Chapter Ten #2
Morwen quickly scrubs her expression, but there’s no hiding the confusion in her voice. “Useful? I’m not sure I understand. You’re free to use your leisure time as you wish—there are libraries, stables, grounds to venture, though they’re in quite a state these days…”
“Okay, that’s a start.” I pop to my feet, reaching for the thick wool cloak edged and lined in soft, fluffy fleece. “You can give me a tour of the place, and I can make note of what needs doing.”
“A…tour?” Morwen repeats, dismayed.
“Well, I’ve been trying to find my own way around, but it’s been a miracle I’ve made my way back to bed each night,” I say, pulling boots up over my stockings. “Maybe if an expert leads the way, I can make better memory of the routes.”
If Morwen won’t tell me how I can make myself useful, I’ll just have to figure it out myself. I certainly can’t sit around and waste the winter away doing nothing. Time always seems to move faster when I keep myself busy, and right now, I’d give anything to make spring come sooner.
When I asked Morwen for a tour, I had no idea the enormity of the undertaking.
I thought I’d explored a fair bit of the tree castle, but there’s so much I didn’t see.
Endless wings and halls I know I’m going to get hopelessly lost in, many crumbling and blocked by fallen limbs.
Seeing the great branches of this massive tree scattered and broken into pieces makes my heart ache the same as finding a horse with a broken leg, or a fledgling fallen from its nest. I get the overwhelming sense that I should bandage it up and nurse it back to health.
But it’s not a baby bird, it’s a tree the size of a castle. I don’t even know what nursing it back to health would mean.
“And you’ve already familiarized yourself with the kitchens,” Morwen says as we pass through a fog of delicious smells.
Heat flushes through me, but I tamp down the embarrassment.
I can’t be sure the food I’m being served is safe—both for human consumption and in a not-poisoned kind of way—but at least if I grab some spare bread and cheese from the pantry, I can be pretty sure I’ll be okay.
Morwen can try to shame me for that, but it’s just survival.
“So I think that’s about everything,” she says, clearly wanting this impromptu tour to be over with.
“Didn’t you say something about stables? And grounds? We haven’t been outside at all.”
“It’s freezing—”
“That’s why I’m wearing this,” I say, hands in the pockets of my cloak as I hold it out for emphasis.
Morwen looks at me in disbelief, waiting for me to change my mind.
When she realizes that’s not happening, her face twists in displeasure.
She sighs as she wraps a long scarf around her neck, head, and horns, leaving only a small gap for her eyes.
After donning a cloak and stomping into a pair of boots, Morwen leads me out of the castle and into a wall of frozen wind.
The hood of my cloak protects me from the worst of it, but where my face and fingers are exposed, the air seems to slice right down to the bone. Low hanging clouds make the dull, gray sky feel like it’s much closer than it should be, like it wants to swallow us up into its icy mists.
I pull my cloak tighter around me and take in the huge courtyard.
The space between the doors behind me and the castle walls in the distance is probably enough to fit my entire village in.
Morwen quickly ushers me around to the training grounds, gesturing vaguely to places she says are the sparring arena (“no place for a queen”), the blacksmith (“you’ll be covered in soot if we get within spitting distance”), and the temple (Morwen had no comment for this one, but her eyes said plainly enough that it’s not a space for me), and I’m even more overwhelmed than I was inside.
Everything within these walls, every building big and small, is technically part of my home now.
At least until you get back to your real home, I remind myself.
It’s strange how quickly I begin to forget that when I’m not actively thinking about it.
Morwen’s teeth are chattering when she starts to turn back toward the castle. I’m fantasizing about a hot mug of cider thawing my frozen fingers myself when an unusual animal sound catches my interest.
“What was…that?” I turn just in time to see a groom leading an enormous woolly beast toward the stables.
“That’s an ifrak—every bit of your cloak and boots came from a creature like that one. They’re sacred beasts in some parts. Smarter than some folks I’ve known, and the soulbonds they form with their handlers is the stuff of legends.”
