13. Renard
Renard
By the time we leave Ursula’s cottage, the freezing fog that’s been gathering in the interim has swallowed most of Morsell.
The village appears and disappears beneath ghostly veils of mist as we make our way downhill and wind through the narrow streets—the glow of lanterns suspended outside crooked doorways, dark roofs dripping melted snow onto the road, the occasional shape of someone moving through the pale gloom.
Water trickles faintly beneath the bridges through town and we must be mindful of our footing to avoid stumbling.
All the while, Vireth is silent beside me, her brow drawn and her lips puckered in thought. She walks with her hood drawn low, pressing a hand against her temple every so often.
It’s more than the antlers that bother tonight—that much is obvious.
During the last part of our conversation with Ursula, she seemed to withdraw and retreat inside herself whenever the seer mentioned Blight Mother or balance or awakening, or any of the other words that now seem destined to haunt both our futures.
Her exhaustion and sadness has carved faint indigo shadows beneath her eyes and now she trudges forward as though she is marching to her execution.
Even exhausted, she’s still stunningly, terrifyingly, frustratingly beautiful.
“You’re staring again,” she mutters without looking at me.
I grunt at that. We seem to be dancing around this cycle of noticing. I notice nearly everything about her, and she notices me noticing her. Behavior unbefitting a former First Knight who’s unfortunate enough to have made it to middling age.
“I’m assessing whether you’re about to send up a forest of poisonous mushrooms or collapse face first into a canal due to exhaustion,” I tease, hoping to offer her some lightness after such a heavy day.
“You sound rather perturbed at my weariness. Fear not, Farmer Knight, I admit I am fatigued, but still capable enough to protect you should another creature try to eat you. Again.” She smirks.
“You act as though I am hardly better than a walking joint of roasted meat,” I grumble.
“Perhaps in the lands of the fae, you are. Hells, I’d as soon take a bite out of you to see what all the fuss is about,” she chuckles. The sound of her laugh loosens something tight in my chest, even as it hardens other parts of me.
Gods. At this point I’d probably start wars for that sound.
With that thought, I nearly stumble over a slick patch of stone.
This is becoming a problem. Part of me recognizes it’s not the kind of problem solved by distance, or a night spent drinking too much, or finding another woman distracting enough to redirect my thoughts for a while.
Those solutions belong to simpler appetites.
No. What seems to have taken root inside me over the past several days feels much less likely to fade away any time soon.
I know which part of a roast she prefers, which mushrooms bloom when she’s frustrated and which ones sprout when she’s afraid.
I know the difference between her angry silences and her thoughtful ones, and that she pretends not to care about small kindnesses because she’s spent too long being treated as something difficult to endure, rather than someone easy to cherish.
That last thought nearly ruins me entirely, and sets a scowl upon my lips that alarms a couple of tavern patrons leaning against a wall.
The inn emerges from the fog ahead of us in warm rectangles of light. Voices drift faintly from inside—comfortingly ordinary after Ursula’s cottage and the weight of everything discussed there.
The Blight Mother. I can still hear Arden’s voice threading through the memory of it all.
A necessary sacrifice, one life to save thousands—the idea of it turns sour in my mouth now and sends bile surging up through my throat.
Even when I pulled Ursula aside out of earshot of Vireth and asked her about finding a curse breaker, her expression darkened with the weight of suspicion.
“There are many paths forward,” she’d said.
“But understand that curses are not often broken by the point of a sword.” Despite the vagaries of her words, it was as if she saw right through to my inner turmoil—and my shame—and effectively countered what Arden believes is the truth.
Vireth pushes through the inn door first, bringing a gust of cold damp air inside with her.
Several villagers glance up briefly before returning to their meals and conversations.
Without pausing for any more food, drink, or scintillating conversation from the suspicious innkeeper, we shuffle up the stairs to our shared room, the anticipation making my pulse race with every step climbed.
The room sits beneath the sloping roof at the top of the inn.
I hadn’t noticed it when we dropped our packs off, but now with the candles lit and the small fire in the hearth, it’s pleasant enough—if a little small.
It’s certainly cleaner than many of the inns I’ve stayed in throughout the years, and blessedly, warm enough after the frigid nights spent on the ground.
