27. Spellbound quandary
Spellbound quandary
I solde sat by the fire, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. The flames flickered and popped, casting dancing shadows across the walls.
Mia stretched out luxuriously beside her, unconcerned by their meagre surroundings or her rather scandalous state of undress.
“I feel like I haven’t been warm in a lifetime,” she sighed.
The hall was cosy despite the hole in the ceiling. Garren had settled himself down near the doorway and was tending to his armour and weapons. Leif sat by the fire near Mia, ladling a second helping of stew into his bowl.
Luella returned with two empty bowls and a displeased expression. Mia caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, to which Luella responded with the slightest shake of her head.
“Anyone want some more?” Leif asked, oblivious to the exchange taking place. “It’s not the tastiest… but it fills you up pretty good.”
Mia giggled. “I’d rather have something else to – ”
Luella interrupted her. “Triad above, Mia. Is there ever a time when your mind is not in the gutter? Actually… never mind.” She rolled her eyes.
Leif ate his soup, entirely unbothered. Mia laughed, then went to check on her lute.
Isolde felt Felix’s eyes on her, burning like the sun.
She had avoided him for most of the past week, but she wondered if that was only because they had all been too busy being cold and miserable.
Now that they were warm and safe, or as safe as they were going to get, it seemed futile and almost immature.
Before she could stop herself, she looked up and was instantly drawn in, as if his gaze was magnetic.
Her breath caught at the tension in that look, at how impossible it was to break it.
Only when Mia cleared her throat and strummed a few notes on her lute, did Isolde manage to look away from him.
“I’ve been working on a song. I think this might work for the chorus,” the bard said.
Leif looked up from his third helping of soup. “Is this for your song about Lady Isolde?”
Mia’s eyes glittered. “In a sense.”
In a sense? Isolde raised her eyebrows. Mia hummed a few notes, then let her fingers dance across the strings. She struck up a slow, wistful tune.
“Oh, his eyes are clouds of thunder
Oh, her sighs could part the sea
Longing lovers, please release us
from this spellbound quandary…”
Luella burst into laughter. Mia smirked, clearly pleased with herself. Isolde blushed down to the roots of her hair. She would not look at Felix again, absolutely not, but she was sure she felt him tense from across the room. And Mia, curse her, was not done.
“Stars align while minds deny, together yet worlds apart
If only they would see the truth, cease this deception of the heart”
Leif looked abashed. “Um. I don’t know, Mia. I think… this is probably not the time?” Isolde could have hugged him .
Luella snorted. “Oh, I think it’s very good, although ‘together’ feels a little squished in there with the melody you have. Maybe ‘close’ instead? Fewer syllables.”
Mia gaped at Luella. “You people keep on surprising me.”
Luella smiled. “Add something about exasperated companions, too.”
“That’ll be the second verse,” Mia replied cheerfully.
Isolde set her own bowl down with a clang. It was high time to change the subject. “Mia, do you know any songs or stories about the Nexus? Or about magic?”
Mia tapped her fingers against the lute’s wood, considering. “I have plenty of stories about magic,” she said, eyes twinkling in the firelight. “But most of them are about some mage or other who saved a town or won a war.”
“No, not about mages… Are there any that are, um, about magic itself? As an entity?”
“Magic as an entity?” Mia tilted her head questioningly. “Well, there is an old and, in certain circles, rather controversial story about the origins of the Triad…”
Isolde frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the legend of the fourth god,” Mia said, lowering her voice theatrically. The fire cast long shadows as she raised her hands. “The god of chaos, of change. Of magic.”
“The fourth god is dead,” Garren said from across the room. “If there ever was one to begin with.”
Mia shrugged. “Who can say for sure? Some people believe there are no gods at all.” Her eyes flicked briefly in Felix’s direction.
“But the legend says the Triad cast the fourth god out, banished him for disrupting the balance of the heavens with his wild power. As he fell, his wounds bled magic into the world, forming the ley lines.”
Leif’s brow furrowed. “That’s not how the story goes.”
Mia raised an eyebrow, curious. “Oh? How does your story go?”
