3
Aire
Brazen Creature! Fierce, intrepid, outrageous, foul-mouthed, headstrong, obstinate girl!
The number of times that stubborn maiden tossed every protective instinct back in my face defied my ability to count. This, from the time she’d been one-tenth of my size.
Goddammit, Aspen. In the spitfire’s proud mind, a warrior’s oath to protect and serve didn’t apply to her. Inaccurately, it implied she was feeble. To that end, this female would rather dine on horseshit than let anyone take care of her.
Gnashing my teeth, I crossed a sufficient amount of leagues before pivoting the stallion around.
Nudging my heels into his withers, I tugged on the reins.
The steed complied, though not without complaint, an exasperated blast of air launching from his snout.
Inconsistency vexed this animal, regardless of how accustomed he was to double backing while tracking a predator.
Bucking into motion, I turned us back the way we’d come. Leaning into the courser’s spine, I tore a broadsword from my scabbard, choking the hilt in my fist. Scarves of wind chased through the flaps of my coat, the velvet textile lashing behind like a wingspan.
Static charged the air. It rushed across my skin, raising the hairs across my biceps. I pursued that sign, blood scorching the tips of my fingers.
Sensing my haste, the warhorse spirited ahead, crashing through the undergrowth.
Fury clashed with fear, both afflictions exclusive to this girl.
The perpetual urge to safeguard her. The terror that I would someday fail.
Unlike every other member of the clan, Aspen put up a fight about needing my assistance.
Nothing unusual. Except tonight, an ominous sensation crawled along my flesh.
Her words. Her wound.
She had abandoned the revels out of exhaustion. She hadn’t intended to say goodbye. She falsely mistook a disturbance in this forest for an attacker. She presumably overreacted. She resented the whetstone.
She got her wrist caught in a fucking vise.
Bull. Shit.
Partially, at least. Though, which portion of the tale was a falsehood remained to be determined.
The answer should come as second nature to me. Yet not with Aspen.
Foreboding dominated my psyche. That she flung my gift to the wolves, throwing it aside like rubbish had split me in half. Regardless, that hadn’t mattered as much as whatever truths she withheld. This female should have learned by now; I knew the signs of recently departed company.
I steered the warhorse around a felled tree. My mount kicked up speed, gilded leaves reducing to a blurred montage on either side of us.
At length, I drew on the reins. The stallion slowed to a trot, then ebbed to a walk. Taking heed, I directed us through the hedges, weaving out of sight as we approached the fringes of her cottage.
Releasing the tether, I whipped out my sword’s twin and windmilled both into place. My gaze torched through the landscape, searing a path across the undergrowth.
A yolk of light crept from beneath the dwelling’s shutters. Because detecting Aspen’s essence wasn’t an option, I sought the lingering aroma that naturally wafted from her cloak. Notes of melted iron and myrrh.
Nothing of the sort. No residual fragrance, shifts in the bracken, or echoes of her presence.
She had retired indoors. She was safe.
Yet she hadn’t been out here alone.
Earlier, a putridness had infested the woods. Not long after, it vanished like an illusion. Matter of fact, I’d ceased detecting its sinister presence since crossing weapons with Aspen and shepherding her home.
Whether or not she had known the perpetrator’s identity was up for debate. She spun enough lies to author an epic novel. Armed with that dishonest tongue, it was easy for her to lead any quarry astray.
I possessed the capacity to read every courtier, servant, and warrior on this continent. Involuntarily, I sensed their auras and moods. Yet I was hardly omniscient. As I’d confessed to Aspen, I could not read her.
Confusion pulled my thoughts in opposing directions.
Yesterday, Aspen mentioned plans to work in her forge.
That bit about the vise bruising her could be legitimate, as well as the denial that she’d known who was out here.
Criminals existed in Autumn like any other nation in The Dark Seasons.
To be hunted in the woods hardly counted as a unique tale.
Having caught sight of Aspen’s retreating back at the revels, I went after her. Delayed by several well-wishers, I had missed the girl’s stalker by minutes, forfeiting the opportunity to confirm a forsaken thing.
Dismounting enabled my stallion to quench his thirst from a spring. I remained until dawn, patrolling the cottage as the sun rose like an amulet, funnels of light cleaving through the branches. No length of time satisfied me. Not until the breeze rustled my jacket collar, light and weightless.