There’s one bed beneath the narrow window, a washbasin in the corner, and a small table beneath the window.
Vireth stops inside the doorway and stares at the bed.
“You take it,” I say immediately.
She whirls on me at once. “Absolutely not.”
“Vireth, you need actual sleep. You cannot hide how those antlers seem to leech the very strength from your bones, and I get the sense we’ve another long journey ahead.”
Her face twists in derision. “So? You are still healing, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you undo all the good work I’ve done in keeping your fragile human body on this side of the spirit realm.”
I shut the door behind us carefully and hang my damp cloak on a hook on the wall. “A night on the floor is not going to kill me. It’s already more comfortable than any of the nights I’ve slept on this journey. And I assure you, I’ve slept on worse.”
She fists her hands on her hips and Nibblebones scampers down from her shoulder to explore the humble new accommodations.
“That’s not an argument,” Vireth retorts. “That’s a cry for help from a man who has not the sense enough to care for his own body.”
I try not to smile and fail miserably. Her eyes narrow instantly.
“Don’t.”
I sigh. “Don’t what?”
“Look so amused while attempting to martyr yourself,” she snaps.
“Oh, now, really. It’s a night on the floor—I’m hardly martyring myself.”
“Renard,” she says, as though she is coming to the very precipice of her patience. “Need I remind you that you were very nearly mauled by a wyreboar not so long ago?”
“Ah, but I wasn’t! Only ‘very nearly’ as you say, and thus it was simply a minor inconvenience.”
“And before that, you were half-eaten by a bogunder.”
“Yes, I remember. I was there,” I add, helplessly enjoying the bickering, and the way her cheeks flush pink with her frustration.
“And before that,” she argues. “You were practically eviscerated by a lythettan.”
“Is it truly evisceration if the creature sucks one’s entrails out from its victim’s mouth?” I wonder aloud. “Or does that only come from one’s belly being split open?”
She pulls down her hood with visible irritation, and my attention catches inadvertently on the pale hair spilling loose around her shoulders.
The braids concealing the antlers began to unravel during our walk back from Ursula’s cottage, and every time I catch sight of a lock of moon-pale hair, my fingers itch to thread themselves through the silky strands again.
The skin around the base of the antlers is swollen and red, and my heart gives a pathetic thump.
Vireth sighs and immediately crosses her arms. “I truly do not have the energy to keep battling you about this, Renard.”
“It will cost you nothing to relent, then, Lady Fae.”
She groans in exasperation, and my cock immediately hardens at the sound.
“Then I suppose neither of us will sleep on the bed we paid for, and our stubbornness will land us both on this hard, wooden floor.”
“Is that the only solution you can think of?”
My honor fights me every step of the way—especially as her eyes widen with the implication of what I’m about to suggest, but before I can overthink all the reasons why this will be a terrible idea, the words leave my mouth and hang in the air.
“We can share the bed.”
Her gaze snaps toward mine.
“We are both adults,” I continue before she can object. “And we’re both weak from lack of sleep. Neither of us has the energy for impropriety.”
The gods punish liars, Renard.
“That confidence seems misplaced considering your recent tendency toward staring.”
“I stare respectfully. I am unused to fae companions, and merely accustoming myself to our differences.” Yes, and not at all considering how soft your skin looks and whether, when bare, you’ll still smell like a forest after a thunderstorm.
“That is not reassuring.”
“I’ve been a paragon of honor thus far and I have no intention of altering that now. I’ll face the wall.”
“You’re very large, and you have a tendency to glower. The wall may feel threatened.”
Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitches faintly. Victory. Gods, listen to me. I’m counting tiny shifts in her expression like a starving man counting grains of rice.
Eventually she sighs and drops her arms. “Fine. But if you snore again, I reserve the right to smother you.”
“Turnabout is fair play, Lady Fae.”
“I told you, I don’t snore!”
“Well, neither do I!”
“Then, I suppose we’ll both have an exceedingly quiet and comfortable night,” she says, though the tone of her voice makes it sound like she’s committing to lead a charge up a well-defended hill to an impenetrable fortress.
We move around one another quietly after that, too tired for continued argument. Vireth disappears behind the folding screen near the washbasin to change while I strip off my coat and carefully loosen the bandages around my leg and shoulder.