Leif leaned forward, holding his bowl between his palms. “We don’t have gods the way you do.
To us, it is the earth itself that is divine.
They say there once was a spirit who tried to steal the earth’s heart.
Not out of malice, but because the spirit wanted to be with her, to be part of her.
When he claimed the heart for himself, he couldn’t hold on to its power, and it shattered.
It burst through the world, uncontrollable, and that created the ley lines. ”
“The stories told in Gotvig are similar,” Luella said. “The ley lines appeared when the earth got her heart broken.” Isolde turned to her in surprise; Luella never talked about her homeland.
“Poetic,” Mia said, staring into the fire.
Garren walked over to join them. He stood with arms crossed, face impassive.
“A priest in Lledia once preached that the ley lines were created when a powerful evil spirit tried to ascend to godhood. The Triad killed him for his insolence, striking him down when he refused to give up his power. His body broke apart, and where it fell, magic took root. It spiralled outward into the world, causing chaos wherever it went. Until finally people banded together long enough to control it.”
The fire popped, sending a few embers flying. No one spoke for a moment.
“That’s a little grim,” Leif said eventually, stirring the pot of soup.
Isolde stayed quiet while her thoughts churned. She thought back to what the elder in Leif’s village had told her.
“What about stories of the leytouched?” she asked. “Your elder told me the story of the Aelithar who saved the city of Taerrok, Leif. But are there any other stories about them?”
“I know that one,” Leif said, “but no others…”
Mia made a face. “I have a few, but they all feature leytouched as villains. Dangerous, unpredictable. Monstrous sometimes. In Red Roderick’s Revenge, the leytouched has horns and a tail.”
From across the room, Isolde heard Felix snort.
She dug through her memories, trying to remember books and stories she had read, but like Leif, nothing came to mind.
“I am not sure if it is actually about a leytouched…” Luella began, breaking the silence.
“But the people of Gotvig have a story about a spirit healer who sought refuge with animals, because he was being hunted by mages. He turns into a bear in the end, or a dolphin, depending on who tells it. But now that I think about it , this ‘spirit healer’ may well refer to a leytouched person. He was ‘marked by magic’ and could heal at a touch.”
Isolde looked into the fire, frowning.
“It is curious, isn’t it,” Mia said, her voice slow and weighty, “that the stories about leytouched from folk who have no mages are so vastly different from those of folk who do…” She let the comment hang in the air, and silence followed it as everyone was occupied with their own thoughts.
“Stories are stories,” Garren said. “History is another matter.”
“History is just stories people told loud enough to drown out the rest,” Mia countered quietly.
When Isolde lay curled up in her blessedly dry bedroll later, Mia’s words kept repeating themselves in her mind. How much of what people accepted as history was the actual truth? And how much truth could be found in what they dismissed as mere stories?
***
Isolde woke up in the dark hours before dawn, startled awake so suddenly that she was certain they must be under attack.
But when she sat up and looked around, everything was quiet.
The fire burned low, and the sounds of rhythmic breathing told her everyone was asleep.
Isolde moved to lie back down, but her eyes caught on Felix’s still form in the corner, away from the others.
She didn’t know if it was Mia’s teasing song or Luella’s exasperation, or something else entirely, but before she could examine her motivations too thoroughly, she got up and crept over to where he slept.
Felix lay on his side, one arm pillowed beneath his head. He looked younger in sleep, almost, his face serene and calm. Tentatively, she reached out. Before she could touch him at all, his hand clamped around her wrist, so fast it was a blur. She yelped, blue sparks flying.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“You startled me!” she hissed back .
“You’re the one sneaking up on me in the dead of night,” he deadpanned as he let go of her wrist.
She blushed, looking down. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Felix sat up and looked over towards the others, rolled up in their blankets near the fire. He ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Is this an ‘if I can’t, then nobody can’ type of situation?”
She smiled. “No… I, ah… I just wanted to talk to you.” A blush crept onto her cheeks, and she hoped it was too dark for him to notice.
She stood up and beckoned for him to follow.
He hesitated, but then padded after her as she led them through the side door into the base of the tower.
