Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
CAIRN
I find Therin alone in the common room. The fire has burned low, and he’s nursing a drink with his feet propped on the chair across from him. He looks up when I enter, and the smirk he gives me makes it clear he’s been waiting for me to show up.
“I need you to return to the camp.”
“Good evening to you too.” He doesn’t move his feet, so I shove them off the chair with my knee. “I’ve had a lovely meal. Thank you for asking.”
“Therin.”
His smirk widens. “Tomorrow, you say?”
“First light.” I sit down. “Go back and figure out who will do well at leading the camp. Then tell them to prepare to move out. Kaelith will have everything ready in seven days for the first group to leave.”
“Understood.” He sips his drink, eyeing me over the rim.
I sigh. “Out with it.”
“I assume you’ve heard about your pet’s new occupation.”
“What are you talking about?”
He snickers. “She’s been working in the kitchen.
Sharla has her peeling vegetables. Apparently she’s terrible at it.
Cuts them too thin, slices her fingers more often than not.
” He straightens and sets down his ale. “But she keeps showing up. Every morning for the past two days, she’s there, hacking away at potatoes like they’ve personally offended her.
I wonder if she’s imagining your face.” His grin widens.
“The princess who was going to put an arrow through your heart, elbow-deep in potato skins. There’s a song in there somewhere. ”
“Do you have a point to all this?”
“Several.” He leans forward. “She’s trying, Cairn. She doesn’t have to. She could stay in her room and keep out of the way, but she isn’t. She’s terrible at it, but she’s trying. And you’ve been avoiding her like she’s carrying plague since I brought her back.”
“I haven’t been—”
“Breakfast before dawn. Dinner after midnight.” He counts each avoidance off on a finger.
“You’ve taken three different routes to this room in the past two days, depending on where she is.
” He stands, stretching. “I’m not judging …
Well, no, actually I am. But I’m also leaving in the morning, so it’s not going to be my problem. ”
“How very fortunate for you.” My voice is dry.
“Isn’t it?” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “Whatever happened between you two—”
“What happened is not relevant.”
“—hiding from it isn’t going to make it go away.” He grins at my expression. “I’ll see you at dawn, Eldráfn.”
He’s almost to the stairs when I speak again.
“Tell Nella her mistress is safe and well.”
The grin fades slightly, replaced by a more genuine smile, and he nods, then continues his way up the stairs.
Therin leaves at first light. I watch from the window of the meeting room as Kaethros forms beneath him, and then they’re gone.
Vel finds me there an hour later.
“I assume there’s a reason you didn’t send the female back with Therin?”
She closes the door behind her and moves into the room, circling the table. I wait. Vel never approaches anything directly when she’s angry. She chooses her moment.
“I used to dream about getting out.” She trails one finger along the edge of the map.
“Every night I’d close my eyes and imagine what I’d do when the collar came off.
Who I’d kill first. How I’d make them pay.
” She stops at the corner opposite me. “Do you remember the huntmaster who had the daughter? She used to come and watch when they dragged fae out for a modification. She was twelve years old, maybe thirteen, and stood at the fence eating candied nuts while they screamed.” Her mouth twists.
“I spent decades imagining what I’d do to her if I ever got free. ”
I remember that girl. Blonde ringlets, a laugh like shattering glass. Her father gave me to her for her use before she married. To ‘teach her how to keep her husband happy.’
“I don’t think about that anymore. The hatred burned down to something colder a long time ago.” Vel looks up, meeting my eyes. “But it’s still there. And every time I look at your human, I feel it stirring.”
I could tell her that Alleria isn’t like that huntmaster’s daughter, or the other noblewomen and men who visited the cages. But she won’t believe it, so I stay silent.
“Do you think she’s different? That one night between her legs will change what she is?
She came to kill you, Cairn. And now she’s staying, and you’re what?
Hoping she had a change of heart?” She leans forward, lips curled back from her teeth.
“What happens when she gets tired of playing victim? When she’s cold and hungry and remembers her palace, and her servants?
What happens when her father begs for her to return home in exchange for our lives? ”
“Are you done?”
“No.” Her palms flatten against the table. “I’ve followed you without question. Every decision you made, I have supported. But this—" She shakes her head. “I don’t trust her. I will never trust her. And if she costs us even one life, I’ll kill her myself.”
