Maren
The portal spits us out into a courtyard filled with snow.
Not the gentle kind. The vicious kind, the sort that comes sideways and finds every gap in your clothing and makes you question every choice that led you to this moment.
I stumble on the landing, my balance thrown by the sudden cold, and Kovren's hand is there instantly.
His fingers wrap around my upper arm, steadying me, and then he's pulling me against his side, tucking me into the shelter of his body.
He doesn't let go after I'm stable.
The wind screams past us, but I barely feel it. His bulk blocks most of the weather, and the heat of him seeps through the layers between us.
Vorneth rises around us, all gray stone and steep roofs and chimneys pouring smoke into the white sky. A mountain city, built into the side of something massive and cold, its streets winding upward in switchbacks that make my legs ache just looking at them.
“This way.”
Kovren guides me toward an archway. He’s positioned himself to block the worst of the wind. His cloak is around my shoulders again. I don't remember him putting it there, but the fabric trails on the ground behind me, too long by half, the hem collecting snow.
“Mother Sanque lives near the top. The walk is difficult.”
“I've walked difficult before.”
“Not like this.” But there's something in his voice that sounds almost like pride.
The streets of Vorneth are narrow and steep, carved into the mountainside with the kind of precision that speaks of centuries of work.
The stairs are sized for normal humans, which means Kovren has to duck under archways and turn sideways at some corners.
People pass us, bundled in furs and wool, their faces turned away from the wind.
They notice him. I see the way their steps quicken, the way they press themselves against walls to give him space.
But they don't run screaming. They don't make signs against evil. They just accommodate him, the way you accommodate a large piece of furniture in a small room.
“They know you here.”
“I've passed through before. Mother Sanque has a reputation for taking difficult cases. The people of Vorneth have learned not to ask questions about her visitors.”
I reach up and take his hand, lacing my fingers through his, and his whole body changes.
The tension drops out of his shoulders. His breathing evens. His fingers close around mine, careful, controlled, and I feel the tremor in them still for a moment before settling.
The climb is harder than I expected. The altitude pulls at my lungs, and my legs are burning from five days of walking and the bruises from last night's fight. I'm slower than I want to be and he notices before I do.
At one particularly steep section, where the stairs narrow and the frost makes the stone slick, he simply picks me up.
I don't even have time to protest. His free hand closes around my waist, my feet leave the ground, and then I'm tucked against his side, both packs on one shoulder and me on the other. Climbing a frozen mountain carrying everything and everyone, and his breathing doesn't change.
“I can walk.”
“You were about to fall.”
“I was not.”
“Your left foot slipped. I caught you.”
I hadn't even noticed. “You could have just steadied me.”
“This is faster.” He's not even winded. “And you need the rest.”
“Don't get used to carrying me everywhere.”
“I make no promises.”
He sets me down before the last flight of stairs, and I miss the warmth of him immediately. Which I am not going to think about right now.
The house at the top doesn't look like much. Stone walls, a wooden door weathered silver by decades of mountain wind, windows glowing warm against the gray evening. Kovren knocks.
The door opens.
The woman standing in the entrance is not what I expected.
Mother Sanque is ancient. Not old. Ancient. Her face is a map of wrinkles so deep they look carved, her hair pure white and wild around her shoulders.
She's tiny. She barely reaches my shoulder, which means the top of her head wouldn't clear Kovren's hip. She's wrapped in layers of shawls and scarves that make her look like a small, bright bird.
Her eyes are sharp as broken glass.
“Kovren.” Her voice scrapes like dry leaves on stone. “You look terrible.”
“I've been hunting.”
“You've been dying.” Those sharp eyes move to me, assess me in a single sweep. Head to toe and back, taking in the bruise on my jaw, the road dust, the cloak knotted at my waist, my empty hands where the pack should be. “But not anymore, apparently. And you've brought someone.”
“This is Maren. She's a healer.”
“Is she.” Not a question. Mother Sanque steps back, gestures us inside. Kovren has to fold nearly double to fit through the doorway, his shoulders brushing both sides of the frame.
The interior is nothing like the outside.
Warm, cluttered, every surface covered with books and jars and instruments I don't recognize.
The air smells of dried herbs and woodsmoke and something sharper underneath, something almost chemical.
