Chapter 26 #2
She shrugs. She’s sporting her dark armor again today, which hugs her lithe form from the tip of her boots up to her neck.
Though, her dark makeup is gone, and today’s bodice is sleeveless, exposing a bandage wrapped around one bicep.
“There is no shame in affection or joining with another. It is natural. It is good.” Her head tilts to one side.
“Especially since you are human and my brother is our king. Already the land feels more alive, even without you bearing his mark.”
“The land.” My gaze trails back to the pots on the ground before me. “That’s why these are sprouting already?”
Katiya comes to crouch on the other side of the pots, balancing on the toes of her boots. “Given how close they are to where you two slept...” She glances slowly toward the bed for emphasis, a smirk lifting her lips.
The mischief in her look makes me wish I’d never asked. I groan silently and shake my head.
“They will need light now,” she says more seriously. “I can help you move them.”
“Let’s take them to Vada. She said she had a good spot for them.”
Katiya grabs two of them and rises with enviable ease and grace. I, on the other hand, shove to my feet with a grunt before scooping up the last one. At least she doesn’t nag me on that.
“Why did you come here?” I ask as we head for the door. “Did Eli—Kallan send you to check on me?”
“He worries.”
“About me?”
“About many things but, yes, also you,” she says.
“I’m also to let you know that we will travel to Sliandu this evening.
My brother would like to see if any progress has been made by the researchers there, and he hopes Hallam, our lead scholar, will have information regarding an ingredient you need to help your brother.
Fewli duena tuchiery.” Her face twists up as she says it. “A strange phrase. I do not know it.”
“You know much about potion ingredients?” I ask.
“Very little,” she admits. “But Vada knows multitudes and yet was unfamiliar with that one as well. Perhaps her mate will know it.”
The hallways are dim, with little light coming in through the openings to the gorge. I pause to look out, frowning at the hazier-than-normal sky.
“A storm?” I ask, hurrying to follow Katiya.
She turns to me with a wry expression on her face. “Sunset.” At my startled look, she laughs. “You slept a long time. Must have been quite comfortable.”
Despite what must have been a harrowing night and exhausting day tending to the injured, Vada is exuberant when Katiya and I find her in her workroom.
The round room is laden with curved shelves stocked full of various vials, bowls, and jars, the glass ones containing liquids, pastes, and objects in a rainbow of colors.
Dried herbs and plants hang from hooks in the ceiling, so thick they almost obscure all sight of the stone.
Work tables are pushed against the wall, and two others sit parallel in the center of the circular space.
Vada nearly leaps off her stool with more ease than any human of comparable age could muster, completely abandoning the myriad of bowls she’d been squinting at and the slightly smoking substance warmed by a candle underneath its tray.
Hastily, she wipes her hands on the apron over her clothes, her eyes widening as she stares at what I hold. “Your plants sprouted too! Marvelous!”
“Too?” My forehead wrinkles in confusion.
“Come. You must see.” She grabs my arm, tugging me with her so quickly that I jog to keep up and nearly lose my grip on my precious, potted sprout. Her long, pale hair trails in a braid behind her, fluttering in the breeze created by her wings.
The sunlight no longer reaches into the garden, leaving it shadowed and most of the plants nothing more than dark shapes to my eyes.
But the difference from a day or so ago is startling.
It takes no expert eye or sunlight to see that the plants have grown—maybe not dramatically but far more than should be possible in less than 48 hours.
Just like my sprouts. Katiya comes to a stop at my side, a look of smug satisfaction on her face as I stand there dumbstruck.
Vada releases me before fluttering over to a nearby plant and crouching beside it. “See how much larger the leaves are on those you transplanted?”
“It’s incredible,” I say, still gaping at the life sprawling out before us. The row I planted doesn’t look that different to me from the ones Vada did, but even so, any noticeable growth so quickly is a miracle in itself.
“I had a good feeling.” Vada beams with pride.
“Where should we put these?” Katiya asks, still holding my pots.
“Oh, here, give them to me. I know just the spot for optimal light.” Vada manages to take all three at once and flutters a few feet off the ground, landing gracefully amid the plants without rustling so much as a stem.
She checks the sky, sets the pots, adjusts them, then nods once before using her wings to drift back to us over the plants.
“I shall keep a watch over them while you are in Sliandu.”
“You know about that?” I look between her and Katiya as we walk back to her workroom. Vada nods. “But you’re not coming? Isn’t your mate there?” Vada’s presence has become a comfort in the short time I’ve known her, and I sense it is to Elias and Katiya as well.
“I am of more use here.” Vada lets out a deep sigh.
“The tasks at hand are more important than our longing. We shall be together again and our affection all the greater for how long it has been denied.” Despite the somberness of her comment, she smiles, her wings giving a soft flutter as she settles back on a stool near the table she’d been working at when we arrived.
After being in the clean air outside, the number of scents teasing my senses in the workroom is startling.
I imagine it’s only worse for someone like Katiya, who apparently has a strong enough sense of smell to scent me on her brother…
I flush again at that thought and the ones that accompany it from the night before. Hopefully, no one here can read those.
Katiya inquires after some tonics, and Vada sends one of her assistants off to fetch them. The two women are still in discussion when they suddenly draw quiet mid-sentence and turn toward the door.
Katiya adjusts her stance and grabs my wrist, attention unwavering.
The fine hairs along my arms rise. “What is—”
My question is answered by the figure that fills the threshold, glaring at us. Orek’s lips curl back in disgust, baring the lengths of two tusk-like teeth that extend over his lip. He’s dressed for war, leather armor strapped across his barrel of a form.
Katiya’s voice is icily calm. “Why are you in here, Orek?”