Chapter 14 #2
“Think about it,” Lavellin gestures at the air, splaying its long fingers. “What magics truly have an opposite? The opposite of a firemancer isn’t a watermancer—it’s an absence-of-firemancer, and who on earth would have that magic?”
“I suppose…” Bassen nods slowly.
“But how do you know this, Lav?” Torver asks.
“The lore in the old language is full of things like that. Do they really keep all that from you down here?”
Torver remembers how even the books from the Library of the Wen, the sanctioned texts—even they had pages ripped out. He doesn’t know half of what they keep from him down here.
He catches sight of Winander down in the village, and Torver is relieved to see him appear from a barn, not with a band of Enforcer cronies at his back, but with reams of fabric and poles balanced on each shoulder.
He mounts his expedition up the hill, laden like a pack mule but walking with the gait of a man unburdened.
Torver wonders if he should stand between him and the illegal fae at his side.
He’s upon them in no time. Bassen sags in relief.
“So you’re the Rath!” Winander passes a few of the poles to Torver, still taking the bulk of the weight, while he peers at Lavellin around Torver’s shoulder. “It’s…nice to meet you, I suppose! I hear you’re friendly? You’re not going to make me a changeling, I hope!”
They walk away from Watenlath until they come to a large oak tree.
A nearby stream sings a melody of trickling water and Lavellin barely has the chance to speak as Winander asks it excitedly about its border crossing, about its magic, if he can touch its ears, well why can’t he touch its ears?
Bassen has to gently intervene, like she’s prising a stick from an overzealous terrier.
Torver watches the exchange with his teeth gritted—if Winander is going to betray them over this, then he’s clearly playing the long game.
He sets to examining the tent materials the man brought, trying to ignore the simmering discomfort he feels. To his additional horror, there appears only to be enough to construct two tents. He quashes his irritation while the wind sends barbs down his arms.
He picks up a tent pole and begins to try and assemble a dwelling. Eventually, the others notice and help him and his attention is drawn suddenly by a sharp hiss from Lavellin. It throws the tent peg it had been holding onto the grass and curls its hand to its body.
“Lav?”
Lavellin flexes its hand a few times and Torver can see an angry red welt; a straight line where the metal had touched its skin. He fights the urge to take its hand in his, to inspect the injury up close. Shakes the thought away.
“Iron,” it says through gritted teeth. “You could have warned me.”
Torver picks up the tent peg that Lavellin had thrown and works it into the ground through a loop of waxed fabric.
“Didn’t realise fae skin was so delicate,” he chides.
“Oh ha ha.” Lavellin rolls its eyes, shaking out the pain from its iron-burned hand. “Iron is a horrid metal. You do the rest of the pegs, alright? I need to go and take the heat out of this.”
It wanders off to the shallow beck, not deep enough to drown a hedgehog. Crouching low at the side of the tinkling water, it sighs as its hand disappears beneath the surface. Torver swallows the mixture of his feelings and hurries with the pegs and fabric.
Soon, the tents are assembled—Torver’s near the stream, and Bassen’s on the other side of the large oak tree. Far enough away to deaden any sounds the pair might make, Torver hopes.
Before Bassen can disappear into her tent with Winander, Torver pulls her aside.
“Are you sure about this?” He keeps his voice low.
Bassen blinks.
“I mean, are you really sure?” He ducks his face closer to hers. “What if he—what if he betrays us? What do we know about him other than this weird pull he has on you? We don’t know anything about him.”
Bassen’s mouth quirks on one side. In annoyance or exasperation, Torver can’t tell.
“You don’t know anything about Lavellin and you trust it,” she points out.
“That’s different!” he snaps, after being temporarily affronted by the truth of it. “I—we’re used to it now. We know its character, don’t we? But this guy…”
“Torv, you forget that I have a pull on him too. He won’t betray us! I can feel it.”
“Hmm,” he says, folding his arms. His forehead feels tight, he realises he’s frowning.
“Are you jealous again?” she says, continuing to speak over his outraged harrumphs. “Torv, you know you’ll always be my main man. Just let me figure this one out. Please?”
She pulls him into a hug, her bony arms encircling him.
“Didn’t you hear Lavellin?” She says, softer this time. “He’s my mate. This is once in a lifetime, Torv. Let me experience it.”
Torver lets a breath through his teeth.
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Sorry, I’m just—cautious. You get it, right?”
“Of course I do.” She squeezes his shoulder. “Now, goodnight. I’ll gauge if Winander would want to come with us, if I can tell him where we’re going.”
“Oh.” Torver’s face slackens. “Right. Yeah, I’d—forgotten. It slipped my mind during all of….this.”
He gestures weakly before catching his sore finger with his other hand, grounding himself in the sting.
She reaches out and squeezes his arm and he pushes the disquieting thoughts from his mind. They part ways to their separate tents.
