Chapter 21 #2
She shakes her head, but doesn’t actually say anything.
I have to physically bite my tongue to keep from blurting out an avalanche of questions. They have seven children, and another on the way, but they’re not together?
In Fae culture, that’s practically unheard of. Literally, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone doing that, ever.
Fae don’t have many children in general—perhaps one every two hundred years or so. Large families are rare, and it’s even more rare to hear of an unbonded couple with children.
My curiosity is running away with me, but I force myself to keep my mouth shut. The last thing I need is to offend them so soon.
“I’ve always been terrible with titles,” I say sheepishly. “Maybe it’s because I live with the king and queen of Vernalis, but no one ever talks to them like they’re royal.”
The women look startled. “You live with the king and queen?”
“Yes. Well, maybe you could say they live with me, because I lived in the house first. I guess it is Daemon’s by birthright, but he wasn’t there for the last handful of decades so.
..” I trail off, noticing how their expressions have shifted from curiosity to confusion, maybe even wariness.
This probably isn’t the moment to mention that my late father was a king, or that technically, Daemon is sort of my uncle.
I clear my throat and try to bring the conversation back around to comfortable territory. “So, is your alpha feeling better?”
“I believe so,” Inga says, not looking especially worried about it.
I struggle with myself. Again, I’m dying to ask about her relationship with Kai. I’ve never been good at holding my questions and opinions inside.
To my relief, at that moment, we’re interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. We all look up at once to see Runa standing at the edge of the clearing. She freezes when she spots us, her shoulders tensing in the same way mine probably did when I first stumbled upon this occupied spring.
I lift my hand in a small wave. Runa’s eyes widen, and without a moment’s hesitation, she spins on her heel and disappears back into the trees.
I sigh. “That woman hates me.”
Inga shoots me a meaningful glance and presses her fingers to her lips. I raise my eyebrows. Runa is nearly fifty yards away, and they think she can still hear us? If so, the wolves hearing is considerably better than I realized.
Liv waits another minute until Runa is out of sight, then leans over to Inga and whispers under her breath. “Why isn’t she out in the field?”
Inga barely moves her lips, when she whispers back. “Pregnant?”
“For her sake I hope not,” Liv says, and they exchange meaningful looks.
“Is pregnancy the only reason any of you would miss training?” I ask. “What if you were hurt?”
“What about it?” Liv asks, not unkindly.
“Like, Kai—er, the alpha—he didn’t train right after he burned his face.”
Liv grimaces. “Of course he did. We’ll risk ourselves, just not the children.”
Again, she and Inga share a meaningful look, and I assume they might have slipped back into silent communication again.
“I doubt Runa hates you,” Liv says abruptly. “She really isn’t that bad if you get to know her.”
“So it’s the magic, then?” I say gloomily.
“No…” Inga muses. “I doubt that’s it either. I think she thinks you hate her.”
“Why would I?” I ask
I brace myself, expecting Inga to say that Runa and Fox had a relationship at some point—that’s the conclusion I’ve come to anyway. In which case, I probably wouldn’t hate her…not exactly. It’s not like I’d have any right to.
I am not expecting Inga to say, “Well, it’s sort of because of her that your mate got sent to Dyaspora…I think it would be understandable if you resented her a little, even though it obviously wasn’t her fault.”
I look up sharply. “What?”
Inga looks taken aback. “Wait, you don’t know?”
Damnit. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but if we were really mates, surely Fox would have told me. If I say I don’t know what she means it will look incredibly suspicious.
“I know what happened, I just didn’t realize it was Runa,” I invent wildly.
To my relief, Inga looks like that makes sense. “Ah, well, that’s her. She probably thinks you despise her, but if you showed that you don’t blame her for it then I think she would warm up.”
I have no idea if I would blame Runa for what happened because I don’t know what happened. I’ll have to ask Fox later.
Still, I smile and nod. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
My questions for Fox remain unanswered as he fails to return—not just for the first night, but the second as well.
One night away seemed reasonable, but two? On the second night I toss in the empty bed, telling myself it’s merely that I’m anxious to be left alone in the unfamiliar camp which is keeping me awake, not the absence of his warmth beside me.
By the morning of the third day, worry is truly gnawing at me.
I find Liv and Inga again, this time sitting around the fire, and spend most of the day listening to their stories of hunts they’ve been on and playing with Inga’s adorable red-haired toddler, Skai. I feel slightly better neither of them is worried that Fox’s hunting party is taking too long.
“This always happens,” Liv says. “Dagfinn always says he’ll be back by dinner and sometimes he’s gone for a week.”
“Is Dagfinn your mate?”
She laughs bitterly. “No.”
She doesn’t elaborate and I’m too afraid of upsetting her to ask.
Later in the evening, I run into Kai on the way back to my tent after dinner. He grins and gives me a friendly wave, so I change directions, jogging over to him. “Hi. How are you feeling?”
“What?” Kai’s brow furrows, twisting the scarred and burned side of his face. “Oh, this? Fine. That side was already such a mess I hardly even notice.”
“Good. I’m glad it wasn’t the other side.”
“As am I.” He looks suddenly serious and is pensive for a moment before he smiles again. “I’m glad to have run into you. I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Of course.”
He glances over his shoulder, frowning. “Better take a walk if you don’t mind.”
Kai leads me away from the camp until we’re standing on the empty practice field. “I was wondering what you know about curses.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Curses? What do you mean?”
“How do they work?”
“Any particular reason?”
