21. Winter
Raven rested in a drug-induced slumber in the next room, too weak and too damaged to be moved from Camilla’s workbench to a proper bed upstairs. Winter held his distance despite the internal itch to perch at her side, hold her hand, and will healing upon her.
But his magic had never included healing. Even before the curse and the mana dimming.
Sitting at the kitchen table, he leaned back in his chair and, through the opening between the rooms, watched her from a distance.
Camilla’s twin girls, Myla and Kira, sat beside Raven, twisting and braiding her long, dark hair. A pile of blood-soaked sheets littered the floor, along with several pieces of Raven’s discarded clothing. He’d had to cut them free in order to treat her many wounds.
And there were many.
A lot of nonthreatening abrasions, and two rather concerning lacerations.
Attending near-fatal injuries was not the way Winter envisioned maneuvering any female out of her clothing.
He couldn’t imagine what would have caused the palace guards to fire upon her the way they had. She’d never looked exceptionally threatening to him, especially not now, battered and broken as she was.
Had the years of isolation made the guards dangerously skittish in the face of a stranger?
And how had she, a newcomer to his city, found her way to the guarded gates in the first place?
The situation only fueled his desire to learn more about her. Clearly neither human nor fae descendant, she was… What was she? Who was she? Did the spelled ammunition used by the palace guards have a higher potent effect on her kind than on others?
What kind of magic sparked in her blood?
He had captured a gleam of something wholly unfamiliar the other day in the pub when he had dragged his finger along the puzzling line crossing her palm.
When he’d carried her to Camilla’s in her wounded state, he’d sensed that same something tenfold.
The unidentifiable hummed over her body and brushed against his skin.
Caused his magic to tingle. And that unfamiliar something drew his interest all the more.
As if everything else about her wasn’t already a draw. Her soft curves, lush lips, less-than-shy attire, forthcoming take-no-prisoners attitude, and glorious laugh. Although, he hadn’t heard her laugh nearly enough.
Camilla strode into Winter’s view from the hallway, scooped the bloody sheets and clothing into her arms, and carried them away. A few minutes later, she returned as the kettle on the stove began to whistle.
“Change.” She tossed him a clean shirt.
He caught the tunic. “Are you looking for ways to get me shirtless?”
Her gaze slid over him, and for half a beat he thought maybe she wanted exactly that. He shook the thought away and promptly changed, discarding his soiled clothing item.
She sighed, her attention dropping to his left sleeve. Somehow, in the swap, he’d managed to dirty his new shirt with Raven’s blood. Likely happened when he’d caught the tossed item.
Fantastic.
Camilla frowned and turned to the stove, removing the kettle from the fire. His softening gaze followed her movements as she poured the boiling water into two mugs and dropped a tea bag in each.
In the battle to extract the bullets from Raven’s wounds and stitch her back together, many of Camilla’s hairs had freed themselves from her braid in an untidy manner. She shoved them away from her face.
She looked exhausted, annoyed, and as beautiful as ever.
“Your visits usually aren’t this grim.” Although her voice sounded heavy with fatigue, her words felt like a slap to the side of his head.
Guilt over having laid the burden of Raven’s injuries upon her fought to break through the surface of his resolve, yet he refused to give the emotion any leverage.
Despite his surprise and irritation—to name a mere drop in the well of his inner turmoil—at finding Raven as he had, he’d managed to hold his controlled mask in place.
He had a handle on this. Whatever this was.
This thing with Raven and her companions had turned out to be a glorious, intriguing puzzle he would master. Far too much time had passed since he had something new and challenging to set his focus upon.
Especially someone as devilishly stimulating as Raven.
Camilla set a cup in front of him with a heavy hand, and her usual scent of fresh linen and daisies, mingled with hints of rosemary, mint, and sage, fought with the new additions of Raven’s arrival―blood and disinfectant.
“I suppose you expect me to care for the girl until she’s well enough to walk out of here on her own accord? ”
He understood Camilla’s anger. Anger directed at him for bringing Raven here. But in the moment, he hadn’t known what else to do. Carry Raven all the way back to the pub? Allow her to bleed out on the street?
