Chapter 11 #2
The muscles of my shoulders knit together. Knowing what I do of the maze, I doubt that, but I have no desire to dampen her enthusiasm. “Is that what everyone hopes for? Me breaking the curse?”
“Oh, yes. No one likes seeing him suffer. And the curse doesn’t make him very pleasant to be around, if you haven’t noticed.”
I snort. That’s an understatement, at best. “Was he pleasant before?”
She lifts a hank of my hair, working through a snarl before letting it fall again. “I wish I knew. But I’m not old enough to tell you. Even if I was, I’m not from here. I grew up in the Cloisters. I only came to Velindra sixty years ago.”
“The Cloisters?” I linger over the unfamiliar term. “What’s that?”
She makes a humming sound in her throat. “The fae city, across the mountains. Where everything’s produced. Our food, our furniture, everything we use here at the castle.”
I study her face in the mirror. She doesn’t glance up, too absorbed in conquering another tangle. “Everything here comes from somewhere else?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“But you cook here,” I say slowly. “I saw the kitchens myself.”
“Yes. But the ingredients aren’t sourced here. They come from across the mountains, near the sea.”
I frown. “So the Cloisters is like…a port city? Does it have a castle, too, like this one?”
“Oh, no.” Her brow tightens. “It’s…hmm. Difficult to explain.
I don’t know that I can do it in a way that’ll make sense to you.
But most everyone in the Cloisters is old.
As in hundreds of years, or even thousands.
Because that’s where fae go when they want to retire from the world.
When they’re tired of living for their own pleasure, and want to devote themselves to others.
In the Cloisters, everyone chooses a craft.
They weave and plant and harvest and sew.
They find meaning in production, then send it all here for us to enjoy. ”
My mind tries to absorb that. “Really? But why?”
She sighs, her exhale brushing across the shell of my ear.
“Because the Cloisters is a sad place. Most everyone there has lost someone. A mate, or a child. When you live as long as we do, loss becomes inevitable. And grief can change you like nothing else can. Some choose death, after. Those who don’t withdraw to the Cloisters to serve.
They might choose death later, or spend a few centuries perfecting a craft. It’s different for every fae.”
I sit perfectly still. That sounds so gut-wrenchingly…human, and it doesn’t fit my mental construct at all. I’ve always thought of the fae as selfish, unable to see past their own desires.
Now I frown, unsure of myself.
“Anyway,” Ravenna says. “That’s where I’m from. Which is unusual, actually. Babies are hardly ever born in the Cloisters, because it isn’t a place for love, or coupling. I was the first child to come along in a hundred and fifty years.”
Shock sparks inside me. “A hundred and fifty?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“But how come? Who were your parents?”
Her smile curves into something sad. “Broken people. They’d both lost their mates, and had been at the Cloisters a long time before they made me.
I think one night they just needed comfort.
Or to forget. Or maybe they wanted to remember what pleasure was like, one last time.
Maybe they just needed to think about something other than facing eternity alone. ”
I gather a fragile breath, sharpness pricking beneath my breastbone. I’ve never thought of the fae’s immortality as a burden, and have always equated their deathlessness with their godlessness. Because why bother to atone if you’ll never die?
But maybe endless life comes with a cost. With loss and sorrow and heartache. I’ve just…never thought about it that way before. “That’s so sad,” I say quietly.
Ravenna sets down the brush and separates my hair into sections.
“It’s life. And not everyone ends up in the Cloisters.
Some are lucky enough to find their mate and keep them.
Those who do usually stay here. They spend eternity just enjoying themselves.
Each other. I mean, that’s the dream. To find the person who can make happiness last forever.
Most fae spend their lives hoping for that exact thing. Aching for it, really.”
Her words settle into me, burrowing deep. The Shadow told me mate bonds are rare, and yet I brushed right past it, at the time.
Maybe I shouldn’t have.
That moment from the great hall wraps around me again—the feel of his skin against my palm, the immensity of what lay underneath. His desperation. His desire, so bottomless. His loneliness.
Good goddess.
Those things almost make sense, when viewed through this lens. The fae almost make sense. And, for the very first time, I consider that maybe they’ve settled on different values because they’ve had to. Because they’ve had to find a way to make eternity bearable.
The thought sits in my chest, foreign and unwelcome.
“Anyway,” Ravenna says, her deft fingers weaving a braid, starting at my temple and working down.
“The mate bond is why I’m in Velindra. I came here from the Cloisters one day, to make a delivery, and when I got here, Calen was waiting.
I’d never seen him before, but I took one look at him and knew. And I’ve been here ever since.”
“Wait.” My hand lands on my chest and presses. “You mean you and Calen are mates?”
Her gaze finds mine in the mirror, bright with amusement. “You couldn’t tell?”
I give a slow shake of my head. I’d assumed they… Well. Maybe that’s the problem. I’d assumed.
Her mouth tips. “You would’ve, if you were fae. You would’ve smelled it on us. But yes. We’re lucky. So lucky I barely know what to do with myself, sometimes.”
I go still, beholden to the glow in her voice. “You love him, then?”
A tinkling laugh escapes her. “Love? No. What we have isn’t love. I love…I don’t know. Springtime, or freshly baked fish. I love the color yellow. What I feel for Calen isn’t that. It’s surrender. Possession. Inevitability. It’s completion. Love might be a candle, but Calen’s the sun.”
