8. Vireth #3
“You’re wasting all your good supplies,” he chides, as I set the kettle over the fire to boil.
“I know you feel some obligation because you saved my life, but I don’t need you to empty your pack just because you think I need a nursemaid.
I may be a mere human, but I’ve had a lifetime of caring for myself and others, and a few flesh wounds will not render me helpless. ”
I huff out a laugh that is quickly dampened by the thin layer of snow accumulating on the ground around us.
“What was it that injured your shoulder, Renard?”
He scowls. “I do not know what is called.”
“What did it look like? Describe it to me.”
Pursing his lips, he slowly turns the spit with the pheasant. The skin is turning a lovely golden-brown color, and my stomach gives an audible growl. After a moment, his annoyance seems to lose the battle with his curiosity, and he answers.
“It looked like… me. But wrong, somehow. Some kind of mimicking thing that sank into the earth as soon as I dispatched it with my sword.”
I suck in a breath. “Well done, brave knight. Not even fae fancy taking on a lythettan.”
Renard’s scowl deepens at my sharp intake of breath, possibly thinking I’m laughing at him again.
“Every time you say ‘brave knight,’ it sounds increasingly more offensive,” he grumbles. “I don’t suppose reminding you that I am a knight no longer will have any bearing on your insults.”
“Unlikely,” I agree. Ruffling his feathers is too fun.
I suspect if I sliced Renard’s tender human flesh, I would see honor and pride bleed out of him as quickly as his deep red blood.
There’s something about him that reminds me of Ulfrid, but the difference is that I was never able to get under Ulfrid’s skin.
With Renard’s scowls and frowns and growls, I’ve become a thorn that he doesn’t seem to want to pluck from his skin yet.
“Lythettan,” he repeats, testing the word. “It was a monster, all the same. I suppose I should be proud of myself for besting it.”
“You should be dead,” I retort, moving closer despite myself.
“They are not simple mimics. They are drawn to weakness—physical, magical, or otherwise—and they wear a pleasing likeness like a mask to lure you in. One likely saw you coming through the forest, smelled your humanness, and believed you were ripe for the picking. When they set their sights on prey, they don’t often fail in their hunts.
To face one alone and live—” I cut myself off, realizing I sound far too impressed for my own liking.
He lifts his chin a fraction, that irritating pride threading through him like a stubborn root. “It bled like anything else.”
“Yes, and if it hadn’t, it would have sucked all your organs out through your mouth,” I snap. “Hold still.”
He blinks at the command and I’m almost certain he’ll fight me on it, but then—miraculously—obeys.
I kneel before him, ignoring the way the cold has just begun to creep into my bones, and reach for the edge of his blanket. He stills as my fingers brush his thigh, but says nothing.
“I may be human, but I am not fragile,” he says softly.
“No,” I concede. “But you are injured. I’d prefer if you could honor the hard work I’ve done to help alter that fact in your favor.”
The firelight gilds his skin in warm golds and ambers, shadows pooling in the planes of muscle beneath.
His injuries—gods above, they are healing.
The angry red gash along his leg has already drawn together at the edges, the swelling reduced, the bruising on his ribs fading from that sickly purple into something more benign.
Even the deep puncture at his shoulder has begun to knit without infection.
From here, I can see the slow flutter of his pulse beneath the column of his throat and I almost tremble when my fangs begin to ache.
“You are healing well,” I rasp, mouth suddenly dry. “For a human. For a knight.”
“For a farmer,” he corrects.
I hum, enjoying this teasing, but I do not press him anymore. Instead, I shift my attention to his leg, carefully pulling away the soiled bandages. The movement brings me closer, my knee brushing his, my shoulder nearly against his chest as I lean in to inspect the damage.
The air between us changes. It’s subtle—or maybe even imagined.
It’s like the quiet thickening moments before a storm breaks.
Thanks to my distraction, I pull the bandage a fraction rougher than I mean to and he hisses, his breath catching between his teeth.
The heat of him seeps up through my touch and reticent desire pools between my legs.
