Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
AVELINE
The next morning, Nisa, the dressmaker who had made my nightgown, arrived with three lovely dresses, a woolen cloak, and a pair of soft leather boots provided by her cousin, who was a shoemaker.
Now properly clothed, I spent the next week exploring the bustling town of Myrial and the valley around it with Vosten or Toved or both at my side.
Little about this land was similar to my own, from clothing to customs and even Vosten and Toved’s reign.
Unlike the kings and queens of home who ruled in palaces far removed from the lives of their subjects, Vosten and Toved lived in only a half-dozen rooms carved out of the mountainside, helped by a housekeeper and cook.
Rather than holding court and associating only with aristocrats and peers, they were advised by a group of everyday citizens who met with Vosten and Toved several times a week to discuss matters of the realm.
To travel, Vosten and Toved walked or drove a cart, and knew a great deal about everything from farming to blacksmithing and even the duties of archivists and teachers at the college.
Every person I met was as much a giant compared to me as Vosten and Toved. The only challenges and frustrations I encountered were due to my size, but the kings and citizens alike were kind and accommodating in every way. Their kindness proved more difficult to adjust to than our relative sizes.
All my life the people of Halston had subjected me to never-ending whispers, mistrust, and outright hostility.
With only a few exceptions, my family were all but ostracized, though many of the same people who ignored us on the street visited my grandmother, my mother, or me under cover of darkness or by our shop’s back door for medicines and spells.
As a child I had sometimes cried into my pillow in loneliness and hurt. Rather than scold me for my tears or let me weep alone, my mother would lie down beside me, cradle my head against her chest, and explain why our neighbors treated us so unkindly.
“They fear what they don’t understand,” she’d murmured, smelling of herbs and smoke from her altar.
“Some have small minds, and some choose cruelty to make themselves feel powerful. But we have wondrous knowledge, Aveline. Knowledge is true power. Let them think they have authority over us, but truly they have none. Our souls are our own. We are daughters of the Goddess and she watches over us.”
In time, I’d come to peace with my family’s place in Halston, though the loneliness remained. And after my mother passed away, I was truly alone—a quiet, solitary figure who appeared in her shop before dawn and vanished again at sunset to return to her family’s house miles beyond the edge of town.
The people of Myrial, on the other hand, showered me with kindness upon kindness.
I had to learn how to accept gifts graciously and interact with people who treated me not as a pariah but as an honored guest and potential new friend and neighbor.
At first I thought their goodwill was due to my status as a guest of the kings, but within a few days I had to accept that this was simply ordinary friendliness—something I had rarely experienced before.
It was a wondrous week full of discovery, happiness, amazement, and comfort. My favorite part of each day was my nightly meal with Toved and Vosten and then going to sleep warm in the furs with the brothers on either side of me. I had never slept as well as I did in our bed.
Wives Hareta and Paita welcomed me into their herbalist shop with open arms. They were as knowledgeable as my mother and grandmother had been.
Vosten and Toved entrusted me to their care for two full days as I worked in their shop, absorbed their knowledge and shared my own, and learned about the most common plants they used in remedies.
Both nights I came back to the mountain exhausted but overflowing with excitement. Over dinner, Vosten and Toved listened to me chatter about what I’d learned.
In deference to my need to learn more about this realm before I made any decisions, neither brother mentioned their desire to be my sulhai, but it shone in their eyes whenever we spoke and showed in the tender way they held me at night.
I searched for reasons not to stay, or for any hint that this realm wasn’t what they claimed it to be, but found none. I waited to feel homesick, to want with all my heart and soul to get back to the world I knew and understood, to miss anything at all about Halston…but I didn’t.
From the moment I’d woken up in the bed of furs, something about this place captivated me—and not just my hosts. I had no better words for it than the air felt different here. More welcoming. Less harsh.
No sidelong glances and whispers, and no Sir Henry Forbright haunting my steps.
On the ninth night, as I lay between Vosten and Toved, I found I couldn’t sleep despite rising much earlier than usual that morning to join Paita as she gathered a particular flower that only bloomed in the hours before dawn.
My back ached. I’d worked hard all my life, but between my kidnapping, captivity, and long recovery time, I’d been idle for much too long.
My muscles had become unaccustomed to tasks like grinding and sorting herbs.
But it wasn’t just the soreness in my back and shoulders that kept me awake tonight.
“Aveline,” Vosten said, cupping my cheek with his hand. His eyes gleamed in the near darkness. “What troubles you?”
“I love this place,” I said, my throat tight. “But it’s hard to accept that I feel I have nothing to go back to, even if my home and shop are still standing.”
Toved drew me tighter against him, and Vosten kissed my forehead gently.
“When my mother was alive, I had her,” I said. “We shared a home and worked together in the shop, and I loved it very much. But after she died, all I did was survive.”
“There is nothing minor about surviving.” Toved’s voice was firm but kind. “You must not say that all you did was survive. The world can be a hard, cruel place. Survival is a triumph. For a very long time, my brother and I survived. It was all we could do, but it was enough.”
I hadn’t considered that perspective. “You’re right.” I curled my fingers around his enormous hand. “I did survive, long enough to find you.”
“And we did the same.” Vosten cradled my other hand. “My brother and I cannot change your past, but we can do everything in our power to ensure your future is happy, wherever and with whomever that will be.”
Goddess above, they were so tender and kind with me. I felt treasured as if I were a priceless artwork, but they had never treated me as an object. They saw me as a whole person—the only people other than my mother and grandmother who had done so.
After all these wonderful days and nights in their care, why did I still not know for certain what was right and true? What stilled my tongue whenever the words I want to stay tried to come out?
I could think of only one reason, but I couldn’t bring myself to give voice to it. I swallowed hard, closed my eyes, and rested my head against Toved’s chest. The way he rumbled soothed me.
Vosten stroked my back. “Say what is in your heart, Aveline. Please. Whatever you say, we will not be angry or think less of you.”
“I have to know if my home and shop are still standing,” I said, my voice rough. “I want something of my mother’s.”
“Then we will go,” Vosten replied without hesitation. “As soon as you are rested, we will return together through the doorway to Geedhollow.”
Surely they wouldn’t want to see that cursed place again. Not after all they’d suffered. “But you don’t need—” I began.
“Beloved, we are not afraid,” Toved interrupted gently.
He stroked my hair. “We refuse to give the warlock any further power over us. That includes allowing our memories to keep us from accompanying our Aveline to see her home and shop. Returning to Geedhollow as men, especially with you, will feel more like a triumph than a torment.”
“We would never send you alone to face danger.” Vosten kissed the top of my head. “Sleep, and then we will go.”
I wanted to do as they asked, if only so they didn’t worry about me more, but the need to close the door on this haunting question and be able to look forward rather than back had banished every last wisp of exhaustion from my body.
Even in this bed with Vosten and Toved beside me, I would lie awake until the dawn.
“I won’t be able to sleep until I know,” I said, biting my lip. “I’m sorry.”
“You have no need to apologize. I would feel the same in your place.” Vosten rolled smoothly to his feet and drew back the furs so I could rise. “Let us dress for the journey and go.”
When his gaze met Toved’s over my head, his eyes gleamed with a beautiful red glow. “Bring the cursed chains, brother. They may be of use to us tonight.”