Neither had been an option.
Leaning deeper into the chair arm, he rubbed his chin and stared at Raven in the next room, as if a longer gaze would produce answers to the questions swimming in his head.
He was certain she was no trader. Nor was she a smuggler. The fact that Aoes sensed a familiarity in Chace’s personal energy to something that had visited the citadel some twenty years ago left far too many questions regarding the other members of the party—the old male and Raven.
“Well?” Camilla pushed. “I’m not a healer or some scullery maid.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. But can you please help me?” He met Camilla’s gaze for a split second, then he shifted his attention back to Raven. “Help her?”
“What is she to you anyway?” Camilla crossed her arms and took a seat across from him.
With her lips pursed and her expression pinched, if Winter hadn’t known better, he would have suspected Camilla of being jealous.
A notion he found utterly ridiculous, because she loved another.
Still, she would miss a day of work because of him. And should she agree to help nurse Raven back to health, she would likely miss more days—more wages. He would pay her, of course. It was the least he could do.
But to answer Camilla’s question…
“She’s…”
He studied Raven. Although she slept, the slumber didn’t appear blissful. She jerked and twitched more often than not. How he wished he could see whatever visions plagued her. Her dreams, or nightmares, might answer a few questions—or pose many more.
“A mystery,” he finally replied. “And I haven’t enjoyed a good mystery in a long while.”
“Who has?” Camilla deadpanned. “Aside from…”
She tipped her head.
Aside from the mystery of Winter’s missing brother—father to Camilla’s twins. Winter’s family would never acknowledge the connection. But he did.
His brother August had been missing for ages.
So long, in fact, that Winter liked to believe August had been outside of the citadel when the curse and subsequent defenses were activated.
That he’d managed to live a normal, happy existence beyond the stagnation.
One not trapped in the forever of not dying or not aging.
The only positive Winter could see in the citadel’s current state was if August had still been around, his extracurricular activities wouldn’t have borne him any more illegitimate children because the curse also brought the inability to produce future generations.
The Citadel of Veritas had long ago become both vegetated and deceased.
At least I’m not forever trapped at the tender age of eight, like the twins. Thank the immortal gods for that small favor.
In the next room, at Raven’s side, one of the girls giggled.
Winter shifted his chair so that he could reposition the twins into his view. They’d finished braiding Raven’s hair and had moved to a new vigil position on the far side of her resting body. Since Myla refused to leave Raven’s side, they both remained close.
As twins, the girls shared many things—birthdays, likenesses, mannerisms, clothing, and toys.
As if they shared a brain, they would speak identical words or jump into matching actions at the same time.
But the day Myla fell ill, those many things shifted and changed. Her skin had paled, her eyes glazed.
She’d lost interest in most things outside of drawing, then she withdrew into herself and began using her sister as her communicator and buffer against the world.
Aoes called Myla partly dead, but Winter couldn’t bring himself to think of his niece in that manner.
She was ill, and someday she would get better.
But for now…
Now she studied the air around Raven in such a way that Winter suspected she saw something the rest of them couldn’t. Whether that something existed on a different plane or merely in her head, he had no idea.
Myla waved as if greeting someone unseen, then she swung her arms through the open space beside Raven, like she was trying to disperse a haze.
Raven whimpered. “Not yet,” slipped from her lips.
Winter leaned forward in his seat and clenched his jaw. He stared intently at the room: Raven bandaged and bleeding, the small workbench doubling as a bed, the solemn girls, the open and dim spaces. Nothing visible provided any new answers.
What does Myla think she sees? And what is the truth about Raven?
Camilla rapped her fingers on the wooden table. “I don’t suppose you’re going to stick around and help?”
She didn’t need to specify what she hoped Winter would help with. After all, he’d deposited the broken female in Camilla’s back room, creating the extra burden.
“What do you need me to do?” he countered.
Camilla had, to the best of her knowledge and know-how, patched and medicated Raven. In this situation, he would defer, without question, to her experience and wisdom.
Camilla detailed all tasks in which she believed Winter would be useful and set him to work.