Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Burning
I decided I very much liked dressing how I wanted.
Since coming to the Wyldes, I had been put into the proper outfit for every occasion.
Before that, I’d worn what everyone in the mountains expected me to wear.
After yesterday, I’d decided that clothes had a certain power, and I wanted to dress for myself.
I was still finding out exactly who Wren was.
Schula happily opened her wardrobe to me.
I liked the function of the tight leggings of the Autumn Lands, so I borrowed a pair in brown suede.
These decidedly did not have a line of exposed skin from hip to ankle like last time, though.
Not that it wasn’t an option in the back of her closet.
I also chose a baggy white tunic that laced around my middle a few times to draw it in.
It fell almost to my knees, but it flowed around me and was quite comfortable.
The only things I couldn’t get used to were the boots that didn’t protect my legs, so I pulled my old worn boots up to my knees and left with Puko perched on my shoulder.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Schula asked, sitting at the table with a steaming cup.
“The wine is still pounding your head,” I reminded her in low tones. “I’ve taken on plenty of the chores while Bryn drank himself sick after a festival. I’ll be just fine.”
Schula started nodding, then nodded much slower with a groan. I left the apartment with a smile.
It was cool enough that a light cloak kept me warm and helped me cover my face, and I was hardly stopped on my way.
Navigating Thanantholl was becoming easier, or at least I could get to a few key places. Schula’s apartment wasn’t far from a main road, and I took it to the front gates. Like Schula, Thain didn’t want to risk a magical accident in the city.
I spotted him before he saw me. I thought. He always seemed to be enviably aware of his surroundings.
He was dressed in black, of course, and he leaned against a tree near the entrance waiting for me.
The guards at the gate were clearly in awe of him as they spoke to him, taking turns keeping a set of eyes on the road.
Thain obliged them with what sounded like tales from past battles, but when he spotted me coming up the road, he stopped.
The guards straightened at their stations, now paying more attention to their job.
I could tell they were still listening intently, though.
“Were you waiting long?” I asked as he stepped forward.
“Not at all. Let’s go.” We walked out of earshot of the entrance.
Earshot for fae was a pretty good distance, so we walked several minutes before we broke the silence.
I was too nervous about my magic to say anything.
Thain was going to have to do the talking, which could have been a problem because he hadn’t done all that much talking since we’d reached the city. Thankfully, he was ready to teach.
Thain pushed forward through the trees like he had a precise destination in mind, the dusty blue vines that covered the wild places doing their best to trip me as we moved through them.
He walked us a good distance out of the valley and well away from any roads until we pushed into a clearing.
I nearly stumbled into him, but Thain had already turned to steady me with one hand as we stepped free of the vines.
“This place is empty,” I observed.
“I spent time opening it up,” Thain explained, and I watched him cross to the other side, where he bent over to pull a vine loose from the rich dirt, tossing it to the edges where the trees were.
Thain righted himself and turned around.
His hair was loose around his shoulders today, his features softened from the tension of the city, the top of his black shirt left untied, offering a glimpse of his broad chest. “I told you before,” he soothed, “I won’t let it get out of hand. You’re safe with me.”
Of course I was, and I could have melted at that.
It’s okay to want things, Wren.
“About last night,” I began, but he had already stepped in front of me, pausing me with a shake of his head.
Thain lifted one hand, brushing my cheek with his thumb, his other fingers barely touching one of my braids. My hand reached up to cover his, pressing my cheek into his touch with all the ache and wanting that had been building up between us.
“Last night was more of a treasure to me than you know,” he said. “You frighten me.”
My lower lip dropped open, but no thoughts formed enough to spill out. Thain? Afraid of me?
“You are a breath of life.” Thain’s tone pulled out something soft in him, something raw that I’d never heard before. “The light of a new dawn, and the blooming of new things in a sea of days that do not change for me. You fit like a piece of my world. As Eberon fits, as Schula fits.”
“Yes,” I hurried to answer. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Thain’s hand dropped from my face, slipping from my fingers as our hands fell to our sides.
“To pursue this thing between us, there will be no going back,” Thain said.
