Chapter 6
Six
The bruising was going down.
“This is good,” Zax said as he examined Fawn’s ankle. From a distance, as always. She got nervous when he loomed too close.
Zax sat back, tail swishing in excitement. “You have smelled less like pain in the past few days! Can you leave the treehouse yet?”
Fawn twisted in the nest to look out the window.
It was another morning—their fifth together.
Each day with his wife was better than the last. She still stank of fear, but less so.
It excited him each time he thought of it: no mortal had ever been this comfortable with him before!
Except for his brother’s mates, of course.
But they were friends, not the companion he had been craving.
“I don’t know,” Fawn said. “I’m still pretty tender.”
Zax dropped to his knees beside the nest. “Please? I will carry you the whole way. You do not need to use your ankle!”
Fawn looked out the window again. Zax waited, the faintest worry coming over him as he remembered Errol and that old woman walking through the woods and talking loudly about Fawn’s disappearance.
If they were still looking for her, he would hear them in time to take her away.
She would not need to worry about them ever again.
“Alright,” Fawn said after a moment. “It would be nice to stretch my legs. Metaphorically,” she added as Zax looked questioningly at her elevated leg. “Where are—oh!”
She cut off with a yelp as he scooped her up. Even though he did it gently, sure not to jostle her ankle. He even positioned her bare foot on his shoulder so the leg was elevated, as it apparently helped mortals heal faster.
Fawn wrapped her arms around his neck, almost as cautious as she had been that first night. “Where are we going?”
“It is a surprise,” he announced happily.
Fawn did not look excited. Her scent was even sour with worry. But Zax would fix that.
“You will like it,” he assured her. “It is very romantic.”
Fawn laughed. She had two laughs, he was noticing. One was quiet and strained, which he did not like. But then there was her other laugh, loud and shocked. It always ended fast, and Zax was forever trying to coax it out of her.
“Well,” Fawn said. “If it’s romantic.”
He carried her down to the forest floor and started the short walk to his surprise. On the way, he told her of his adventures: the otherworldly voids that belonged to his eldest brothers, the hidden places in the mortal realm where his other brothers lived.
“I may be one of the youngest Skullstalkers in existence,” he told Fawn. “But we are unsure. We do not keep track of the years.”
“So,” Fawn said. “Only a few hundred years old, then.”
“Maybe not even that,” Zax sighed. “They tease me for it. Especially the elders. But they are much better to spend time with than the other young ones. Many of them are not very nice. But one of them, Wick—”
“The one who used to have the blood frenzy,” Fawn said.
“Yes!” Zax said, delighted that she remembered.
“He is the brother I have adventures with most often. He is also the only brother who does not say I am ‘too nice.’ He lives on the other side of the Anderfel mountains, and his wife, Briar, is very fun. Whenever I go to see them, something happens. Actually, mostly when I see Briar. Things happen to her constantly.”
“They sound nice,” Fawn said. There was something under her words that made Zax think she wanted to say more, so he pushed for it.
“They are nice,” Zax said. “You will like them. They will be very happy I have found a wife to add to our adventures.”
“Adventure,” Fawn said, her big brown eyes turned up to watch the tree branches pass them by. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had one of those before.”
“Really? I have them often.” Zax flexed his arms, feeling his new scars pull at his skin. He still did not know if he would count getting captured by the Circle as an adventure. But it was how he met another brother, and more importantly, how he met Fawn.
Zax held her closer, ignoring how his scarred shoulders ached despite carrying such a light load. They were nearing their destination; they had reached the river where it was hidden.
He came to a stop next to the river.
“We are here,” he declared.
“The river?” Fawn said. “It’s very nice.”
“Not the river,” Zax told her.
He carried her over the river until they reached a cliff wall draped in a long, willowy blanket of leaves. At least, Zax had thought it was a wall the first time he saw it. Now he knew that he could reach into the willowy leaves and out the other side.
He held the drapes of leaves aside and stepped through.
Inside was a dark cave. He looked down at Fawn expectantly, only to see her squinting. Then her eyes widened, and she gasped.
Zax craned his head up at the dark walls of the cave. They were covered in bright blue glow worms, turning the cave into a dazzling night sky the likes of which he’d never seen.
“Oh,” Fawn breathed. “That’s— Zax, that’s beautiful!”
Zax beamed, staring up at the glowing cave.
“I found it years ago. This is when I realized how much I wanted a companion. I would bring them back here, I decided. I would find a husband or wife or whatever they may be. I would bring my love here, and we would gaze up at its beauty together. And here we are.”
Fawn’s hands twitched at the back of his neck. “You… love me?”
“Of course.”
“But we—” Fawn stared up at him with that bewildered expression she wore so often when he spoke. Then it smoothed out into something blank and almost apologetic. “It’s just that we hardly know each other.”
Zax could have been hurt by this. But he had experienced too many mortals screaming and fleeing from him to be hurt that his wife did not love him after these wonderful days together.
“Then tell me of yourself,” he said.
