Chapter Sixteen
Jarok
Jarok woke early. In truth, he’d barely slept after leaving Piris in her room. He’d gone to talk to her. Maybe bicker. To taste her again if she wanted it. To hold her. He'd woken to a cold bed and a day of her avoiding him at every turn. He’d been hurt and angry, even if he’d never actually spent the entire night with a woman in his bed.
When she’d been clear about all she wanted from him, once again, it’d been a hit to the gut, almost bowling him over. He’d breathed deep, contained his hurt, and gave her what she wanted—what he wanted too, except he needed more from her. There was something else hanging on the edge of his mind, an unspoken desire he’d not give her if all she thought him good for was a hard fuck on her floor or in his bed or against a tree in the forest.
Not that he hadn’t enjoyed those encounters. He turned them over again and again in his mind, savoring the memory of the feel of her in his arms, against his mouth, warm around his cock. Yet he wanted to reach for more. He wasn’t ready to articulate what the more might entail, not after Piris had put him in his place in such a firm manner. He’d stuff it down, swallow it whole, so he could at least taste her on occasion.
Such thoughts, spinning around and around his head, drove him out of his bed, and out of Volesion Peak, as morning hung fresh and new in the sky. He stalked past the manor house, back toward the line of the riverbank. It was a view he’d enjoyed the day before, the muddy waters of the Great River rolling below him, stretching across from the icy cold landscape of the Winterlands to the blooming banks of the Springlands. The other territory rested so close here, he could smell the hyacinth thick on the wind, dampened only by the bite of cold in his nose. An interesting juxtaposition, and something he figured could take his mind off one cold, infuriating woman.
His brooding prospect was thwarted before it could get started. As he got closer to the lookout point, he noticed Lady Volesion seated there, staring out across the waters. He hesitated, wondering if he could back away before she noticed, but she turned toward him, waving a hand for him to join her. He wasn’t going to be rude to their host. They’d come with news of her daughter that had rocked her entire life to its foundation, news he just knew she had to still be processing after years of hiding and secrecy. The least he could do was sit by her to look out at the Great River.
He moved closer to her as Lady Mimi rose then dropped into a deep, perfectly executed curtsy. Jarok rushed forward to take her hand and help her rise, even if she looked like she did not need his help in any way. As he took her hand and looked down at the auburn shine of her hair in the morning, he thought again of Piris, the ghost he was trying to run away from, and he gritted his teeth. It was not her mother’s fault, so he pulled on his charming mask for her.
“Prince Jarok,” she said as she came full to standing. Several inches shorter than her daughter, she looked up into his face. “A pleasure to see you on such a fine morning.”
She pulled her full fur coat tight around her shoulders, burrowing deeper in its warmth, and he waved away the most pressing winds with his magic to help make her more comfortable.
“I am well used to the winds on the river, Your Highness.”
“Jarok. Please, Lady Volesion. Call me Jarok.”
She nodded, a small smile on her lips. “Only if you call me Mimi.”
He bowed deep and chuckled. “Not a hardship, Mimi.”
She went back to the bench and sat, her back straight and her face wide open to him, and patted the seat beside her. “Share the view with me, Jarok?”
He didn’t reply but he did sit, turning from her as she looked out on the waters. Following her gaze, his own got snagged by the churn of the currents, the way the muddy brown of the waters decided two distinctly different banks. The flash of meadows he could make out from there was a view he’d not seen often in his life.
“It is interesting, is it not? The first time I saw it, before I became Lady Volesion, the difference shocked me. I’d never seen the Springlands at that point. Had only experienced the Winterlands.”
Jarok had visited the Springlands a few times on palace business, usually with his brother. “Have you been since?”
“Oh, yes. A lovely place, but not home. I sometimes think the cold seeps into us Winterlands Fae, makes us feel uncomfortable, too warm, anywhere else. And, maybe sometimes, a little cranky.”
Jarok chuckled, thinking of all the cranky Fae he knew, including the lady’s daughter. “Too true.”
She turned her gaze on him then, her eyes squinting as if studying his face, looking for something there. “You know,” she said, her words stretched and taut. “I’ve met the king and queen on occasion and always marveled at their story.”
“The warrior woman tamed by the true king?” Jarok asked. It was a romantic tale, most definitely, but not an accurate one. In all honesty, his father had never tamed his mother, if such a word should even be used for a person. He loved her as she was, as she always had been. Never wished to change her, though gods knew many wished he had over the centuries, thinking a queen should be more polite and polished. In Jarok’s opinion, she served her kingdom and her family well just as she was, but he was biased.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head and grabbed his hand, her warm black gloves enveloping his uncovered golden skin. “Not like that, Prince. They loved despite their obstacles, which was my point.”
He’d thought they were having casual conversation. “Point?”
“I see how you look at my daughter, Jarok. How she looks at you when you are not aware.”
He stiffened. This was not what he wanted to discuss. It was what he’d wished to avoid by coming out here, actually. There he was regardless, having some odd intervention with Piris’s mother in the gray morning light.
“Brettly and I were an arranged match, you know. Luckily we loved each other before we married. Maybe at first sight. Not many in the nobility get to experience it.”
“Experience what?”
“Love.” Her eyes were sharp, hard, not in anger but in insistence. She did very much wish to make some point and he’d allow her to have it, even if he wished she’d stop talking of things he wanted to ignore.
