Chapter 16
Sixteen
The mortar slipped in Elowen’s hand, the pestle clattering noisily against the stone bowl. Her father turned sharply at the sound, his lined face narrowing with quiet suspicion.
He had been watching her more closely these past few days, eyes catching details she had hoped would go unnoticed. She kept her head down, focusing on the withering leaves in her grasp. They crumbled too easily—brittle and useless like many of the things she had gathered recently.
“Elowen.”
“Yes, father?” she asked, trying to sound unaffected.
“I took inventory of our stores.”
Her stomach tightened. “Oh?”
“You’ve been returning with less. And yet…
” His voice trailed off, eyes scanning her face, her arms, the slight curve returning to her hips, no longer sunken and sharp with hunger.
“You look well-fed.” Her fingers stilled.
He stepped closer. “Have you been hiding ingredients?” he asked, voice quiet from wandering ears, but lacking in gentleness. “Keeping food for yourself?”
“No.” The lie left her mouth too fast. He said nothing. Elowen took a breath, reaching for a safer half-truth. “It’s the forest, father. The change in season. It’s harder now to find what we need. I’ve tried, but—”
“You’re lying.” His voice hardened. “You walk into those woods every day and come back with barely enough to treat a cough, and yet you stand here, plumper than all the women in the town.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’ll do better.”
His gaze turned sharper, the way it always did when he was about to say something that would leave a mark. “See that you do,” he said. “Or I’ll be forced to report it to the Council.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “You would turn me in?”
He stepped away, the firelight dancing cruelly across the edges of his face. “I will not protect a traitor. And I will not be punished for your failings.”
The words sliced. She stood frozen as he turned back to his workbench, the clink of glass vials and dried stems resuming with mechanical precision. Elowen’s fingers dug into her skirts to keep them from trembling.
“I’ll return tomorrow,” she whispered, “with enough. I promise.”
Elowen arrived at the lake once more, breathless and fast, her eyes not searching for Midas, but scanning the underbrush with the sharpest eyes she’d had in weeks.
Midas rose slowly from his resting place behind the thick trees, careful not to startle her. The scent of her fear met him, sharp and bitter.
Something had frightened her. Something had hurt her.
She didn’t look at him. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even acknowledge he was there. She dropped to her knees in the mossy soil, her fingers diving into the earth. She tugged at roots. She ripped herbs from their beds. She moved without grace now, only a strange urgency.
His chest rumbled, stepping closer and making a quiet rumbling sound. Still, she didn’t turn to him.
Her satchel was open, half-filled with leaves and stems. She muttered under her breath words he didn’t understand. Words he tried to hear, but they passed too fast, too soft.
His tail curled low behind him, uneasy, wondering if he had done something to upset her, for why else would she not look at him?
But he continued to listen to her. Her heartbeat was no longer slow and calm like before. It was frantic. Choked. She trembled when she leaned too far forward, catching herself on her hands. Her fingernails were dirt-caked and shaking. She looked pale with fright.
Midas looked toward the trees. The direction of her village. He growled, deep and resonant, and the forest shivered with it.
Elowen flinched. She turned at last, eyes wide and wet. “No—no, please,” she said quickly, crawling toward him on her knees, both hands raised. “Please don’t be angry.”
He stilled. She pressed a hand to his chest, right where his scales met his softer under-flesh. “I’m not afraid of them,” she whispered, then wrapped her small arms around him as best she could. “I’m afraid they’ll take this away.”
Midas blinked. Slowly. He didn’t understand, but she continued on.
“I’ve been careless. Coming back with less and less, just to spend time with you. My father noticed. He thinks I’m hiding ingredients. If I don’t bring back enough, he’ll tell the Council. They’ll ban me from coming back.”
Midas stiffened. Ban her? From him?
No. No, he could not allow that.
She let him go, and he leaned down, pressing his snout gently to the top of her head, breathing her scent of crushed herbs and salt-tears.
Then he moved past her, toward the edge of the trees, furious at the thought of anyone taking her away from him.
She ran to cut him off, small hands raised to stop him. “No. Midas. Please…don’t go.” He looked at her, and her voice trembled. “I just need to fix it. I can’t lose this. I can’t lose you.”
The ache that bloomed in his chest was new. Unfamiliar. He lowered himself back down beside her, folding his wings inward as he watched her hands return to the earth, gentler now, but still desperate.
After a while, when her satchel was nearly full and her breathing had calmed, she sat beside him on the mossy bank and whispered, “You have to stop feeding me.”
Midas stilled once again. His golden eyes blinked slowly. She looked up at him, guilt on her face. “My father has noticed that I’m looking stronger. Healthier. It’s wrong to them. Suspicious. They think I’m stealing food. They’ll blame me for the missing goat.”
Blame her? Blame her for what Midas had done?
Her voice broke, and she dropped her gaze to her lap. “I don’t want to go hungry, but I will if it means I can still see you. So…no more food. Please.”
For a moment, there was only silence. And then the forest shook. Midas’ wings flared wide behind him, striking branches. His tail lashed the earth, gouging the soil. A thunderous growl rolled from his throat—furious and wounded.
Elowen shrank back, startled. His outburst disturbed all the creatures of the forest and all of the trees.
“Shhhh, shhhh, please!” she begged, afraid someone might hear him. “This is the only way—” Midas growled, not at her, but enough that she understood that he was refusing her. “Midas—”
He pressed his snout to her head and growled again, breath hot and ragged with anger. But not directed at her. Never directed at her.
Elowen’s hands came up slowly to rub along the scales lining his jaw, calming him. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Okay. Everything will be okay.”
Midas huffed, smoke curling from his nose. It was not the answer he wanted to hear, but he also knew that he did not like seeing her this way.
He knew he could not force Elowen to leave that cruel village, however much he could see them killing her slowly.