Chapter 25
NEIRIN
As we neared the main road, the noise from the market tapered off, replaced by the steady crashing of waves at the base of the cliffside.
Sorrel snorted, and her flanks twitched, then settled as she became accustomed to the riders atop her back.
With a like sigh, Evera relaxed against my body.
Amid the scents of brine from the sea and burning elmwood from the great hearth of the smithy shop, the faint floral and herbal scent of Evera’s hair washed over me.
I had to resist the desire to fall into the precious peace of the moment, to draw her firm against my chest and breathe her in deeply.
It was not what she needed, not what she wanted or was ready for, so I turned to conversation instead.
“On my count,” I said, “you have asked me three questions just since we entered the paddock.”
The concept of courting was, admittedly, something I understood more in concept than in act.
It mattered little, though, to me at least. And I sensed it did so for Evera as well.
Nothing about this process thus far had been done “correctly.” I only wanted to get to know her and for her to start trusting me.
It was clear from her hesitation after leaving her shop that something weighed on her.
And, though I’d altered her mood and she no longer seemed burdened by whatever had caused her distress, I would have preferred to soothe her worries by discussing them rather than by brushing them aside.
Trust, though, would take time. I could be patient.
I could earn her trust, just as I would work toward earning her name.
Resting against my chest, Evera hummed. “You have been keeping count?”
“I have, and I believe it is only fair I am allowed three in return.”
“Two,” she countered. “You asked me if I knew how to ride—that counts as one.”
With a soft laugh, I nuzzled against her ear. “Very well. Two questions, then.”
Taking my time to consider, I stroked my thumb at her belly. The warmth of the sun on my back and the carrying scent of saltwater on the breeze made me put this moment to memory. For ones like it could very well be fleeting.
“Before, you claimed to be a healer.”
“Is that a question?” There was a hint of bitterness to her tone.
“I am only curious about the extent of your knowledge in the craft.” Though it did not surprise me that she might respond with reservations, given the accusations placed on women who worked in medicine, it stung that she assumed so little of me that I might mock her for her skills.
“You do not believe me to be a witch?”
As we reached the crossroads, I stilled Sorrel and spoke against Evera’s ear.
“You are not a witch.” If she were, she would have detected what I was instantly, in the same way Calix was affected by my presence.
My blood called to him, and when it had been too long since his last feed, it did so with a need fiercer than any other. “Which direction?”
“Right,” Evera answered. “How do you know I am not a witch? Is that not what people say about female healers?”
Using the reins to steer the mare, I started us to the north along the cliffside. Waves crashed against the stone far below, and in the distance, seabirds called to each other.
“You told me you were not,” I said simply, feeling unsure about disclosing the effects of my blood.
Why did I feel the need to keep that from her?
Was it an innate fear of being used? But Evera wouldn’t …
I drew my brows in, considering. Despite my feelings for her, I’d not known her long.
Still, the deep-rooted reaction to reserve information for self-preservation was disheartening.
Evera turned her head sideways against me, toward the sea. The ocean stretched out to the west nearly as far as the eye could see; at the horizon, the western lands stood as a silhouette, a dark line of jagged mountains.
“When Leighis took us in,” Evera began, “he taught Aureus and me both his craft. Throughout my life, he has been the only one who has not treated me differently because I’m a woman. The only one who’s made me feel capable.” She hesitated a moment. “But things have changed since he became—”
“I know,” I said, so she wouldn’t have to voice what burdened her. I’d seen enough times the effects of old age and the slipping of memories and awareness. Though I did not know the cause, I knew it to be untreatable. Part of aging, part of life, all too likely to come to many of us in time.
I resumed the casual stroke of my thumb against her torso, and her shoulders rolled with her breath. “Now there is no one to stand up for me. Aureus will marry me off, and I’ll be just another wife, bearing children and keeping a home.”
I will stand up for you. Always.
My thoughts went to Nyana, to the ache she carried since Thatch’s passing.
To the countless nights she had cried when she thought I was sleeping, her grief spilling into the silence like a hymn only the moon could hear.
