Chapter 7 Elowen
ELOWEN
The village is quieter around me now. Not exactly peaceful, but careful somehow. The kind of silence people adopt when they believe danger might be listening.
I feel it everywhere I go.
Conversations pause when I approach the well.
Mothers pull their children a little closer when I pass.
Doors close more quickly than they used to.
Some villagers pretend not to see me at all, their eyes sliding away as though simple avoidance might spare them whatever curse they believe follows in my wake.
Even some people refuse my help in healing.
Others stare openly. Suspicion has settled over Briarthorn like a low fog. But suspicion alone is not what occupies my thoughts. It is the pattern.
Three fires in two days. Garruk in the alley. Ravik’s hay shed. The merchant’s stall in the square burst into flame shortly after he grabbed my hand yesterday morning.
I did not see the fire start. By the time I heard the shouting and turned back, smoke was already pouring into the air.
But I felt it.
The same strange heat that has begun to pulse beneath my ribs whenever my emotions surge too sharply. And every time it happens, the same thing precedes it. Fear. Not irritation. Not anger. Fear.
The realization follows me through the morning like a quiet echo. By midday I decide to test it.
The bakery sits near the center of the village, a narrow shop with wide windows that spill warm light across the street. The smell of fresh bread drifts into the square, rich and comforting in a way that almost makes the tension in my chest ease. Almost.
Inside, the baker looks up from behind his counter as the door opens. I chose him particularly. He is always rude, and I am sure he will be especially nasty, now that the rumors about me are circulating.
His expression tightens immediately.
“Not selling curses today, are you?” he mutters.
I close the door behind me slowly.
“No,” I say. “Just came here for bread.”
The baker snorts under his breath. “Best be careful who you touch in here.”
The words are meant to provoke. I feel the small flare of irritation rise in my chest, but nothing else follows. No heat. No tightening of the bond. That is interesting. I step closer to the counter.
“Two loaves, please.”
He studies me for a long moment before reaching for the bread with exaggerated reluctance.
“You planning on paying?” he asks. “Or is witchcraft the new village currency?”
The insult lands harder. For a moment, I imagine snapping back with something sharp enough to make him swallow those words. Instead, I focus on my breathing. Calm. Controlled.
The same rhythm I use when a patient is bleeding and helplessness would only make the wound worse. My pulse slows. The strange warmth beneath my ribs remains quiet.
“No witchcraft today,” I joke evenly, but he didn’t smile at that.
The baker slides the loaves across the counter with unnecessary force.
“That’ll be four copper.”
I set the coins down. He sweeps them into his hand quickly, as though afraid they might ignite if left on the wood too long.
“You should leave Briarthorn,” he says bluntly. “Before someone decides to solve the problem for good.”
The words are harsh enough that a few other customers glance up from their baskets. I meet his gaze calmly.
“Are you threatening me?”
The baker hesitates. He had not expected that response.
“No,” he mutters finally. “Just giving advice.”
“I appreciate it.”
I pick up the bread. Nothing burns. No heat pulses through the bond. No sudden inferno leaps to life behind the bakery counter. Only the quiet murmur of ordinary village life continues around us.
I leave the shop with my heart beating steadily. Outside, I pause in the sunlight and consider what just happened.
The baker was rude. Openly hostile. But I was never afraid of him. Annoyed, yes. Angry, perhaps. But never helpless. And nothing happened. The thought sharpens my curiosity.
For the next hour, I continue my experiment.
I walk past the tannery where two men whisper about me loudly enough to be heard. I meet their eyes without flinching. Nothing.
Later, when a fisherman mutters something about curses under his breath as I pass, I stop and ask him calmly if he has a medical concern I can help with.
He stares at me as though I have grown horns and quickly backs away. Still nothing. No fire. No surge of infernal heat. By the time I return to the apothecary, the conclusion is beginning to form with uncomfortable clarity.
The bond does not react to anger. It does not answer insults. It does not ignite when I am merely irritated. It answers something far more specific. Helpless terror. The realization sends a slow chill down my spine.