She dropped his hand and moved back to look on the river. “Your mother is who she is, and the king rightly allows her to be who she is.” The change in topic made Jarok blink, but he let her go on. “We made the mistake of not doing the same for our daughter.”
“Oh, no—”
“No need to console me, Prince. I realize our missteps in hindsight. I see how she’s flourished with your little band of fighters, her secret being a little less secret.”
She stood and looked at him as he stared up, again wondering about this point she was attempting to make. “Love sometimes makes us do things we can later regret if we forget to let those we love be who they are meant to be. Following love is never a mistake, Jarok, but it can be a stressful journey. Well worth it, but stressful and worrisome.”
He couldn’t look at her anymore, couldn’t think about what she said, so he turned his head away from her. It was rude of him, but she didn’t comment on it. “Do not fret too much, Prince. I see the two of you doing great things together.” She laughed, loud and true. “And having great fights along the way—with others and each other. It will lead to an interesting and beautiful life, I think.”
All he could do was nod to get her to stop and leave him be with his worries and thoughts and hidden desires somehow not hidden from this stranger. She patted his shoulder, then walked away without another word. Jarok sat, looking out at the amazing view, not seeing a single bit of it. He was lost in his head, circling again and again back to the problem of Piris. Or, more aptly, the problem of him and Piris and what they were, what they might be, if he were brave enough to reach for it. If he could somehow convince her to reach for him as well.
Jarok mulled over Lady Volesion’s words for a long time, until the gray morning light brightened a touch around midday. He’d stayed outside for a time, but even a son of the Winterlands had his limits in the cold, so he’d continued his thinking in his room in front of a warm fire. Which was where Cylian found him right before he should have left for lunch in the dining room.
He called, “Enter,” at a quick succession of knocks at his door, knowing from the pattern and light touch it was his friend from the Autumnlands.
“I have something for you,” Cylian said, handing Jarok a scroll closed with his brother’s seal. The lord took the leather chair beside his friend’s as Jarok opened the letter. They’d been at Volesion Peak two days, not much time to get word back and forth between this end of the Winterlands and the palace. At least for someone whose mother wasn’t able to command soaring birds of prey. She’d sent one of her small chicken hawks to the manor house ahead of their traveling party so her son could notify them as soon as they had arrived. He was certain Ghel’s message had arrived tied to a similarly swift bird from their mother’s aviary.
Jarok unrolled the paper, stretching it taut so he could more easily read his brother’s sloppy script. It was not hard to decipher for him, but another Fae might have issues. In his direct, sparse style, Ghel greeted him and reported all was well with security at the palace and that Engad Monti and his Benders were elsewhere in the Winterlands. More of the same, except for news of their father.
“His toes have started freezing,” Jarok whispered, not knowing if he was speaking to Cylian or himself.
His friend was there, kneeling by his side, before he registered the movement. “I am so sorry.”
They both knew what it meant. When someone whose ice powers had turned inward and started freezing at their extremities, it was often a swift decline. Little they knew of, in any part of Fae, could help.
The scroll had dropped to his lap as he stared into the hot flames. Jarok loved his father, as a king and parent, and couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. They would have to, soon, and it already broke his heart to think of what was to come.
“What do the healers say?”
Several famed Fae healers from all four lands were stationed at the palace. They’d been able to stave off progress for a good while. He hoped they could continue such progress. He gave his friend a shrug before answering, “Ghel assures me it is not immediately dire. Still…”
“You want to be there, with him. To help if you can.”
“Exactly.”
Cylian rose, crossed his arms over his chest, and tilted his head in thought. “You help him by being here. Give him peace of mind his kingdom is being protected. Will remain protected, after…”
“I’ve done nothing so far.”
“Not true. You’ve fought the Benders on two occasions and bested them. You’ve come to the location where Monti was last seen.”
“Not enough,” Jarok growled, standing with a hard shove from his chair so the letter fluttered to the floor in front of the fire. “I need to do more. Find where Engad Monti lurks by the river and end this ridiculous rebellion.”
Cylian visibly stiffened at the hard hate in his last words, and Jarok considered why. What he’d said about Monti was true, of course, but he did not want his friend to think such things applied to all rebellions, past or future. Some were necessary, as they both well knew. Some were started for personal gain, as was the case with this Monti leader. Cylian patted his friend’s back and Jarok eased, understanding his silent acknowledgment.
“Do we know anything else? Anything at all about the men we track?”
“Well… You and Lord Volesion have been avoiding each other since the unfortunate events on our arrival, but I have spoken with him. He has a contingent of sailors scouring the banks for more information and expects an answer soon.”
“Good. Good. Hopefully I can finally do something useful.”
Cylian squinted his good golden eye at his friend, studying him in silence for a moment before he said, “Do you really think you do nothing useful?”
Jarok waved a hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you might have, and I need to assure you, you are wrong in this. You are more than useful. And good. As a family member, a prince, a friend.”
Something in him cracked at the words. He knew they were true, somewhere deep down, but it felt like a dip in a hot spring to hear someone say it out loud.
He was about to thank his friend, tell him he also appreciated all he did, for his land and the Fae lands, when pounding feet sounded in the hall outside the door.
Cylian moved like a flash and swung it open in time to let a gasping guard running at full speed barrel into the space.
“The Benders. They’re here,” he said between hard breaths.
“Looks like we have something to do after all,” Jarok growled, grabbing his sword belt from his nightstand and calling for Cylian to follow him. Hopefully they’d already alerted Darin, Gem, and Piris, and they’d have time to plan a defense.