that?” she whispers, eyes fixed on the fire. Her hand flexes beneath mine as we rotate the skewer together.
Skies, she’s trembling.
“Lev stayed in my room the entire time. When we were alone, he said ‘No more. We’re leaving.’ And I couldn’t have felt happier.
We packed what we could and snuck into the stables.
Except we weren’t as sneaky as we thought.
One of the stablehands went to find my mother—at least he was kind enough to get her instead of my father. And that was the end of it.”
The rabbit’s almost done. I’ll have to release her hand soon.
I thought she’d laugh at my story, or at the very least, smile. But her eyes are sad when she says, “I’m sorry your brother did that.”
With a start, I realize I’m a skiesdamned idiot for telling her that story about her fucking betrothed.
Skies, she will be Faramir’s wife.
The thought of his hands on her, touching her, hurting her burns a hole in my chest. I can’t let it happen. I can’t—
“I would’ve healed you,” she adds softly. “If I had been there.”
I know. I fucking know.
“You would’ve been a baby, then,” I say instead, swallowing my anguish. “A real one.”
She chuckles, though it sounds forced. “So you admit it—I’m not a baby.”
“Let’s not go that far.” I grin at her, and her watery smile has my heart tumbling. “Dinner’s ready.”
I take it off the skewer, blowing lightly across the charred surface before tearing off chunks of meat.
Mayah takes a bite, and I watch closely to see if she’ll notice the difference—the herbs I’d ground into a power with the pommel of my dagger and sprinkled onto the meat—but her eyes are fixed to the sky.
I don’t have time to feel disappointed because it begins to rain.
We finish eating quickly, and I string up my cloak between two trees. We huddle beneath it, shoulders touching.
The storm grows rougher, angrier, and when a soft whimper escapes her lips, I desperately wish I could control this storm. Wish I could unspool it from the sky and cast it away, so the woman beside me could breathe freely, without fear.
I pull her shuddering frame against my chest, tightening my arms around her, and without thinking, my lips brush her forehead in a soft kiss.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper against her hair. “You’re safe.”
Lightning flashes, violent and angry, and she burrows deeper into my chest, narrow shoulders quivering.
I never want to let her go.
Mine, my hopeless mind whispers.
No, I whisper back. Not yours. Never yours.
When the storm dies down, we lay on our sides facing each other. Her expression is open, unguarded, though something dark haunts her gaze. What happened to her to elicit such terror?
Mayah must read the question in my eyes, because she whispers, “I was a little girl. Six years old. Mama and I were somewhere new. A holiday, she called it. Just the two of us. I don’t remember where, only that there was no snow.
She’d read stories to me every night and let me help her in the kitchen. ”
Her voice is so soft, so weak, it melts my heart.
“Was she a healer like you?”
She shakes her head. “She was a nonwielder.”
A king taking a nonwielder wife? It’s unheard of.
Mayah chuckles softly at my bewildered expression.
“I know. Father’s council was outraged, but he wouldn’t be swayed.
He loved her. I wish I remembered more about her, but it’s all faded.
Her name was Meerah. She—” Her voice cracks on a sob, and I rub gentle circles across her lower back, hoping to offer some comfort against the choking grief I know all too well.
“I don’t remember much of that night. But she told me to hide in the closet and not come out, no matter what.
I listened. There was a horrible storm. Lightning and thunder and rain.
It shook the bones of the house. I was terrified.
And the smell—it still haunts my dreams. Burnt flesh with the tang of metal.
” My hand stills. That scent is permanently ingrained into my conscience.
“Father said it was a stormwielder. Sent by Arbinj,” she continues. Her throat bobs. “He never recovered from her death. A piece of him died that day, too.”
My brows furrow, as I rack my brain, struggling to recall anything about such a major assassination. When Mayah was six, I would’ve been thirteen or fourteen. I don’t remember anything, but I also wasn’t attending every council meeting at that age.
A shaking sob claws from Mayah’s throat, and then she’s crying in my arms, hands gripping my shoulders.
My heart twists painfully with her every shudder, and I hold her close, murmuring reassurances into her ear.
Gently, I wipe her tears with the pads of my thumbs, and Skies have mercy, she lets me.
“My mother was a nonwielder, too,” I whisper.
“Not my birth mother. My father would never risk a nonwielder child. Faramir’s birth mother was a powerful earthwielder from a noble family.
Mine was a stormwielder—I’ve never met her.
Don’t even know her name. It’s common practice in Arbinj for noble families to treat their daughters like broodmares—trade powerful heirs for wealth and respect.
“But my mother—Tairna—the woman who raised me, she was a nonwielder. She tended to my scrapes and cuts. Held me after nightmares. She saw me, not just the stormwielder with unlimited potential that everyone else did.” I swallow hard.
“And then one day, she was just gone. I was maybe fifteen? My father says she returned to her home in Volca, but I knew he was lying. I could never get him to admit otherwise, and I had no proof. I suspect he had her killed. Probably didn’t want her influencing me. ”
“I’m so sorry, Zevayr,” she whispers. Mayah reaches out cautiously, splaying her palm over my heart.
It misses a beat.
“It’s all right.” I tuck a lock of silky hair behind her ear. “Your necklace. Did it belong to your mother?”
“Yes.” She clasps the teardrop pendant with reverent fingers. “It’s all I have left of her.”
“It’s beautiful.” Like you.
I reach between us, gently tracing the pendant, my fingers brushing the dip between her collarbones. She doesn’t stop me. “It suits you.”
We fall asleep, cradled in each other’s arms.