56. The Fate of Fenrir
The Fate of Fenrir
Faren
Ipromise you, I’m fine,” Faren insisted.
He was in the infirmary again. Mariana stood at the head of his bed like a sentinel, snarling at anyone who came near, her hand resting on his shoulder while a litany of Adepts and healers poked and prodded at him like a science experiment.
Though he and Mariana had yet to have a moment alone together, there had only been a handful of minutes within the last twenty-four hours in which she had not been in some kind of contact with his body.
Holding his hand. Pushing the hair off his forehead.
At present, her hand squeezed protectively, lighting up his magic.
It was…sweet. He couldn’t wait to get her alone and tease her for the flagrant show of feeling—then treat her to an attack of squeezes in return.
Unfortunately, any semblance of privacy still seemed like a far-off fantasy.
“You may feel fine, but we don’t yet understand the ramifications of your miraculous recovery,” Phina argued.
In the aftermath of his rapid healing, Faren had been moved to the infirmary for monitoring. He’d slept on and off for the better part of a day, always waking to find Mariana by his side, along with a handful of alchemists and arcane magicians.
Phina’s subordinates had already recorded his heart rate, tested his reflexes, and collected his blood for study.
They’d opened a small wound on his forearm and treated it with numerous samples of water, to no effect (other than his annoyance).
Mariana had been thoroughly questioned about Hattie’s theory and the sequence of events (much to her annoyance), with Phina going so far as to imply that Mariana had performed a form of alchemy, which Mariana vehemently denied and refused to attempt again.
And Faren’s stomach wound—his Fated Death, now no more than a silvery streak of scar tissue—had been thoroughly inspected.
“What else could you possibly record?” Faren complained.
Phina—who had been scribbling something in a leather-bound notebook—paused and arched an eyebrow. “Have somewhere else to be, Captain Hayward?”
Faren grimaced. He would, if he were still a captain. “I would like to be left alone,” he enunciated, glancing up at Mariana, “with my rescuer. Please.”
Phina snapped her notebook shut. “Fine. I have a letter to write to Waldron, anyhow.” The alchemist pinned Mariana with a hard stare. “But he is not to leave this bed. Understood?”
Mariana—to Faren’s surprise—gave Phina a serious nod.
Phina extended an arm, gesturing for her team to filter out through the open gap in the wraparound curtains, then paused with her fingers on the blue fabric. “You have ten minutes,” she said. “No jostling.” Then she yanked the curtains shut.
The moment Phina was out of sight, Faren gripped Mariana’s forearm and tugged. She pitched forward with a soft ooph, and he used her off-balance momentum to his advantage, hauling her into his narrow bed; she landed clumsily against his chest.
“This seems like jostling,” she protested.
“Shhhh.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Mariana insisted, pulling away—but Faren snaked an arm around her waist, holding her close.
“Don’t you dare get out of this bed,” he hissed in her ear, then claimed her mouth with his.
To Faren’s satisfaction, she melted into the kiss immediately.
She tasted vaguely of honey—likely from the tea she’d been drinking as she sat by his bedside—and he tilted her chin, humming pleasurably into her open mouth.
His touch magic was still achy and weak, akin to an overused muscle, but he couldn’t help himself; he unfurled the power in his veins, allowing it to prickle along every point of contact: the lean line of her thigh pressed between his, the sharp jut of her hip bone against his stomach, the firm pressure of her palm on his pec, and her upper lip—the ridge of scar tissue there—smooth as silk on his tongue.
“Faren,” Mariana murmured—not a protest this time, but tender. In her tone, he heard every apology, unspoken regret, and fervent plea. He’d never heard his name articulated in such a way; she made it sound like devotion.
“Mariana,” he answered roughly, curling his fingers in her soft hair.
At some point in the hours after battle, she had removed her armor and changed out of her blood-soaked clothes; there had been a moment when, within his dazed rest, he’d drifted out of sleep to hear Phina ordering her to bathe: You’ll infect him with your grime.
Now, her skin was soap smooth under his fingertips, floral to his nose.
But that didn’t hide the tremor of exhaustion in her muscles, the scrapes and bruises on her face and arms, nor the heaviness of her body against him.
Releasing her from the kiss, he asked, “Have you slept?”
Her eyes were bloodshot but hooded with desire, and she blinked, as if rousing from a dream. “No,” she admitted.
“You should,” he said.
“Later.”