The flames in the alley. The fire in the square. The stall that burned yesterday. Every time, my fear had been sharp and immediate, like an animal cornered with nowhere to run. The bond had answered that. Not rage. Protection.
I set the bread down on the small table near the window and press a hand against my chest. The warmth there pulses faintly in response. As though listening.
“You only come when I’m truly afraid,” I murmur quietly.
The words feel absurd when spoken aloud. And yet the truth of them settles into place with the quiet certainty of a diagnosis finally understood.
Which means something else must also be true. If fear can summon the fire… Then control might be able to contain it.
The thought sends a ripple of determination through me.
Across the bond, something shifts faintly, an answering awareness that feels almost like interest. I lift my gaze toward the cottage window, though I cannot say why.
Some instinct whispers that I am not entirely alone in this realization.
“Then I suppose,” I say softly, “we’re going to have to learn how this works.”
Because if the demon who calls me his mate is tied to my fear…Then the only way to survive Briarthorn’s growing suspicion is to ensure that fear never controls me again.
The thought settles into my mind with surprising clarity. For a long moment I remain standing by the window, my hand still pressed lightly against my chest where the strange warmth of the bond continues to pulse.
It no longer feels frightening. Strange, yes. Unexplainable. But not frightening. Which is perhaps the strangest part of all.
I think back to the first moment I truly saw him, standing in the alley where Garruk had cornered me. The towering horns. The glowing brass colour of his eyes. The impossible heat curling through the air around him.
A creature out of every cautionary tale whispered to children after dark. And yet the memory does not fill me with dread. Instead, something warm stirs beneath my ribs. Safety. The realization makes me blink in mild disbelief.
I lean my shoulder against the wooden frame of the window and stare out at the quiet marsh beyond the cottage. Pale reeds sway gently in the afternoon wind, their soft rustling the only sound breaking the stillness.
When he stands near me, the fear that has followed me these past days disappears entirely.
It is not simply that he protects me. It is something deeper than that.
When he is close, the world itself feels…
steadier. As though whatever chaos the bond threatens to unleash is somehow anchored by his presence.
My thoughts drift back to the way he looked standing in my cottage the night before.
His sheer size should have been terrifying in such a small room.
The dark obsidian of his skin, the faint glowing fractures beneath it, the immense wings folded behind his shoulders.
And yet the thing I remember most clearly is not his power.
It is his eyes. Molten gold. Not wild or monstrous, but sharp, intelligent, watchful. Mesmerizing.
I exhale slowly, realizing I have been staring at the marsh without truly seeing it. The truth presses gently at the edges of my thoughts. I want to speak with him again. Not because I am afraid. Because I need to understand. Because the bond ties us together in ways neither of us fully explained.
And because, if I am honest with myself, his presence no longer feels like something to dread. It feels… necessary. The admission sends a faint warmth through my chest. Across the bond, something stirs in quiet response. I frown slightly. Does he feel that?
The thought makes my cheeks warm unexpectedly. Perhaps that is reason enough to try solving this without him. I straighten from the window and begin pacing slowly across the small room.
A healer solves problems through observation and patience, not by surrendering control to forces she does not understand.
If the bond reacts to fear, then I must learn to control fear.
Breathing exercises. Mental discipline. All things I already teach my patients when pain threatens to overwhelm them.
Surely the same principles can apply here. And yet…
My gaze drifts once more toward the window. Toward the quiet stretch of marsh beyond it. Toward the subtle sense of presence that has begun to feel strangely familiar these past two days.
A quiet certainty settles in my chest. He is nearby. I cannot explain how I know this. The bond simply… tells me. I press my lips together thoughtfully. Perhaps I could learn this alone. But the warmth in my ribs pulses again, stronger this time, as though gently reminding me of something obvious.
This bond does not belong to me alone. I sigh softly and rest my hand over my chest once more.
“If you’re listening,” I say quietly to the empty room, “this would be a very good time to explain a few things.”
The silence that follows stretches just long enough to make me wonder if I imagined the connection entirely. Then the warmth in my chest deepens slightly. And suddenly I am very certain that I am not speaking to an empty room at all.