One #2
Even so, he’d ensured my family was cared for with enough coin to last several lifetimes.
Nohr and Noam would never know hunger again.
Neither would their children. A familiar flicker of sadness twined in my heart.
I’d die before I got the chance to meet any of their kids.
Unless, of course, Noam and Lysa announced a surprise pregnancy, and then I just might be able to hold on to the last threads of my life long enough to meet the squirming bundle of joy.
Though I hoped for their sake they would spend the next few years of their budding relationship simply enjoying each other’s company.
Like I was supposed to with Orin.
Bile soured the back of my tongue. I tried my best not to think about that colossal piece of shit.
Orin didn’t love me. He just used me to get to my power.
Thank the gods I’d channeled the entire estate’s worth of blight right into his body and wiped him from existence.
I glowered at nothing, forgetting that I was still standing in the safety of my own kitchen and staring directly at Vora.
“Fine, don’t rest.” Vora threw up her hands and turned back to the vegetables, cutting the squash a little too forcefully.
“Sorry.” I shook my head, chasing away all thoughts of Orin. “I wasn’t mad at you. Promise.”
“Just at him.” Vora’s cutting softened to normal, careful slices.
Orin? No. She hadn’t followed that unhinged train of thought.
If she had, she would have agreed wholeheartedly.
Vora hated Orin as much as I did. No, she was referring to Rorik.
Gently, I ran my fingers along my inner wrist. Sometimes I still felt the ghost of his power wrapping around my skin before melting into my very blood.
“It’s hard not to.” I leaned against the worn, wooden table and parked my hip on the corner. This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation.
“You know he didn’t really have control, right?” The soft thud of her knife against the cutting board perfectly punctuated her words. Vora could always slice to the damn heart of the matter with as much efficiency as the kitchen knife she so often wielded.
“I do.” I’d even told him as much when I said that I never wanted to see him again. “Doesn’t mean I have to forgive him. He’s not even asking for it, so why bother advocating on his behalf?”
Silence filled the space between us, becoming an oppressive, suffocating presence. I shifted from one hip to the other, only to give up on the table and stand with my hands braced against a dining chair.
Hushed words escaped her lips. “And the blight?”
I grimaced. A few weeks after I’d returned to my home, I’d dared to look at the newly forged heartbond between Rorik and me.
I’d closed my eyes, thought of him, and it was simply there.
A river of gold with smooth currents of twining, sparkling magic as vibrant as the sun and as reflective as mirrors.
It stretched across a black expanse of nothingness.
I stood on one end and he on the other. He’d been so very far away, his back turned, not a sound to be heard.
I’d wanted to reach out. To touch him. To feel him.
Maybe even throttle him. So I’d raised my hand to drag my fingers through the winding current of our bond and froze.
I’d seen it. The blight. The putrid black sludge slowly eating away at our connection.
My eyes had flown open, and I’d rushed to find Vora in a panic.
I’d barely managed words, but somehow mentioned Rorik’s name and blight.
She’d left that night, only to return the next morning, stating Rorik showed no signs of sickness, and neither did Fernglove Estate.
I barely believed her, but found nothing after checking the heartbond again. Blight hadn’t existed at all. The first hallucination of many. While I hadn’t seen the creeping illness since, Death sure as hell made his presence known.
“Nothing,” I murmured. “I checked the other day to be safe.”
“Good.” She nodded once, and the tension in the room fled out the open window. With the last of the vegetables cut, she turned toward the already packed apothecary cases near the dining table. “We should get going, then. Before Nohr comes in here with that stench of his.”
At that, the front door swung open, and my brother walked in.
His knee-high boots were covered in muck, his thick pants splattered with a greenish-brown grime.
The faint scent of fertile manure drifted about him as he walked toward us, wide grin revealing dimples that burrowed deep into his cheeks.
His brown hair had lengthened and now skimmed the tops of his ears, and his teakwood eyes were full of warmth. Peace.
I didn’t care about the stink perfuming his frame, so long as he always looked exactly like this.
“Hey,” he said, wrapping me in a one-armed hug.
Okay, maybe I cared a smidge. Pinching my nose, I pulled out of his embrace and lightly shoved his chest. “Gods, did you roll in the dirt with the horses? You need a bath.”
His smile deepened. “What, now that you don’t have to forage for herbs, dirt is beneath you? I didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
“Sensibilities aside, I won’t have you dirtying this house,” Vora said as she waved in his general direction. “Go clean up.”
“Months, Vora, and you’re already acting like our mother.” But Nohr’s voice was soft, appreciative, as he inched toward her with his arms spread wide. “Mother always liked her hugs.”
She glared at him with enough ire to freeze a normal person in place. “Don’t you dare.”
I chuckled as I watched Nohr edge toward her.
Both he and Noam had grown attached to Vora in the days following the downfall of Orin Fernglove.
While they’d awoken from their magic-induced coma free of blight, I’d slipped into one—and survived thanks in large part to Vora’s constant attention.
The boys had been glued to her side, and neither of them complained when she voiced her desire to return to Willowfell with us.
Nohr lunged for Vora, who yelped as she unsuccessfully tried to avoid his wide arms. She bumped right into the counter, and he cornered her with a laugh, practically draping himself across her like a sheet.
She cursed into his filthy shirt, and I giggled as he not-so-innocently wiped his grimy hands on her apron.
“Ridiculous,” I murmured to Ywena, and she gave an answering titter of agreement from her nest on my shoulder.
“All right, all right!” Vora blew out a huff, then untied her apron. “We’re heading to market. Get yourself cleaned up before we get back, or you’ll be sleeping in the barn tonight.”
Nohr shrugged. “Will make my morning chores all the easier.”
Vora cursed beneath her breath as she grabbed both of my cases—I’d given up arguing with her about being able to carry them myself—and walked out the front door.
I followed closely behind her, eager to put distance between myself and the house that had started to feel more like a grave than a home.
If I lingered for one more minute between those walls, I feared the visage of Death would return.
My time was nearing its end. My purpose .
. . gone, now that my brothers were healed and safe.
With each passing day, I felt the lack of control over my existence grow.
I was more powerless than I’d ever been, and I hated it.