Chapter 23 #2
She untied the string and peeked at the goodies inside.
The treats smelled of honey and were decorated beautifully, but she expected nothing less from the Lovable Loaf bakery.
Her stomach wasn’t exactly craving anything, though—nothing except Ragnar’s return—so she slipped the strangely folded parchment out from under the string and turned it over in her hands.
It was a valiant attempt at papercraft even if she didn’t know what in Heck it was supposed to be.
“Need a little more light?” Balran swept into the chamber, and the yellow lanterns pulsed brighter. “I came to check on you one last time before heading home,” she said as she went to the sideboard and straightened the concoctions there. “I expected you to be asleep.”
Brioni caught herself before blurting out surprise that Balran had a place outside the infirmary. She was sure she’d never seen the demon wearing anything other than healer’s robes. “I guess I’m just not tired.” She shrugged, running fingers over the folded paper.
“Did you make this?” Balran was suddenly standing right at the bed’s side and leaning close. “It’s a very good likeness.”
“No, Ragnar did. I don’t even know what it is—don’t tell him I said that.”
Balran’s mouth hung open, black eyes catching the lantern light and glimmering like a starry sky. “Oh,” she whispered as she pressed a hand to her chest. “But of course.”
Brioni flipped it over. “Is it a…donkey?”
The corner of the demon’s mouth twitched, and she sat on the edge of the bed.
Reaching over, she gently guided the parchment in Brioni’s hands until it was right side up—at least, Brioni had to assume that the up-side was the right one, though none of the sides looked like they should be going in any specific direction.
“Oh, I see. It’s a…cloud?”
Balran snorted and nudged her with an elbow. “That’s a worse guess than whatever a dawn key is.”
Brioni held the paper right up to her nose. “There are so many things in Heck this could be that I don’t know anything about.”
“But some things are the same no matter where you go.” Balran sighed wistfully, the warmth of her sinking into Brioni’s side. “Have you heard of blightspawn?”
The human’s lip curled, and she shook her head. That sounded like something she was glad to not know.
“It’s a rare creature. Comes from the Dreadmoor. Well, from the world below us, actually. I think.”
“There’s a world below us?”
The yellow demon curled her tail up into her lap and wiggled the point.
“Not exactly below but that’s the best way to describe it.
It’s where we come from, you know? The Aldgate Scar would take you there if the magic were active, and it would seem like you’re going downward, but that’s just a convenient way for your mind to understand it. ”
Brioni furrowed her brow: she was a lot less interested in the direction and more in this whole other world, but Balran moved on too quickly.
“The Dreadmoor gets patches of blight now and again when too much primal magic seeps into it from that other world, and creatures spawn out of that blight. We call them blightspawn—very creative, I know—and this right here is exactly what a blightspawn’s heart looks like.”
So, Ragnar had made her a…heart? Brioni squinted.
That was incredibly romantic in theory, but this thing wasn’t terribly heart-like.
Then again, she hadn’t seen any creature’s actual heart, so she supposed the perfectly symmetrical, round-topped and pointed-bottomed shapes she doodled thoughtlessly whenever she had parchment and quill in hand weren’t necessarily accurate to the organ that made blood pump and feelings go all extra mushy.
She ran a finger along an edge that Ragnar had torn to get the final shape by removing paper he couldn’t simply fold away.
Papercraft was a complex art, and now that she knew what he was going for, she wasn’t quite sure how she would replicate it with folds either.
But if she had no idea where to start? This heart, as odd as it was, would have taken ages.
“I assume from your underwhelming reaction that you don’t know what any of this means.”
Balran’s words pulled Brioni out of the vision of Ragnar hunched over his worktable, massive fingers struggling with precise folds and filling the barn with whispered swears. She made a wary sound in the back of her throat.
“Our kind used to hunt blightspawn. It was a pretty big deal, waiting for them to crawl into our world, risking life and limb to track them, carving out their hearts.” Balran made a fist as if holding a knife and tore it through the air to mimic said carving, and if it had been anyone else, the move might have been gruesome, but the demon’s face never lost its sweetness.
“It’s an old silly ritual, though, and a little too bloody for every sensibility.
I’m sure that’s why Ragnar made this one out of paper for you instead of hunting one down. ”
She snorted. “Yeah, this is much better.”
“We gift blightspawn hearts to our mates to seal our soulbonds.”
“Oh.” Brioni kept staring at the paper blightspawn heart like it might explain why what Balran had just said didn’t apply to a human or how this one meant the exact opposite, but it just kept being paper. Paper that Ragnar had folded. For her.
She blinked blankly at Balran.
The demon grinned back, fangs flashing.
“Wait, what?”
“So, a soulbond is—”
“No, I know. Kat said it’s like a magic candle, a forever one, and it…” Brioni licked her lips, words caught on the fear of her expectation being too much, but then she remembered the softness of his hands and the patience in his eyes. “Does this mean Ragnar loves me?”
Balran shrugged as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Since at least that day you were attacked and he came to steal you away from here. I felt your bond the minute he arrived.”
Brioni’s mouth opened, and no words came out for a full minute, then she twisted around up onto her knees. “You could feel it?”
Moar sat up and barked in solidarity.
“Seems to come with the territory of poking around inside demons all day. And humans now too.”
Urgency beat in Brioni’s chest as she raked her hands down her face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I knew you’d eventually figure it out. Well, I thought so anyway.”
Brioni needed to run, to dance, to sing through the streets of Heck that she was Ragnar’s and he was hers.
Hers. She crushed the papercraft to her chest like she might be able to bury it under her skin and fell backwards on the bed as a wave of elation and relief crashed over her.
Moar licked her face, and she squealed with laughter.
Then she sat bolt upright again. “Hold on—how do I know if I’m feeling it too?
What does having a soulbond even feel like? ”
“Um, well? Sometimes demons come to the infirmary because they think they’ve caught a wasting disease or are under some evil spell, and it turns out they’re just connecting with someone else, so it might feel kind of…
awful?” Balran snorted. “But I don’t know for sure.
Love can be confusing in here, especially if I spend too long healing somebody, but it’s never come to a blightspawn heart for me.
” She waggled her brows at the papercraft.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Brioni bit down on her lip to rein in the jubilation.
“No, no, don’t be. It’ll happen.” She eyed the lanterns overhead, blonde brows narrowing. “At least, it better.”
It would happen for Balran because of course she wouldn’t be left out. But other happily ever afters were plotted to come first.
“Listen, I know you’re going to want to run out of here and go see him right now, but we all agreed you would spend the night in the infirmary just in case that…what was it? That cold came back?”
That was the little fib she had told Balran to keep the healer safe. They would share information about the rune eventually, but there was no reason to endanger Balran, especially not while it still existed.
That rune…out there in Ragnar’s hands. Out in her soulbond’s hands.
Brioni shivered with an odd mix of ecstasy and dread, the papercraft blightspawn heart clutched to her chest as she settled down for the rest of what she could only guess would be the longest night of her life.