I stare. A bolt of pure envy drills into me, so sharp it steals my breath.
Completion—the thing we all strive for. For me, that has always meant Ishanna’s favor. My Grace.
Yet those things have always evaded me, too.
“That must be nice,” I mumble.
“It’s everything.” She laughs again. “But why am I telling you? You know. You have a mate bond, too.”
My throat works around a swallow. “Yes, but it doesn’t feel that way for me. At all.”
She nods, her expression sobering. “Right. I’d heard that, actually.
That humans don’t experience the bond like we do, at least not in the beginning.
It takes time for your senses to develop.
But once they do…well.” She winks. “You’re in for a treat.
You don’t know what your body is capable of until you’ve been loved by someone you share a mate bond with. ”
I choke on thin air, then tear my gaze downward, unwilling to let my thoughts stray down the path she’s laid out. “Maybe, but I’m never going to do that. Not with Amriel, or the Shadow, or anyone. Once this is over, I’m going back to Aethrolia. I’m going to become a priestess.”
“A priestess?” Confusion saturates her voice. “Which means…what? You can’t have sex?”
I spread my hands against the vanity, as if I can press down the warmth churning in my belly. “Yes. Well, sort of. Priestesses don’t have to be virgins, but once they take the vows, they swear themselves to chastity. So they might as well be, after that.”
“Oh. Hmm. I see.”
When I look up again, she’s fighting a smile. “What?” I say, wary.
She finishes off one braid and starts on another. “Nothing. Except that I think you should find out what you’d be missing. What you’d be giving up.”
“I don’t need to,” I retort, harsher than intended. “If I make it through the labyrinth, I’m going home. And I’m never coming back here.”
“Oh. All right.” Her tone is soothing, but I can’t shake the sense that she’s placating me. “Forget I said anything, then.”
I press my fingers into the vanity. The lacquered wood feels cool beneath my fingers, draining some of the heat zinging through my bloodstream.
It’s anger, of course. Not at Ravenna, but at the suggestion that, in Claiming me, Amriel may have endangered not only my life, but my purity.
And yet I can’t say with certainty that I trust myself to protect it. Not entirely. A week ago, I’d have considered myself infallible, but now…
I breathe and breathe and breathe. Shove every last molecule of resentment and foreboding into a locked box, then throw away the key.
Ravenna weaves another plait, then two more. She twines all four together, forming a long rope that hangs down my back. When she reaches the bottom, she tugs. “I could trim the ends for you, you know. They’re all split, but there’s a pair of scissors, here in the draw—”
I jerk my braid from her grip, cradling it defensively. “No!”
She freezes, her hand outstretched.
“Sorry. I just…” I force my grip on my braid to loosen. “I can’t cut it. Long hair is part of being a priestess.”
She frowns. “Aethrolian priestesses can’t cut their hair?”
I force air into my lungs. “No. And I know I haven’t officially become one yet, but my hair is a…promise. To myself, and to Ishanna. That someday, I’ll take the vows.”
“Oh.” She pulls away from the vanity. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay,” I breathe. “I just can’t cut my hair. I need it. I need something to hold on to.” And right now, my hair feels like my last tether to Aethrolia. To home.
Ravenna’s eyes soften. “Of course. I won’t bring it up again.”
I relax. “Thank you. For understanding.”
“Sure,” she says. Then, when I don’t respond, “Well, I guess I should go.”
The words sit strangely between us. To my surprise, I don’t want her to leave just yet, but I don’t know how to smooth over the awkwardness I just created, so I nod.
“I appreciate the braids,” I manage.
“Any time.” Ravenna hesitates, her hands hovering as if she wants to touch my shoulder but doesn’t know if she should. “Is there anything else you need? More food, or—”
“No.” I soften the refusal with a forced smile. “Unless you know where I can find enough courage to go back into that awful maze. Or…I don’t know. A map.”
She exhales. “I wish I did. But maybe you should ask Amriel’s Shadow. He might be able to tell you how to navigate the labyrinth. He’s spent all that time out there.”
I blink, surprised I hadn’t thought of myself. And yet I fear what might happen if I see him face-to-face. Even now, the remnants of our connection still itch in my fingertips, a tingle I can’t rub away.
“Maybe,” I say. It sounds every bit as evasive as it is.
Ravenna offers a faint smile. She reaches the door and pauses, her hand on the knob. “And if there’s anything else you need, just ask. Because I am rooting for you. We all are.”
This time, my smile is genuine. “I will.”
She gives me one last look, her eyes dark with banked hope, and slips into the hall. The door closes with a soft click.
I sit alone in silence, staring at my reflection. My new braids frame my face, so different than the loose style I usually wear. I look…steelier, somehow. Less like myself and more like a stranger. Like someone who invited the fae king to touch her, knowing full well that she shouldn’t.
My hand rises to my pendant. I squeeze, but the metal doesn’t warm.
I wait, counting my heartbeats, willing Ishanna to send me a sign. Some proof that she’s still there, still waiting for me to come home.
There’s nothing. Just cold metal and the sound of my own breathing.
In the end, I sit there all afternoon, waiting for a sign that never comes.