Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Okay,” I agree, following her into her bedchamber in a sort of shocked daze. Ingrid has no reason to show me this kindness and every reason to slam her door in my face.
Instead, she sets a kettle of water on the fire, and angles a second armchair toward the one with a knit blanket over the arm.
Both chairs sit near the window, where a half moon lights the frozen landscape.
I wish she could see Emerald in full bloom.
There’s nothing like it. It’s not fair that she’s only seen the worst version of my home.
How can she understand and cherish it as I do when she doesn’t even know its heart and soul?
“What keeps you awake?” I ask when she finally sits after pouring us each a cup of tea.
I doubt she realizes what a blessing the duskthorn will be come tomorrow when I wake without a hangover.
“Truthfully?” she asks, clutching her mug with both hands, her knees pulled up with her feet on the seat cushion.
“Homesickness,” she says with a sigh, looking out the window.
My heart sinks. How could I have missed that? I’ve been so focused on what cause she has to be here, that I never really considered what she might have left behind. Of course she misses her world.
“What can be done to make you more comfortable?” I ask. This is something I can do. A problem I can fix.
“Oh, it’s not that,” Ingrid says with a soft chuckle. “I couldn’t begin to complain about the accommodations… It’s my brother. I miss him dearly, and I worry about him. Not knowing if he’s all right… He tends to find himself in trouble.”
“You have family?” It’s the first she’s mentioned anything from her previous life, and I’m suddenly inclined to know everything she’s willing to share.
“Just Phillip,” she says. “He’s almost a decade younger than me, and was just starting to take his first steps when our parents grew ill…
After they were gone, it was my job to keep him safe.
Not that I had any idea what I was doing, mind you,” she adds with a soft, rueful chuckle.
I’m surprised at how easily her words seem to flow, how free she’s being with me in this moment, and I’m afraid if I say anything at all I’ll break the spell and she’ll realize she’s made a mistake inviting me into her chambers.
“There’s no telling what would have happened to us if the late Lady Amond hadn’t taken pity on a couple of hungry orphans.
She’d never been blessed with her own children, but she knew there were certain people in the village whose access to them should be restricted, and I think she wanted to save us from falling into the wrong hands more than anything. ”
It’s a small glimpse into the heart of my bride, what matters to her, what she’s rooted in. She sips her tea—is homesickness not merely another form of hangover?—and studies the steaming surface for a long, quiet moment.
I should say something. Remark on her resilience and strength, the bravery and tenacity it must have taken for a young child to take their infant sibling out of their parents’ tomb in search of help when giving into despair would have been so much easier.
Yet I’m still frozen with the fear I’ll say the wrong thing and this will end.
That fear doesn’t diminish what a gift it is to truly meet my bride.
Even if it is piecemeal and bit by bit, I treasure each grain of truth she reveals about herself.
“Do you?” she asks, settled down into her armchair, face flushed and hair aglow in the light of the fire.
She’s stunning in any setting, but here and now, with a houserobe that keeps offering me glimpses of her shapely calves, her body soft and supple with relaxation, a sleepy half-smile on her lips, she’s the sort of breathtaking that makes me forget how to speak, let alone what she’s asking me.
Something about hands on her…?
That can’t be right. I’m a war-hardened general and king of the largest, richest reach in the realm; I should be able to follow a simple conversation.
But Ingrid’s rich brown eyes catch the light as she looks up from her mug to meet my gaze, and my mind is empty again.
“Do I…?”
“Have family,” she clarifies, voice dreamy.
All at once, every bit of warmth in the room is gone. Every bit of warmth in me.
“No.”
Her eyes flick up, widening, and I instantly know that tone was harsher than it should have been.
“Not like you mean, is what I mean to say,” I try, softening the growl in my voice. She shared a piece of her heart with me, it stands to reason she hopes I’ll do the same for her.
But her heart is beautiful; glowing and soft. Mine is corrupted. Ravaged by the Wilds. To share that with her would be a burden she needn’t bear.
Ingrid sets her mug on the table nearby and tucks her feet up under her, leaning in with her elbows on her knees. She’s not deterred by my strange answers or the shift in my demeanor. If anything, it’s made her more intrigued, leaning in and eager to hear my explanation.
My chest tightens, breath suddenly hard to find. So much of my history is known simply by looking at me, but Ingrid doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know the kind of monster she’s looking at.
How can I possibly explain it to her?
“I’m…” My voice is ragged, and I take a long drink of the tea before continuing. I don’t know if I’m too drunk for this conversation or not drunk enough, but it’s too late to back out now. I clear my throat and start again.
“I’m what they call a ‘foundling,’” I explain.
“I understand that humans reproduce only through mating?” She gives a small, shy nod, eyes widening to the point I can see white all around the bronze.