The wind. Yet another clandestine skill I had inherited. The atmosphere communicated to me in its own language.
At last, I lowered the broadswords. Whatever threat I’d discerned had long since dissipated. The gutless piece of shit who tracked Aspen through the wild had disappeared, likely a random crook who registered her axe, my broadswords, or both.
The castle’s tower horn resounded, heralding a new day. I’d vacated the farewell revels. Though by that time, the nobles had been tipping back flagons, dancing, feasting, and promenading through the orchards.
Add certain couples to this equation, and I’d wager they left the festivities not long after me, for one exclusive purpose: to engage in intimacy.
Loudly. For a very long time.
Two pairings came to mind. Poet and Briar. Jeryn and Flare.
At any rate, the clan anticipated me at breakfast before my deployment.
I abhorred leaving Aspen unguarded, yet the girl was right.
She wielded that axe like a virtuoso and would someday make an even greater opponent.
Until then, she had the clan and the skills to defend herself.
I wouldn’t denigrate the maiden by discrediting that.
Nonetheless, I wavered until the horn’s final call. I might have delayed longer, but for one thing. One eternal priority.
Nicu.
My liege and my friend. The Royal Son’s safety came first. I had made that pledge from the time he was a child.
To this end, a quest awaited me. One that would unearth treasonous warriors, dismantle the Summer King’s plot to resurrect his power, and ensure a peaceful future for The Dark Seasons. For Nicu.
Sheathing the broadswords into my scabbards, I mounted the stallion. While throwing one final glance at the cottage, a renewed ache gripped my chest.
The whetstone, forgotten in her hand. Her dismissal impaling me like a dagger.
I compressed my lips, stifling a grumble, smashing the hurt to pieces. With a glower, I jerked the horse around and flew through the woods.
Let it pass. Let it go.
These affirmations spurred me forward. They drove me to the castle, persisting into late morning as I bade the clan farewell, then galloped in a new direction.
Although my heart clenched, I would not look back, would not turn to see the fellowship watching from the Royal balcony.
For all that I treasured every member of the clan, getting overly attached to anyone posed too dire a risk.
If I ever foundered in my duty to protect them, the loss would be harsher, the pain enduring.
I had already suffered this bereavement once before. I would not allow it again.
Days. Years.
They would pass. During this interim, I prayed my newly forged family would stay safe, and the dark omen infecting my mind wouldn’t come to pass.
You will fail to protect her.
The premonition had surfaced the moment I first encountered Aspen, during the courtyard battle with the Masters, back when she was a fledgling caught in the midst of carnage.
Since that fateful night, I hadn’t told her, nor anyone.
Whatever this portent meant, broadcasting the particulars might ironically worsen the outcome and produce a fatal ending.
A common consequence of trying to cheat destiny.
As for Aspen’s lies, she would outgrow them. Just as she would outgrow her… attachment to me.
I hadn’t known. Not until touching Aspen’s shoulder tonight, the contact shedding her defenses, so that every besotted emotion burned across her features. Astonished, I had struggled in vain to process this revelation, her eyes clinging to me with such candid yearning.
Tenderness. Ruefulness. Both reactions afflicted my conscience. My incapacity to read her notwithstanding, I’d been a fool not to recognize Aspen’s infatuation earlier.
Yet another reason to extract myself from her life. I could not offer the girl what she sought, and she would spit on my sympathy if I attempted to console her.
My steed flew across the maple pasture and down a winding road leading south, into the deepest, darkest crevices of Autumn. Aspen would grow up. As she spewed last night, the girl would survive as she always had. Enemies would come and go, and she would learn how to defeat them.
All else that lay ahead must remain unknown. Much like the differences between falsehood and truth.
“I don’t want to remember this night. Or you.”
The wind sliced through my armor, giving flight to my stallion. With a scowl, I kept going, kept going, kept going.
Had she been lying? I could not say.
But one thing was finally certain. The girl couldn’t have known who else had been in the woods last night.
Either that specter would have exposed their identity by ambushing her before my intervention, or she’d have severed their head with her axe prior to my arrival.
Aspen’s traumatically chilling history verified this.
So the only other plausibility was that she had met with them on purpose.
Not. Possible.
The pestilent motherfucker had emitted a malevolent essence, intending to do mortal harm. Aspen wouldn’t ally with such a villain.
Compulsively, she lied to everyone. But she would never lie about that.