“You won’t touch her.” The words come out as a low growl.
“Then give me a reason not to.”
I could remind her who I am. I could order her to step down, and she’d have to obey me. But she’s earned more than that.
“The Nightwild magic is claiming her.”
Vel freezes.
“It started weeks ago. I thought it was the connection I forced on her when I used her blood to break my collar.” I hold her gaze. “It’s not. The magic is weaving her in the same way it wove you. The same way it wove in Therin, and Serath, and the others.”
“No.” She steps back from the table. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“You have to be. The magic wouldn’t—” She shakes her head again. “She’s human. It doesn’t work that way. It’s never worked that way.”
“I know what it is, Vel.”
“You’re wrong. It must be a trick. It’s not possible.”
“I didn’t think so either. But the thread is there. The same one that connects me to you.”
“No!” Her voice is harder. “The magic that binds us? That’s ours. It doesn’t belong to some human who was ready to kill you little more than a month ago.”
“I’m not asking you to accept it.” I keep my voice soft. “I’m telling you what is happening.”
She stares at me, fingers curled into fists.
“You’re wrong,” she says again, but she’s less certain this time. “You have to be.” She spins away, stalking toward the door. “I don’t trust her, Cairn.”
“I know.”
She leaves without another word, slamming the door behind her.
I tip my head back against the chair when she’s gone, closing my eyes. Vel isn’t wrong to be horrified. If someone had told me that the Nightwild magic would reach for a human, I wouldn’t have believed them either.
But it has. And if I want to figure out what it means, I can’t keep avoiding Alleria.
I leave the meeting room and walk along the hallway to her room. The door isn’t locked, so I push it open without knocking and walk in.
She’s asleep, curled on her side with her hair spread across the pillow.
The blanket has slipped during the night, baring one shoulder and the thin shift she’s wearing.
The collar at her throat catches the early light—my magic, wrapped around her skin.
I ignore the surge of possessiveness that rises at the sight.
With nothing more than a thought, a pile of clothes appears on the end of her bed—undergarments, pants, a tunic, thick socks, and boots sized to fit her.
I could let her sleep. Come back in an hour when she’s had time to wake up on her own. Instead, I kick the side of the bed.
“Get up.”
She jerks awake with a gasp, her body turning rigid and her eyes flying open. For a heartbeat, there’s nothing on her face but blind, animal panic. Then she focuses on me and the fear drains away, replaced by confusion.
“Cairn?”
“Get up. It’s time to train.”
She pushes herself upright, shoving tangled hair out of her face. The shift has ridden up during the night and twisted around her thighs. She tugs it down with a sharp motion before looking at me again, blinking rapidly.
“Training? What?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
She stares at me, lips slightly parted while she works through what I’ve said. I nod toward the clothes. Her eyes move to them, then back to me.
“It’s been two days. You haven’t looked at me. You haven’t spoken to me. You won’t even be in the same room with me if you can help it. And now you’re standing in my bedroom telling me to get dressed so we can … train?”
“That’s right.”
“Get out!” She throws a pillow at me.
I sidestep it. “No.”
Her chin comes up. There’s a flush spreading across her cheeks.
I’m not entirely sure whether it’s anger or embarrassment.
I wait, curious to see if she’ll dig her heels in and try to wait me out, forcing me to either leave or drag her out of bed myself.
I can’t say I’d be displeased with the latter option.
She does neither. Instead, she throws the blanket off her legs and stands. Then she holds my gaze, waiting for me to turn and give her privacy the way any decent person would.
She seems to have forgotten that I’m not decent.
So, I stay where I am, and let my eyes run over her.
The shift ends mid-thigh. I can see the marks I left on her—the fading bruise on her hip where I gripped too hard, the shadow at her collarbone where my teeth bit down, the string of bites up her throat.
She reaches for the hem, then hesitates.
“You’re really not going to leave while I dress?”
“No.”
Her mouth flattens into a thin line, and she pulls the shift over her head and drops it on the bed, then stands there, in the morning light, completely bare. Her chin is lifted, her shoulders thrown back, and she meets my eyes with a challenge of her own, daring me to react.
I don’t.
The flush spreads down her throat to her chest, and her breathing quickens despite her efforts to control it. There’s a quick burst of emotion through the bond that ties us. She’s waiting for me to break. To cross the room and put my hands on her again.