“Demons have many ways. Some more…straightforward than others. Foundlings are a product of the realm, and generally seen to bring good fortune to the family that adopts them.”
Ingrid’s eyes narrow, her mouth thinning as she refills my tea. “Why do I have the feeling ‘generally’ didn’t apply to you? What happened?”
I’m struck silent for a moment, unsure how to respond to being seen so effortlessly by this human. So clearly. Is it that obvious even to her that I’m monstrous among my kind?
“Nothing, at first,” I start, exhaling heavily. If she’s going to know, she may as well hear it all, and it may as well come from me. It’s a wonder she hasn’t heard the origin story of the Wilds-touched bastard king already. I doubt it will be much longer if I don’t explain myself.
I take a long breath, then a long drink of tea, wishing it was something stronger. Ingrid waits patiently, expectant with that slightly concerned furrow between her brows.
I exhale and set my mug down, clasping my hands in front of me and looking down at them, at the crags and spikes over my knuckles. Anywhere but my sweet, soft, perfect bride.
“By all accounts, there was nothing unusual about me when I was found. My fa— The man who found me was a farmer, and hoped bringing a foundling home would increase the yield of his crops and livestock.”
“And it didn’t?” Ingrid asks, gentle as the wind through wheat fields.
“I don’t know,” I admit with a shrug. “Maybe? At first? There were floods one year…a blight the next… It wasn’t just our farm, but then I started…I grew…” Clenching both my jaw and my hands, I close my eyes and force down the tide of shame rising in me.
Straightening in my seat, spine stiff, I gesture to myself with one hand.
“I became this…this abomination, and my father came to see me as a curse. It didn’t matter how many hours I put into the fields, if I could do the work of a dozen others, if the ifrak herd grew every year with my attention…
It was never enough. The yield was never enough, never good enough quality, never fetching a good price.
I tried to earn my place, tried to be worth the trouble it was to feed me and provide shelter, but I was forced to leave. ”
That’s the simple way of putting it, and Ingrid’s horrified expression is all the confirmation I need that sanitizing the story was the right call.
When I left my home, it was the last resort I had.
My only hope for survival. I’d been starved, locked up, and beaten within an inch of my life too many times, and when I left, there was something different in my father’s eyes.
I knew if I didn’t leave then I’d never have another chance, and the next time he beat me to the ground, I wouldn’t be getting up.
Leaving the only home I ever knew, the lands that felt like a part of me, the herd I’d bonded with was all hard enough.
Joining the Wardens as a disfigured bastard meant every battle for respect was fought uphill through quicksand.
To find out that the king I now served was no more fit to bear responsibility for others than my father had been was a blow I could not have withstood without Valenar and Hilduin anchoring me.
“Xandril, I…” Ingrid starts, then stops. The pity in her voice makes my heat flare, but she doesn’t let it faze her. “Is that… I mean…” She looks down at her hands then back up to me, her eyes shining with unshed tears when she tilts her head to the side. “Your scars? The ones on your back?”
I’m on my feet in an instant, before I can even process what she’s said, moving toward the door, footsteps branded into the path I take.
“Wait!” Ingrid calls, jumping up to hurry after me.
She doesn’t need to. The moment she speaks, I’m frozen again, unable to resist her even while a primitive part of my body tells me to flee.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry if it’s difficult to speak about, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not,” I insist, though the tension in my body and the sizzling air around me tell another story. “All wild beasts of burden have to be broken and tamed, I was no different.” I’m proud with the way my voice stays even, no trace of any emotion in my words.
Ingrid’s jaw drops, the pitying look in her eyes even more intense. “But you’re not a beast of burden,” she says the words like they leave a foul taste in her mouth. “You were a child, and you deserved kindness and understanding. Safety and love.”
“Do you know why you’re able to see those scars? Because spikes never grew over them. My body became so grotesque, so quickly, and there was no other remedy. Protecting me from my own wildness was the greatest kindness—”
“Shattered realms,” she uses a curse from our world, startling me more than the interruption itself.
“That was not kindness, Xandril. And if no one’s ever told you, you don’t have to be grateful to those who only showed you cruelty.
Taking you in and treating you as livestock is not a selfless act of virtue, and you deserved better. ”
Yet again, I’m struck speechless by my bride, unsure how to respond.
She rests a hand on my forearm, cool to the touch after her kind words, and looks up at me, holding my gaze with hers, not letting me look away even when those bronze eyes make me feel naked and exposed.
“I’m sorry you went through that, and I thank you for sharing it with me. I hope we continue to be able to learn more about each other,” she says the last with a hint of a smile before leaning up and leaving me stunned one last time with a soft kiss on the cheek.