The more she talks about the strange creature, the more intrigued I am. Tending the animals was always one of my favorite chores on the estate, and I’ve never seen anything quite like the shaggy-furred mountain.
“Could we stop by the stables?”
I shouldn’t be surprised when Morwen’s nose wrinkles.
“They’ve got an awful stench,” she says.
When that doesn’t seem to dissuade me, she adds, “And their eyes always make me nervous. It’s like they can see into your soul.
Maybe they can. Better appreciated from afar.
” There’s a finality to the way she says that, but as she turns to walk away, I realize I don’t have to accept that answer.
My boots stay planted in place. “Morwen, I would like to visit the stables,” I say, no longer making it a question.
I’m not at all used to people going along with what I say—I can’t even get my own brother to heed my advice—so there’s a part of me that expects her to scoff like Phillip would and stalk off anyway.
Morwen’s jaw clenches, but that’s the only sign I get that I might have touched a nerve. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
Crap. I definitely hit something I shouldn’t have.
It’s bound to happen, so I try not to dwell on it as the sounds of the strange ifraks grow louder. I have to hope that Morwen has a forgiving side buried under those frowns.
“This is as far as I’m going,” she says, stopping a hundred or so paces from the stables.
There’s a large tent set up there with a crackling fire where the grooms can warm their hands and thaw their canteens, and she joins the small group huddled around for warmth, extending her clawed fingers toward the flames.
“I’d tell you not to get too close either, but you wouldn’t listen. ”
I’m positive that sort of candor is not the norm when speaking to prospective royalty, but as I’m still having as much trouble accepting that the label applies to me as everyone else here, I let it slide off my back, heading into the stables alone.
Morwen wasn’t wrong; the stables definitely have a distinct aroma, but it’s one I’m familiar with. As unpleasant as it might be to her, the smell of hay and lanolin and animals warms me up more than the fire outside could manage.
Up close, the ifrak are even larger than I first thought—twice as tall as any horse I’ve ever seen, and broad enough that four men standing shoulder-to-shoulder could not match its size.
The thick coat of fur appears to grow in multiple layers, different types of hair best suited for insulation, water-resistance, and trapping insects that might bite or sting.
Fibers good for spinning and felting alike.
I immediately have dozens of questions about how it’s processed, recalling my conversations with Countess Fenrelle.
Then the ifrak nearest me turns toward the door and I see the pair of curved tusks, each nearly as long as my armspan, points so sharp I have to wonder if it’s the grooms’ doing.
It’s truly a magnificent sight, and when its shaggy head tilts my way, I understand what Morwen meant about its unsettling gaze.
A trio of oversized eyes form an arch over the ifrak’s muzzle, each one a mesmerizing swirl of milky white and pitch black.
There’s no way to know what those eyes are focused on, or if they’re focused at all, and it seems like the animal sees through me and into me, all at once.
“Did you want to meet her, Your Highness?” one of the grooms asks, his voice wavering he regrets the choice to speak.
“Her…? You mean…?” I gesture toward the ifrak’s stall. “I’d love that.”
The groom smiles, his gray-brown face weathered and wrinkled, his horns straight spirals poking from a mess of fluffy white hair that looks an awful lot like the ifrak’s undercoat.
“They’re wonderful creatures,” he says. “Loyal and gentle with their folk, but protective, too. Every so often you’ll hear about bandits who choose the wrong caravan to target and wind up trampled—not that you have to worry about anything like that!
” he adds quickly. “Our herd are real tame, and they have a sense for who belongs. Nobody belongs more than the future queen!” His face flushes and he ducks his head bashfully as he leads me around to the other side of the stable.
“You seem to know a lot about these creatures… What was your name?”
“Visri, Your Highness. And this here is Starcaller,” he says, offering a fistful of hay over the wall of the stall.
