Chapter 20 #2
Her voice became distant—like words spoken into a pillow. A shrill ring in my ears set me reeling. I steadied myself with a hand on the sill, but the world swirled and swirled and…
“Go home, girl,” Almira snapped. “Come back when you are rested.”
I staggered with blurred vision through the bustling streets, pressing the coat’s sleeve firmly against my bleeding palm.
No one paid me much heed, too distracted by their late-afternoon business of drinking tea and eating pastries.
I did not remember climbing the stone steps or passing through Lorell’s garden but I found myself, quite suddenly, stumbling into warmth and sinking into a fireside chair.
Beside me came a rustle. Adrik untangled my palm from the coat and mustered it with a snarl. “Almira did this?”
There was such murder in his gaze, I felt inclined to defend her. “She grows weak,” I murmured. “I must learn quickly.”
“Not by sacrificing your health.”
“Perhaps you should heed your own words, king,” I snapped with a glance at the shadows on his face. I ignored his irritated glower. “If this is the cost of saving the town, I will bear it thrice over.”
Adrik remained sullen while he gathered tinctures and a bandage from the kitchen, but his hands were tender with mine as he cleaned and wrapped the cuts.
“Zora has offered me her spare room,” I said just to ease the tension.
“Ah,” he said with pretend surprise and a pained grimace. Zora must have told him already. “That is nice of her.”
“You are the worst liar I know.”
He groaned. “It feels unpleasant—like pulling a nail from its bed. A matter of the half-faerie blood, I reckon.”
Later, as we dug into the meal Adrik had conjured—honeyed ham, and vegetables served with herbed goat cheese—I noticed Lorell was more withdrawn than usual. He picked at his food and glared unseeingly at the bread basket.
“The baker’s pastries are delicate.”
The compliment came with an unexpected side of venom and brightly flushed cheeks. Lorell flinched a little and attacked his ham with fork and knife, refusing to look up.
“Is that a problem?” I asked cautiously.
He dropped his cutlery with a huff. “It is not a problem, girl. I was simply wondering how he does it. I remember that his hands are large. He is tall and strong. It seems strange that his baking is delicate.”
He resumed his battle against the ham with fervor, leaving Adrik and me to eat for a while in stunned silence. I supposed I’d done Lorell wrong. He possessed, it seemed, not a particular fondness for bread and tartlets, but for the man who baked them.
I stood at dusk in a charming little chamber, glaring at the stick of incense in my mangled palm.
Zora had collected me after supper with a basket of chocolate tartlets. Lorell had accepted them with a thankless grumble and he’d huffed when I slid my arms around his shoulders before I left. I’d not expected it, but he’d returned my embrace with some feeling.
“Thank you,” I’d whispered.
“It was no trouble, girl, no trouble at all.”
We had arrived at sunset at the teahouse, Zora and I, and climbed a winding staircase to her home on the upper floor.
It was a small, bright place of two chambers and a parlor.
The dusklight wove a pink blush into lacy curtains and frilled cushions, and though I’d never been to the chambers of noble ladies, I imagined Zora’s home looked quite like one: gilded flowers adorned the furniture, rose bouquets crowded shelves and tables, and against the far wall stood a richly marbled hearth with two plush chairs.
A pair of flutes played softly as they floated around the parlor and as we walked past, lanterns lit themselves as needed.
Zora had woven her magic into every corner of the place.
Night had fallen while I stood with the incense in hand, staring at the sickly flame in the hearth. Zora had left to let me unpack and I’d come across Adrik’s gift at the bottom of my satchel.
Even unlit, it smelled of lavender and lemon and of the tides.
Twice, I’d almost lit the incense and lost my courage. What if the spirits spurned me still? What if I invited them, but they never answered? What if the hearth remained cold, as it had for six bleak winters?
As strange as a hag and twice as mad.
Frost crept over the window. A hollowness shrouded the room—one I knew well from the aching winters after my mother’s death. When I was little, this hollowness would sometimes come to our house. Then, my mother would sit by the hearth and whisper madly to it—
Until the moon has waned and waxed again.
The thought came sharply. I slid my hand into the pocket of the coat to clutch the still-warm pebble. An echo of mischievous laughter spilled like sunlight through me, thawing the ice in my veins.
Did I wish, in my final days, to do my mother such dishonor? Did I wish to die filled with memories stained with scorn and fear? To let the small-minded folk of the village in the vale have such power over me?
I took the memory with great care, as if it were an old artefact, and I cleansed it from the stain of rumors and whispers.
I found, underneath, something precious, untainted.
And I remembered... I remembered not just that my mother sat by the hearth and whispered madly to herself.
No, I remembered that she wore a soft smile as she sang and that the crackle of the fire rang like music through the house.
I remembered that she and I danced merrily in streaks of mid-winter sun.
The words of the song were long lost to me, but its rise and fall remained etched into my bones.
I hummed quietly, breath turning to mist as I brought the incense to the candle.
I placed it gently on the tiled mantle. Sweet smoke curled in the air.
A deep, lively warmth swept through the chamber and folded itself into every corner.
There was a mirthful crackle as the fire burst to life.
“Welcome,” I whispered to the spirit of the hearth.