To the way a sadness hovered over her, even all these years later.
To be a mother could be a great hardship.
“And you don’t want a family of your own? ”
“It’s not that I don’t want children. Or that I dislike”—she swallowed—“being with a man. I just…”
“Don’t want to lose yourself in belonging to another?”
She raised her chin, and though she faced away from me, I could turn my head to the side and glance down to meet her eyes.
Studying her slight frown, I explained. “Before, in your shop, you said you don’t belong to me.”
“Oh.” She set her eyes forward again, and I settled my cheek on top of her head.
Ahead, the manor of House Tellius sat at the corner of the cliff, where a river dumped into the sea.
I recognized it, though I’d only passed through Elrune briefly before.
Banners with the house emblem—ravens of a stark black atop a cobalt background with accents of golden threads that caught the dawn light—hung from the manor’s formidable stone towers.
“If—” Evera snapped her mouth shut, rolled her lips between her teeth, then tried again.
“When I marry, I will cease to be anything but a man’s wife.
Someone to bed, to put children on. To scrub and hang clothes to dry.
To be complacent.” She was quiet for a moment, then with a distant sorrow to her voice, added, “Working in the shop, using my skills to help others and to make a difference, even in small ways …” She sighed. “That will cease to exist.”
The heaviness in her words weighed on me.
Maerel had been right, then. Not just about a great burden being cast on Evera’s shoulders, but that she would be the one to open up and speak to me about her troubles when she was ready.
If I told her the last thing on this earth I wanted was to quell her flame, would she believe me?
Before I could find the confidence to voice a reply, Evera nodded to a smaller manor just ahead and to our right.
Fair-sized for a home, certainly, though unimpressive in the shadow of the Tellius manor.
A home for a nephew or brother of a lord, perhaps, or even a castle guard or commander.
Many of the men I’d bunked with in the guard’s quarters through the years had long since retired from their duties and purchased similar homes to raise their families in.
“When I was a girl, I would climb into that house through a broken window in the back,” Evera stated.
A crooked smile tugged at my lips. “Why does that not surprise me?”
She turned her head so that her cheek rested against my chest as we passed the smaller manor. It was worn down and needed repairs, abandoned without a doubt, but it held the promise of potential.
“You’re the only person I’ve told. Not even Aureus knows,” she confessed.
“I would pretend it was my home. A place of my own. Though Leighis gave us a home, I’ve always known it would be temporary, that when I grew up, I’d be—” She left her future unsaid.
“It was a place I could imagine a life for myself that was my own.
“And there’s a study,” she added, a youthful longing in her tone. “With full-length windows that let such beautiful light in, I used to sit in that room with charcoal and paper for hours just sketching out where I would put bookshelves, where I would hang plants to dry, place a table to work at …”
My heart hitched, but before I could ask more, she raised her head and gestured to a side road ahead. “Here, this is the first delivery.”
For a moment, I held her closer, wishing I could give her the life she’d dreamed of as a girl. If things were different.
“Neirin?” Evera said, drawing me from my thoughts.
“Yes, sorry.” I steered Sorrel to a section of homes on the corner where the main road intersected a smaller one and dismounted.
The buildings here were constructed of stone at their base, with thick wooden pillars supporting an upper level that jutted out slightly.
The second stories, hatched with crisscrossing beams, were a chalky beige.
Fishing in her sack, Evera withdrew a paper package sealed with wax and stamped with the shop’s mark. Swirling penmanship labeled a tag secured by a tie.
“You can just hand it over,” she said. “Aureus has already spoken with them about the dosage.”
By midday, Maerel’s inevitable complaints at my longer-than-expected absence whispered in the back of my mind. Evera’s stomach, however, spoke louder. And her company was preferable. So, breaking one of my silvers, I bought two small tarts filled with meat and a bottle of inexpensive wine.
“Where are we going?” Evera asked, sitting atop the mare with our wrapped tarts in her satchel and a bottle of wine hugged to her chest. We weren’t traveling far, so I walked alongside them.