He shrugs, but doesn’t answer, clearly waiting for me to elaborate. The cold wind picks up and I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I’d brought my cloak.
“That’s a difficult question to answer,” I say finally. “A ‘curse’ isn’t any particular type of magic, it’s just a term for how those affected feel about the magic.”
Kai’s brow furrows. “You’ve lost me.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, not sure how best to explain.
“All living beings have the ability to use magic. Some are greater than others, of course. Some creatures use it without ever practicing, but most humanoid creatures like Fae, shifters and humans would have to learn how. Fae have a stronger affinity toward magic than humans do, for instance, but we still have to be taught how to use it from a relatively young age or it’s impossible to learn later in life. ”
“In Ellender there’s a lot of variation on how magic is taught, especially between the kingdoms. Usually children in Vernallis are taught will-based magic, meaning they could cause a tree to split in half just by willing it to, but they likely could not turn the tree into a boulder.
For that sort of magic you’d have to find someone from Solistine.
And if you wanted a second tree to grow from nothing you would need someone trained in Hydratta. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of,” Kai says, running a hand through his hair. “What type of magic do they teach the Fae in Thermia?”
“I’m not sure, I haven’t met a lot of people from Thermia. I assume they’re not teaching anything now that it’s outlawed.”
Kai strokes his beard looking pensive. “So you’re saying a curse isn’t a type of magic, anything could be a curse if its effects were negative.”
“Essentially, yes. But what is all this about?”
“I just wanted to know how a curse is usually broken.”
“That depends on the spell. There was a curse on Vernallis for over a hundred years which was tied specifically to the king. He had to give up the thing he valued most in order to break it, but it turned out that the magic was vague enough that any king of Vernallis could break it, not just the specific one originally intended.”
“Right…” Kai mutters, sounding distracted. “But is there an easier way?”
“Easier, how?”
“What would happen if you killed the person who cast it?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t know. It might break the curse, but it might not. I think it might depend on if the curse was specifically tied to that person.”
“Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that it was.”
“Again, it’s hard to say without knowing exactly what you’re talking about…I would guess that if the person who cast it was directly tied to the curse, then their death might break it, but unless you tell me what you’re talking about there’s really no way for me to know for sure.”
Kai looks frustrated for a second, but then plasters a smile on his face. “Alright. Thanks for trying to help, Aurelia.”
“I can help more if you explain—”
“No, no. This was enough. You should go back to the camp. It’s cold out.”
Before I can ask anything else, Kai jogs back toward the light of the many tents, leaving me to trudge after him alone.
The following day, Fox finally returns.
It’s late afternoon when he appears on the crest of the hill overlooking the training field, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched. There are four men, including Viktor, flanking him. All of them look equally exhausted.
I drop my training sword in the snow and run to him, telling myself that this is just part of pretending to be mated. It’s not real; I’m not actually so relieved to see him I could faint.
Fox looks startled when I throw myself at him, but he recovers quickly enough.
Within a heartbeat, his arms encircle me and lift me off my feet.
His performance is good enough that I’m sure it will convince anyone watching that he’s overjoyed to be reunited with his mate.
I’m half convinced, even though I should know better.
Before he left, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted from Fox, but spending the last few days alone has put things in a new perspective.
The mark on my neck is fading, which means Fox will have to bite me again either tonight or tomorrow.
Just thinking about that is almost painfully arousing.
I’m bored and lonely, and our forced proximity combined with the promise of at least one mind blowing orgasm means that I can’t focus on anything else.
Unfortunately, as Fox carries me back to the tent, it’s clear that he’s not having the same problem. Whatever he’s thinking about is obviously worlds away and far more serious than our messy relationship.
He puts me down the moment we step inside the tent and immediately strides over to the paper on the desk.
Are you alright?
I frown.
Yes. Why? Are you?
He shakes his head looking exhausted, and sure enough scribbles one word below my last question, then hands me the quill back with a weary expression. I bend to read his messy scrawl:
Tired.
Did the hunt go well?
Got the wyvern. Joran died.
I blink down at the name for a second, panic rising even as I’m unable to put a name to the face. I don’t know who that is. Should I?
I shake my head in confusion, mouthing “who?”
Fox sighs and writes:
Doesn’t matter. I just met him the other day, but he was a good fighter. Didn’t deserve to die.
I’m sorry.
He shrugs, and immediately his expression turns blank and unreadable.
“You should get some sleep,” I say out loud.
“We have to go to dinner,” he replies, seemingly too tired to point out that we shouldn’t speak out loud.
“I’ve gone to dinner by myself for the last three nights, I’ll be fine.”
He looks skeptical, like he wants to argue about it, but again seems too exhausted to bother. He just nods once and begins stripping off his armor.
He pulls off his shirt with one hand, and I watch the muscles of his back shift beneath his skin. Usually I’d flush at the sight of Fox with his shirt off, but tonight all I see is exhaustion and grief in the rigid set of his shoulders.
I take a half-step forward, then stop. My fingers twitch at my sides. I’m tempted to wrap my arms around his waist and press my face to his spine. He looks like he needs it.
But then what? What if he stiffened further at my touch? Or worse—what if he didn’t? What if he turned and pulled me against him, and I had to face how badly I wanted that comfort too?
We don’t have that kind of relationship. It’s not my job to comfort Fox, and I doubt he would want me to, anyway. Still, I linger by the tent flap for three more heartbeats before slipping outside, leaving him to his grief.