It was dim and quiet, with a curved stone stairway leading up, only to be blocked by rubble halfway up to the top.
She summoned a small flame for light, then turned to find him looking at her in wry amusement.
Isolde stared down at her feet, suddenly worried how this might appear. “Sorry, I –”
“No, I’m glad you woke me up. I wanted to talk to you, too.”
“Oh?”
He sighed and sat down on the stone stairs, leaning his elbows on his knees. He opened his mouth, then closed it again and frowned. Isolde waited, arms wrapped around herself.
“I’m sorry, Isa,” he murmured finally. “For what I said. I will not lie; I still want us to get away from all this. But I’m sorry if that made you think even for a moment that I wasn’t in this with you.
If you insist on going to the Nexus, then we’re going.
Whatever you need to do, I’ll be there.” He looked up and flashed a crooked smile. “Wouldn’t miss any of the fun.”
There it was, just like that. All the hopes and dreams and wants she’d built up, all the feelings she’d locked away so carefully when she told him to leave her alone, came tumbling back out, and her mind was positively shrieking with relief.
Isolde struggled not to let the shock show.
She stepped closer; her legs almost touching his knees, her eyes glued to his face .
He reached out and took one of her hands in his own, stroking the pad of his thumb along the blue line on her skin. She shivered, and a tiny trail of sparks followed in his wake.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly. “For ignoring you these past days. And that I didn’t believe you. About… about my father. I know you wouldn’t make up something like that.”
“I’ll never hurt you, so it doesn’t matter.”
She did not respond right away. “No,” she finally agreed, “it doesn’t.”
Felix pulled her closer, gently but insistently.
Then his other hand was on her hip, and the next thing she knew she was being drawn down onto his lap, straddling him.
He was enticingly warm, and she leaned in without thinking, her arms finding their way around his neck as if they belonged there, as if they’d done this a hundred times before.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He grinned widely. “What does it look like?”
Tingles spread outward over her skin, causing her to shiver. She bit her lip as his hands roamed down her back, fingers trailing along her spine.
“Will you really come with me?” She said, her voice fragile in her own ears. “No matter what? You’re not just saying that so…”
Felix stilled, his head tilted a fraction. “So? So… what?”
She was suddenly very aware of the way she was sitting. A flash of heat surged through her, and she squirmed on top of him. “You know.”
His grin turned wicked. “Do I? I don’t have the faintest idea what you mean.”
She pursed her lips, and he laughed quietly. “Isa. I would be a bloody liar if I said I didn’t want to. But if that’s all I wanted, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying there are significantly easier, less lethal ways.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “Hm. I suppose.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then trailed his hand down the side of her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“I’m with you,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “No matter how, no matter what. ”
He traced the edge of her jaw with his thumb. Isolde’s heart was racing, threatening to burst out of her chest, her breathing uneven and shaky.
She heard him exhale slowly, then, “Can I kiss you?”
Her eyes opened to find him leaning forward, his face inches from hers. She nodded.
He cradled the back of her head, fingers sliding into her hair, gently drawing her closer.
When their lips met, it was merely a brush, soft as the touch of a feather.
A small noise escaped her, and he pulled her flush against him with a sound that was more growl than anything else, a sound she felt in her entire body.
Kissing him again was everything Isolde had imagined it would be, heady and intoxicating.
Exhilarating and new yet achingly familiar.
Magic coiled around them, not wild or erratic, but slow and gentle as a caress.
As if it approved and liked him as much as she did.
She trailed kisses down his jaw, and he struggled to stifle a groan, tightening his grip on her waist. In response, she rocked her hips against the now very noticeable evidence of his arousal.
“Stop,” he hissed, “they’ll hear us.”
“Let them,” she murmured. “They had their fun at our expense.”
His reply sounded strangled as his hands slid down the curve of her hips. “And you’re planning to take revenge by having fun at theirs?”
She barely hesitated. “Yes.”
If she was falling back into his arms too quickly, too easily, after being so stubborn about it, Isolde didn’t care. She wanted it all. To claim her magic for herself, and to claim him, too. She could not remember ever wanting anything more in her life.