Shelves climb the walls from floor to ceiling, crammed with leather-bound volumes, scrolls, glass bottles full of things I can't identify. A fire burns low in a stone hearth.
“Sit.” Mother Sanque points to a pair of chairs near the fire. The chairs are normal-sized. Kovren looks at them, looks at her, and lowers himself to the stone floor beside the hearth instead. Even seated on the ground, he comes up to the chair backs.
I take a chair. My legs are shaking from the climb, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
“Both of you look like you haven't slept properly in days.” Mother Sanque is already moving, pulling jars and bottles from a cabinet with quick, sure hands. “When did you last eat? Don't answer that. It was too long ago.”
She sets a clay pot over the fire, starts adding things to it. Broth, herbs, something that smells like ginger. “While that heats, show me.”
“Show you what?” I ask.
“The wounds. Whatever she’s been trying to fix for you.” She waves a hand at Kovren without looking up. “Take off your shirt.”
He glances at me. I nod. He pulls the shirt over his head, and Mother Sanque turns, and stops.
She crosses to him. Her hands are small and knobbed with age, but steady. She touches the stitches on his side, traces the line of them with one finger, checks the tension, the spacing.
“Who did this needlework?”
“I did,” I say.
She looks at me. It's a different look than before. Not warm. Mother Sanque doesn't seem like a woman who does warm. But there's a sharpness to it that might be respect.
“In the field?”
“In a ditch the first time. With a sewing kit and a bottle of alcohol.”
“Hm.” She continues her examination. Checks the wound on his shoulder, the older scars beneath. Presses her palm flat against his chest, closes her eyes, stays there for a long time. Her brow furrows.
“Something's different.” She opens her eyes, looks between us. “Something's changed since I last saw you. The rage. It's still there but it's sitting differently. Quieter.”
My pulse picks up.
“When did you last see him?” I ask.
“Two years ago. He came through hunting the creature. The rage was worse then. Barely contained.” She's still studying him, head tilted, those sharp eyes narrowed. “Now it's still present, but muffled. Like there's something between him and it.” She looks at me. “What did you do?”
“I'm not sure.” I lean forward. “But I've noticed something. When I touch him, the rage settles. On the road today, after we'd been talking, I asked him about it and he said it was completely quiet. And just now, in the street. The crowd was making it worse. I took his hand and the tension broke.”
Mother Sanque is very still.
“How long have you been traveling together?”
“Five days.”
“Five days.” She says it flatly. Turns back to Kovren. “And the rage responds to her touch.”
“Yes,” he says.
“Every time?”
“Every time I've noticed.”
She pulls her hand away from his chest. Shuffles to a shelf, pulls down a book so old the binding is crumbling. Flips through pages, muttering. Stops. Reads. Flips to another section.
“The texts you brought me.” She's not looking at us anymore.
“From the stronghold. There were references.
Fragments, mostly. Mentions of bonded pairs, of the rage responding to a chosen mate's presence.” She closes the book, opens another.
“I assumed it was mythology. Bogatyr folklore. The records were incomplete and I had no living cases to study.”
“And now?”
“Now I have questions.” She sets the book down and fixes me with that glass-sharp gaze. “How did you meet? The exact circumstances.”
I tell her. The ditch. The blood. The oath that formed when I healed him, when his broken rib drove into his lung and the magic decided I'd saved his life and bound him to me.
Mother Sanque listens without interrupting. When I finish, she's quiet for a long time.
“I need the night,” she says finally. “I have texts to cross-reference.
The stronghold records, and older sources.
What you're describing, the touch response, the quieting.
I've read about it. But the mechanism, the conditions that created it.” She waves a hand between us.
“I need to understand what happened in that ditch before I can tell you what it means.”
“But you think it means something,” I say.
“I think it means a great deal.” She stands, stirs the broth, ladles it into two bowls. Sets one in front of me, hands the other to Kovren. “Eat. Sleep. I'll work tonight. The guest chamber is through that door. The bed is too small for you,” she adds, looking at Kovren. “It always is.”
“I'll manage.”
“You always do.” She's already turning back to her books, pulling volumes from shelves, spreading them across the table. Dismissed. We've been dismissed.
Kovren catches my eye. I see the question there.
I pick up both bowls and stand. “Thank you, Mother Sanque.”