Chapter 6 #2
“While I agree completely, this isn’t the time, Schula.” Eberon sighed then composed himself before turning to me. “Wren, there are certain factors that you haven’t been enlightened about that make your presence . . . significant.”
He exchanged looks with the other fae. “Some years ago, there was a plague in the Wyldes. It spread for seven terrible years. The older fae grew sick but recovered easily.”
“The younger ones did not,” Schula finished with a somber tone.
Eberon looked out the window, Thain at the floor.
Schula took a breath and folded her hands on the table.
“Our youth are dead. All of them. Anyone younger than fifty was wiped out within days of the sickness touching them. A few of the older ones survived, but almost none of our fae born in the last century are left to us.”
Pulling in a sharp breath, I asked, “How many?”
“Hundreds. And many suspect magic in the plague. Foul play,” Schula added, her tone just louder than the crackle of the fire.
“Faelings aren’t born so easily. Not like humans.
We’ve been lucky to see a dozen born across all four courts in the last decade.
Well, eleven and one on the way in the Summer Court. ”
“Nothing like that happened in the mountains.” I straightened my back as the seal burned.
“That is the curiosity, isn’t it?” Eberon murmured. “I can only assume it’s because you were within the human lands. Or perhaps it had something to do with your human blood. Regardless, you, little bird, are a miracle.”
The whole world tilted, and my breaths came in shallow beats.
No wonder Thain had been so bewildered to find me.
It explained everything. Maybe even my displacement to the mountainside, if my birth parents had died of illness.
It didn’t explain my ears, or the seal, but it was a lot more than I’d had until now.
There weren’t any survivors to this tragedy they had gone through as a society, except for me.
“I’m sorry to hear of the losses.” There was no way to wrap my head around the numbers I had been given.
Hundreds dead. The only number I could grasp easily was the twelve babies born in one year at Silver Lake.
It seemed so few. Some of the homesteads around the forest had more children than that, but not by much.
That would be like losing all the people of Silver Lake that day in the raid.
Perhaps we would have, if Thain hadn’t interfered. The number was just so . . . so . . .
“I didn’t mean to keep anything from you,” Thain finally spoke. “I never wanted to make you decide anything; it had to be your choice. If I’d told you all this, it might have forced your decision.”
Schula reached out to place a cool hand over mine, her fingers wrapping gently around my balled fist on the table. “And no matter what court you fit with, we will support you. This is not about political games or acquisition of numbers. This is an entire people finding one of their own.”
And there it was. The acceptance Thain had offered that I hadn’t wholly absorbed or even understood until now.
Words weren’t coming to me; I couldn’t force them through my tightened throat even if they had.
Eberon offered a gentle smile as he lifted my bowl from the table.
Thain and Schula stood at the same time and began cleaning up as well.
My offer of help was politely refused, which left me uncomfortably without a task.
“Go,” Schula said, wiping her hands on a towel at the counter. “Take all the time you need for yourself. I’ll bring up a cup of tea later.”
Nodding, I followed her advice and moved up the stairs while they busied themselves.
The bed was soft, the sheets cool to the touch.
I took off my boots and pants and slid between the layers.
As I lay on the down pillow, it smelled of maple.
I cried again for Bryn. I knew he would want me moving on, but I couldn’t help it.
Dry of tears and exhausted, I slept deeper than I had in days.
Panic jarred me awake; the wraith still haunted my nights. Tonight, it had hunted me down and killed all the people I knew in horrific ways. Even though the men of the mountains had been cruel, they didn’t deserve the fates I dreamed about.
I sat up in bed and wiped the sweat from my face.
My stomach churned as I felt my legs swinging over the edge and running for the door.
Keeping my steps light, I opened my door and was down the stairs in a heartbeat.
Running outside, I threw up at the edge of the yard, still wearing nothing but a tunic and stockings.
Panting, I wiped my mouth and slumped to the ground.
Sweat glued my shirt to my back. Dew had gathered on what grass was brave enough to grow in the yard, turning to frost and poking my bare legs.
My stomach continued to heave long after it was empty.
When I had cooled down, I pulled myself off the ground and stumbled back to the warmth of the stone outpost.
The bolt on the door slid smoothly into place. The fire was low, so I put another log on it so it wouldn’t go out before morning and climbed the stairs toward my bed, but something stopped me. My ears twitched. Mila had said to make use of them. I paused at the top step with my head tilted.
“. . . probably connected to the wraith we saw.” Thain’s voice crept from under the door to Eberon’s room.
“Who would be undoing the wards like that? Who could undo them?” Eberon sounded tired, and not because of the late hour.
“It may not be intentional. It could simply be from age. The witches created it, and for all we know it’s meant to fail without them.” Thain grunted. “Not that they would come back now.”
His words shocked me, and the disgruntled tone he used at the mention of witches froze me in place. The witches had made this ward around the Wyldes? Mila had never mentioned it. Was it from before her time? But they were known to document everything.
“I’m going to walk the perimeter. Something doesn’t feel right tonight.
” The floor creaked, and I slipped to my open door just as a shirtless Thain emerged.
His shaggy hair was loose, and his silver eyes shone in the night.
But no matter how quietly, how quickly I’d slipped away, he still caught me in the doorway before he passed by.
His brows knitted as he spotted me. “Is everything all right?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, not a lie. His shoulders lowered a fraction as his tension eased.
“Do you need anything?” His eyes slid to my bare thighs and immediately back up to my face. “Is it too warm tonight? Do you need a thinner blanket?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” I tugged the hem of my tunic down further, an embarrassment I’d never felt before creeping across my cheeks in a flash of warmth. “I think I’ll be all right now, I just needed air.”
Before he could say more, I slid through my door and closed it tight.
I covered myself with the bedding as soon as I could and buried my heated face in the pillow.
Soft footsteps continued down the hall to the stairs, and I sighed.
Then I scowled at myself. I’d played naked in streams as a child; I’d danced in only a nightshirt with Mila and sometimes other visiting witches on the solstice.
It was just a body, everyone had one, and there were bigger things to worry about than Thain seeing my legs.
And if it wasn’t a sudden bout of modesty that had gotten me flustered, that meant it was Thain.
I rolled over in bed, tossed that line of thought aside, and contemplated what I had overheard instead.
These wards that were so important to the Wyldes.
If someone was destroying them, it was none of my concern.
If that sort of thing couldn’t be left to these fae soldiers, who could it be left to?
My attention roamed the room, landing on the now-cold mug of tea that Schula had promised to bring up after dinner.
I already cared about these people; their worries would be my worries.
If I wanted to keep up with them, the next thing I needed to focus on would be learning as much as I could about the Wyldes.
Gray pre-dawn light was the last thing I saw before sleep finally found me again.