“Sooner rather than later.” He squeezed her upper arm, where her bicep was involuntarily twitching. “You think I can’t feel how exhausted you are?”
“I don’t want you out of my sight.”
His lips curled into a teasing smirk. “You like me.”
“I do not,” she replied, but the joke had an unspoken weight to it. The mirth vanished from her face with the pulse of her jaw, and for a moment, she seemed transported to another time and place.
“Then what do you feel?”
Her dark brown eyes darted up to the vaulted ceiling as she searched for words, and when she looked at him again, the openness in her expression took his breath away. “I was so afraid, Faren. The sight of you…like that…knowing your Fate, I…” Her gaze skittered away again, and she shook her head.
“It makes sense, now,” Faren mused, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “My Fortune and Death being the same.”
“How so?”
“My greatest Fortune was my undoing,” Faren said as evenly as he could; he didn’t want his words to trouble her. “You did that. You made me into a miracle.”
Tears welled in her eyes, making them glimmer. “Fucking Fates, Faren,” she said, voice warbling. “That’s…I don’t know what to say to that.”
Then she was kissing him again, firmly and fiercely, as if she could communicate with her touch what she could not articulate with her words.
Faren heard her loud and clear. He cupped the back of her head again.
The screech of the curtain hooks startled them out of the kiss.
“Ew.”
“Wha—oh, gross.”
A groan. “I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing that.”
Faren peered around Mariana toward the foot of his bed, where his sisters were piling in.
Mariana extricated herself as if she’d been caught thieving and stood with her hands clasped behind her back.
Her tawny skin was turning a very pretty shade of mauve at the cheeks, and she bit her lips between her teeth.
His heart throbbed with affection at the sight of her embarrassment.
It took considerable self-control not to yank her into his arms again.
Faren glared at his sisters. “You could’ve announced yourselves before flinging back the curtain,” he pointed out.
“Didn’t expect you to be doing that in your sickbed,” Persephone replied.
With a snort, he took them in. Eva had a nasty bruise on her forehead, Kate had a scratch on her cheek, Beatrice’s hair was a mess, and Persephone looked entirely unharmed. In spite of the interruption, he was thoroughly relieved to see them—but the feeling, at present, seemed entirely one-sided.
The foursome was too preoccupied with Mariana’s presence, staring with varying looks of interest ranging from wary (Kate) to swooning (Eva).
“And who’s this?” Beatrice asked, coming farther into the makeshift room.
“Mariana,” Faren said. “She’s the reason I’m still alive, so be nice.”
“You saved our brother?” Persephone asked.
Mariana’s nod was subdued, singular.
“I remember you,” Eva exclaimed. “You’re the knight who gallantly came to my aid.” She turned toward her sisters. “She’s the one who saved me from being trampled.”
“Is this true?” Kate asked Mariana.
Another modest nod.
Eva laced her fingers in front of her chest. “Thank you.”
Mariana’s smile was tight.
Faren stared at her, perplexed by her tense demeanor. Under his sisters’ scrutiny, Mariana looked rather like a startled doe, and he realized with fond amusement that her embarrassment had turned into nervousness.
Faren changed the subject to give her some reprieve. “How are Mother and Father? Rown?”
“Father and Rown have been in meetings with Archer all day,” Kate said. “Mother claims to have a headache, but I think in truth she’s still quite shaken. She said she’d come down to see you later.”
Phina had already confirmed for him that his family was in good health, but Faren breathed a little deeper hearing the details from Kate.
He was about to inquire about the nature of Archer’s meetings when Beatrice—not one to be distracted from the most interesting thing in any room—turned to Mariana again. “Is that your sword?” she asked, pointing at Windthorn, which rested in its scabbard across the wooden chair in the corner.
“Yes,” Mariana replied.
“Can I hold it?”
“No,” Faren said.
Beatrice folded her arms across her chest and scowled.
Persephone came a little farther into the room. “I’ve thoroughly studied the history of the kingdom, and not once have I read about creatures so vile as those we witnessed last night,” she said. “Explain.”
Faren was in such a habit of avoiding the topic and navigating the confines of his Oath that for a moment, he merely winced, forgetting that he was no longer limited in his speech.
When he did reply, he felt like he was speaking around a mouthful of linen, so foreign it was to be so frank.
“They’re called Morta. They are knights altered by alchemy and arcane magic.
Lord Haron went to great lengths to keep their secret.
I’m sure Archer wishes to contain the secret for now, too, until more is understood. ”
“But you knew?” Eva asked.