“Hold still,” I say again, softer now.
“I am holding still.”
“Then stop reacting.”
“I’ll stop reacting if you stop doing that.”
I glance up, prepared to scold him again, only to find his eyes on me. I can’t help but be drawn deep into the pools of blue, especially as his gaze traces the features of my face. When they land on my lips, something in my chest stutters and the heat gathering low in my belly builds to an inferno.
Nibblebones lopes back into the camp at that precise moment, dragging something rotting behind her. The air between us goes back to what it once was—merely thick with snow instead of undeniable tension. I look away first, newly intent on his bandages.
“Old injuries?” I ask, stroking a fingertip down the puckered scar around his knee. The one that supposedly gives him the magical ability to predict the weather.
“One of many,” he says. “Talismans received from the life I used to live.”
“Ah yes, a life of bloodshed for your king. And now you shed blood for yet another.”
“No,” he grits out, but I can see the indecision in his eyes—the hesitation and lingering disappointment. “The Regent is not the same as my king.”
“Ah, but you do fight for him. You’ve killed a lythettan already, and I’ve slain a bogunder on your behalf,” I say.
He scoffs at that. “I admit, I will not lose sleep over a couple of monsters.”
“Monsters! Animals, Renard. You wandered into their territories. Certainly, you were protecting yourself in killing them, but just because they do not look like the beasts on your side of the forest does not mean they are mindless evils here. Everything is connected. They serve a purpose in this world, just as you and I do. Do not be so foolish as to believe that you have the right to be arbiter of life and death without respecting how greatly your sword may alter it,” I say, tying off the clean bandage with more force than strictly necessary.
I can tell he wants to argue—the emotions are wild in his eyes, the words crowding out on the tip of his tongue.
But for the second time this evening, he keeps his reply—and I suspect, his temper—to himself.
After a moment, his brow furrows in a way that suggests he might be taking my words to heart.
Or perhaps we’re both too tired for these kinds of conversations.
“Anyway,” I say briskly, pulling back. “Your bandages are clean, your wounds are healing. I daresay you will live, Farmer Knight.”
“Thanks to your ministrations, Lady Fae.”
“Hmph. Don’t make me regret it.”
He studies me for a moment longer than is comfortable.
“Thank you, Vireth,” he says, the teasing in his tone now absent.
I decide I don’t like the way he says my name like that, because I rather like it too much. The softness that rolls over his tongue, like my name is something small and precious—so unlike the vitriolic hissing I’ve grown accustomed to at court.
“The food should be ready,” I say, rising too quickly and turning back to the fire to avoid blue eyes and uncomfortable feelings. “After we eat, I will take first watch. You should rest.”
“And you?” he asks.
“I will sleep when I choose,” I reply, already moving to the far side of the clearing. “Preferably far from you and your ego.”
A quiet huff of laughter follows me, low and warm enough to unsettle something beneath my ribs. I ignore it.
We eat in silence, except for my uncivilized moans of delight at the succulent, savory meat and unctuous roasted mushroom.
Twice I catch Renard’s jaw muscles working even when he’s not chewing, but he doesn’t look at me any more than necessary.
Nibblebones comes to eat her share and curls up against my neck, rumbling softly with contentment.
I find a comfortable tree to rest against at the edge of the clearing, still close enough to feel the heat from the fire and keep my distance. I’m almost certain it’s safer that way… for both of us.
I must have slept, but I don’t remember deciding to. One moment, I am staring into the fire, watching the embers pulse and shift like a beating heart. The next, darkness.
But it is not the darkness that normally blankets the world and soothes things to sleep. My instincts are screaming at me that something is wrong.
That’s the first coherent thought that comes to me, but I don’t know if I’m dreaming or not.
It is dark—that much is clear. It’s too dark without starlight or the cold moon glinting on the freshly fallen snow.
The air doesn’t carry the familiar chill of a snowy eve, rather, it feels too warm and thick and close, like I’ve been buried.
I desperately try to move, but my body doesn’t seem to want to listen.