The ifrak’s mouth opens, and a long, rough-looking tongue extends, searching blindly in the air until it wraps around the bundle of hay and darts back into the ifrak’s maw.
Visri looks at Starcaller like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen, but when he turns to me and offers a handful of hay, I can’t return the sentiment.
“That’s all right,” I say, taking half a step back. Maybe Morwen had a point this once. Keeping my distance can’t hurt. “I don’t want to upset her.”
Visri accepts that with a sage nod, humming something to Starcaller, adding odd trills and clicks that make the beast’s eyes flutter closed as it sways on its massive feet.
“She’s normally the calmest in the herd, but the closer the delivery gets, the more temperamental she is. Not that I can blame her. She’s been waiting years to have this calf—”
“Years?!” I blurt out, unable to stop myself. I hadn’t even realized the ifrak was pregnant until he mentioned it, and I’m not surprised it takes a long time for her enormous belly to become as swollen as it is, but years? The poor thing.
“They don’t mate often,” Visri confirms, trilling more clicks to Starcaller.
Watching the two of them interact, Visri in complete awe-struck adoration for this creature and Starcaller docile and humming along with him while she sways, I remember something Morwen said.
“Is she… I mean, are you… Morwen mentioned soulbonds.”
With another contented hum, Visri nods, gesturing me toward him. “You can pet her,” he says, scratching the top of her muzzle.
I’ve interacted with dozens of horses, cows, sheep, goats—all manner of livestock, but my heart is in my throat when I step up to Starcaller’s stall. Even with her head bent to her rider, the ifrak’s head is so high that I have to reach as far as I can to pat her velvet-soft muzzle.
I’ve never felt so small in my life. Xandril, the throne tree, the castle itself—all have filled me with an equal amount of awe and trepidation from their sheer size, but the ifrak is different.
It’s big, yes, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Just like those swirling eyes see more than what’s before them, Starcaller’s presence seems to take up more than just physical space.
It feels like something slides into place far-off, maybe back in my own world, and the light in Starcaller’s eyes makes me think she understands it better than I do.
It’s a wonder such a thing can exist in any world. Even more of a wonder that I can be so close to it, scratching its nose while Visri brushes her.
“It’ll be a big celebration when she finally does decide to deliver,” he says, a teasing edge to his voice that’s for Starcaller, not me.
“With how rare their mating is and how long the pregnancy, a calf is a real special occasion. We’ll have a big feast, give thanks to the gods, and many many special treats for Starcaller,” he adds with a laugh.
Starcaller nudges my hand the same way Violet does when she thinks I’m hiding an apple in my apron.
“I think he means future treats,” I explain to her, apologetic.
“Hmm, I might have some present treats,” Visri muses, pulling a bunch of dried flowers from his own apron pocket. “Please,” he says, offering it to me. “I’ve had her slobber on me enough today.”
I do my best to not seem too excited, but I don’t think it works very well. What was first frightening and otherworldly now feels much more endearing, and while I’m still sure her tongue is going to be rougher than a cow’s, I’m practically giddy at the chance to give her a treat.
Wasn’t I full of hesitation just a moment ago? Am I so easily won over with a soft, scritchable nose?
It’s not just that, though. The moment I touched her, I could sense more. Her heart, her soul—there’s nothing but goodness and warmth there. I have nothing to be afraid of. A sensible part of me says I should inspect that feeling closer, be more suspicious, but I shush sensible Ingrid for a while.
Visri’s description of the celebrations and the gentleness of this intimidating creature are both pieces of the same puzzle.
With a few exceptions, very little of what I’ve experienced is what I would expect from a ‘demonic’ society.
Serenity obviously knew what she was talking about when she told me this world could surprise me if I keep an open mind—so what other surprises might be in store for me?
I’m starting to realize this contract doesn’t have to be a prison sentence to endure. It can be an adventure. A thrilling story that keeps me feeling youthful in my old age. A pleasant memory, even.
I’m looking forward to finding out which.