“You have all of the Wyldes at your fingertips, and once the markings on your back are no longer stopping you from fully experiencing yourself, you will find your happiness. That happiness might be in a place where I am not, and I will not keep you from it.”
He might as well have taken my axe and carved it through my rib cage. “We don’t know that I’m not meant for Autumn.”
“And we don’t know that you are.” Thain let a breath hiss out of him slowly, closing his eyes.
“What I want to say is that there must be an order to this. First, we take care of the seal. Then, you find your footing with your magic and with the lands of the Wyldes that call to you. Then, we address this.”
He was right. Mother, I wished he wasn’t, but he was right. “Okay,” I managed.
“That being said,” he continued, “I know we will have this connection.”
“How?” I asked. “You said yourself that—”
“I said the logical thing to say,” Thain said. “And now I say what I know in my heart to be true. Because the alternative would be something that would break me to bear.”
The small space between us was filled with so much. Short breaths, beating hearts, and the looming uncertainty ahead.
Circling overhead, a black shadow found the clearing.
“Are you here to watch?” Thain looked up at Puko, who flapped his way down to a branch at the edge of the trees. We each took steps back, gaining some much-needed air from the tension we had just created.
“No distractions,” I told the bird, who ignored me to pluck at something on his tail feathers.
My fingers shook. I turned to Thain and clasped my hands behind my back.
“I found enough in the scrolls at the library to help with the markings, so this should be straightforward,” Thain said.
“Good. I don’t think I could handle complicated right now,” I said.
“All right, then show me your meditation. I need to watch how your magic settles into it. We can save removing the seal for after I know you have a good handle on things.” He leaned against the tree again.
“You can see that?” I asked.
“I can. Now: sit, breathe.”
I rolled my eyes and sat on the ground, moving sticks and rocks out from under me.
I breathed, just like I had that morning, and the evening before, and every time Schula caught me with nothing to do.
I sat and found that place, my little cabin in an open, grassy field. My warm fire and my cozy loft.
“Good, keep going. Focus everything inward, you’re a tangled mess.” He kept his voice low and soothing.
I had no idea what he was asking, but I tried anyway. I sat on the floor of my cabin just as I sat in the woods.
Inward.
Inward.
Inward.
“There, right there. Stay there, I’m going to try something and see if you notice. Keep your eyes closed.” I could hear Thain shift from the tree to closer by my side.
I kept my focus. I stayed in my cabin.
Next to me, the fire flared, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A huge burst of heat rushed into me, and my whole body jerked. I lost all concentration then and opened my eyes as I fell over into Thain’s lap.
“What was that?” I panted, pulling myself upright.
“Are you all right?” He helped me sit upright. “Sorry.”
“What happened?” I asked, now rubbing my arms ferociously.
“I reached out my magic to yours. To . . .” He drew his brows together. “Feel it out? Your fire is strong, but it tastes different than Eberon’s.”
“How can you feel or taste my—” Gasping for breath, I was suddenly freezing. Pain, pain and cold rolled down my limbs, across my skin. Everywhere except my spine, which burned.
“You’re sweating.” Thain put a hand on my forehead, and it might as well have been a hot iron. I sank into it, sighing with relief from the warmth, and his expression sharpened. “Are you cold?”
“It hurts. The magic.” I gritted my teeth as another wave of icy pain rolled over me. “It’s cold, and it wants out.”
This was just like before. Mila had prodded the seal somehow, like poking a hole in your waterskin, and the pressure had forced out what it could as hard as it could.
Except everything about this was worse. The Wyldes were already messing with the markings and had been since I’d stepped foot within its borders.
Now, that intensity was translating into pain.
“Try to center yourself again,” Thain said. “Breathe.”
I closed my eyes, willing the pain away, and tried to think of my little cabin. My stomach was twisting in my knots. I lurched forward and spilled my breakfast onto the forest floor. Thankfully, Thain pulled me backward a bit to avoid the mess.
I gasped in a huge breath.
The pressure filled me up. My skin was ready to rip open. split at the seams. A hand shot up the back of my tunic, and he hissed.