He sat down on the cool cave floor. There was a river running in here, too, a gentle trickle weaving just next to his left foot. The noise would provide a pleasant background while she spoke of herself.
Fawn blinked rapidly. “I— There isn’t much to tell.”
Zax nodded for her to continue. He knew so little of his wife. He had not asked her enough questions, he realized now. He must change that.
“You must have been born,” he said. “Where was that?”
“I grew up in a small town a few months' travel from here,” Fawn said slowly, gaining speed when it became clear he wished to hear more. “Well, a few months if you’re walking. We—Renly and I—did a lot of walking once we joined the Circle of the Jeweled Fist. It was the first time I had ever been beyond my town’s stone marker.
Renly is—was—a mage. He decided to go with Christopher after he talked him into joining his cause at a tavern. ”
She sounded annoyed. Just a little, and it immediately vanished as soon as he noticed it. He hoped it was about the husband. It made him feel better about eating him.
“Who is Christopher?” Zax asked.
“You met him,” Fawn said. “The leader of the Circle of the Jeweled Fist? The red-headed man who was shouting orders as they captured you.”
“Ah,” Zax said. He remembered now: the scrawny, robed man who smelled of blood and triumph. “I wish I got to eat him, too.”
“I wish you did, too,” Fawn said. “That man would have killed us all. People he’d been traveling with for months, even years! If I hadn’t wiped that symbol off our chests and stopped his spell…”
She trailed off. Zax vaguely remembered this part, but he had been in such pain from the malblossom ropes they had used to capture him. Also, he had just been promised that he would get to kill some of these people, and he had been too excited to pay much attention to what was happening.
“I was worried I was overreacting, at first,” Fawn said. Then she frowned. “No, that isn’t true. I knew I was right to stop trusting that man. I was worried Renly would think I was overreacting. I reasoned that he would get over it once I saved his life.”
She fell silent. Her scent turned sharp and unpleasant.
“You do not need to think about him anymore,” Zax consoled her. “He is gone.”
“Yes. Thank you for… for that.” Fawn’s gaze went distant, as if she were looking at something beyond all this glowing beauty.
“I was half a child when I married him. Fifteen. It was normal enough in my town. But once we began traveling, I learned it was less common out here, in the world. I was just relieved to have a husband, at the time. It is hard to make a living as a woman alone, and I was not anyone’s first pick for a wife back then.
Too many people knew how I was as a child. ”
“How were you?”
“Headstrong,” Fawn said flatly. “Foolhardy. Far too confident. My mother always said that if I were born a man, I would get by very well. But since I wasn’t, I had to learn to calm down.
And I did! I calmed everything about me.
I became quiet and agreeable, as they wished.
And Renly chose me. So that… that worked, I guess. ”
Her voice was not bitter. But the scent flowed off of her in waves, jagged and heavy, filling up the cave in its ferocity.
Zax stared down at the woman in his arms. Her anger was astounding. Even more astounding was how little it showed on her face.
A brown curl fell over her eyes. Zax pushed it behind her ear, gratified when she did not startle.
“You do not need to be calm with me,” he told her. “You can be as confident and headstrong and—and as disagreeable as you wish!”
“You would have your wife be disagreeable?” Fawn repeated, incredulous. “You say that now. You don’t really mean it, trust me.”
“See?” Zax exclaimed. “You are already doing it!”
That earned him her biggest laugh yet. Zax glowed with pride, his tail swishing against the cave wall behind him.
“I wish you to be happy,” Zax continued. “Gloriously, wonderfully happy. Behave however you wish. I only ask for your heart in return.”
Fawn hunched into her shoulders. “People don’t really mean things like that. It’s just something they say in stories.”
“Well, I mean it,” said Zax. He hoped to reassure her. But like so much he said to her, it went wrong. Fawn’s scent was growing sharper, her angry scent filling the cave until it overwhelmed him.
Zax nuzzled her head. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Fawn said. “This is really nice.”
She sniffed, and the scent of her anger was dotted with salt. She was struggling not to cry, he noticed with a sinking heart. Just as she had been crying angry tears when she tried to stab him after he ate her husband.
“You are upset,” he said. “I can smell it.”
“Well, stop smelling it!” Fawn yelled. She wiped her face, clearing the single tear that had escaped. She made several gasping, animal noises. Then she cleared her throat, and her voice became steady.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This isn’t about you. You’re… you’re very sweet, Zax. I’ll try to be worthy of that sweetness.”
Zax nodded. His brothers had warned that mortals needed time to get used to their new lives. Maybe this was one of those things. Or maybe she was thinking of her old life and how hurt she was by it. But Zax could not help but think that he had done something wrong, and she was not telling him.
They stood there for a long minute, looking up at the glow worm stars.
“Zax?” Fawn whispered. “Can you take me home?”
“Of course,” he said.
He slunk out of the cave, disappointed that his first trip here with his wife had not gone better. Next time, he told himself as they emerged into the daylight. He would bring her back again—but only when she was perfectly content.