Torver jumps when Lavellin appears suddenly at his side. The buttons of its shirt hang open, the breeze parting the fabric to reveal a sliver of muscled torso.
“Is all well?” It stands close to him, the heat of it at his shoulder.
Torver looks at the tent. The tent looks back.
“Yeah,” he replies gruffly, running his hand over his once-smooth face. Stubble prickles his fingers, the quiet sound like a farrier’s rasp.
He kicks off his boots and ducks into the tent. Lavellin follows close behind and they sit on the blankets that Winander provided. The inside of the tent is cramped, a pole at each end and across the top creates a roof, the ground covered by unpadded cloth. Basic, and cold.
The chill makes the hair on Torver’s arms stand on end and he notices the fae looking at him steadily.
The tent isn’t large and Lavellin settles in front of him with its long legs crossed, a mirror of his own position.
Their knees are almost touching. It feels strange to be alone with it again.
Strange, but relieving. He doesn’t know when he began to trust it, only that he…
does. The feeling is odd, particularly with it looking at him like that.
He constructs a box in his mind to push the thoughts into.
“We should sleep,” he says, looking away.
But the ground is hard beneath him and he grows annoyed at the air and how its chill settles in the marrow of his bones. The thought that even last night, it had been warm enough to sleep outside, blanketless, irks him.
Lavellin lays down, its strong arm curving underneath its head as a pillow. It’s still looking at him.
Several heartbeating seconds pass until Torver says, “Stop it.”
It knows exactly what he means. “No,” it replies, the side of its mouth tilting upwards. Then it adds, “Cold tonight, isn’t it?”
Torver’s muscles are contracting, like he’s about to start shivering. The ground underneath him seems to leach away any warmth now that he’s no longer moving.
Lavellin leans towards him. It raises its spare arm a little above itself, a little towards him—an offering.
Torver’s eyes narrow. He thinks of the wagon ride out of the Dodwood, how he thought it had been numbing his pain when it had really been feeling it in his stead.
But body heat is the only way he’ll be able to sleep through this chill. He edges closer.
“You’re not going to…feel things for me, are you?”
Its rose lips part in a small smile. “I’ll feel whatever you tell me to.”
Torver doesn’t like that response, but he nods, regardless.
Its arm closes the gap, coming to rest in the hollow of his waist. It pulls him closer, its face so near that he can feel its breath on his nose, his cheek. It radiates warmth like it’s made of simmering coals, and he reddens when a small sigh escapes his lips.
It smiles.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” it asks, the angle of its brow casting shadows over its eyes in the dim light. Its mouth is close to his ear when it speaks.
“I hate to say so.” Torver shuffles on the hard ground. “But yes.”
He allows himself to examine its face. How its dark eyelashes flutter with each blink, how its smooth skin coats its cheekbones like poured silk, parting in its two scars.
The parallel lines either side of its chin.
He hesitates before he puts his own arm across its waist—to keep the heat in.
Its eyebrow arches in response, just ever so slightly, before its knee touches his.
Through the chill fabric of the tent, Torver can hear distant voices, distant laughter. The air and his mind feel full—bursting. And Lavellin’s eyes are hawk-focused on his.
“So,” Torver exhales. “You’ve been in the Kingdom a while now. Don’t you miss home?”
The question has the intended effect. It looks away.
“You lived in the Rath, right? The castle?” Torver continues. “If I lived in a castle, I don’t know if I could cope with sleeping rough. What was your life like in Rheged?”
It sags in his arms.
“It was—different. Pressured. I had a role,” it says eventually. “A role I didn’t ask for. One I couldn’t do.”
Its fingers flex behind him, brushing his back. Torver’s skin tingles.
“Do you not miss it?” he pushes.
Lavellin’s mouth scrunches to the side. Torver watches it over the end of his nose.
“You’re clever,” Lavellin replies. “I’m sure you can guess.”
Torver frowns.
And the air is suddenly too heavy in his lungs because he is not clever. He knows this. He’s known it since he was thirteen. The last words his mother ever said to him. You can’t stay, Torver. You don’t have papers, do you? You’ll take us all down with you. Stupid, stupid boy.
“Of course I miss it,” Lavellin shrugs.
Torver blinks heavily. He hears someone’s footsteps on the grass outside; they approach the tent, then pause. Lavellin tenses, but when Torver swallows, its eyes dart to his shifting jaw.
“I miss being able to speak my own language,” Lavellin says after a moment, the footsteps fading as their maker walks away. “I miss my feather mattress, I miss the magic in everything and everyone. But I don’t miss King Eveling…the way it chooses to rule.”
Torver thinks to leave the conversation there, but Lavellin gently presses its knee to him so that he parts his legs, its thigh coming to rest between his as it moves closer.
“Why King? King means man,” Torver swallows, pushing both thigh and Mere from his thoughts. The box in his mind where he’s keeping himself is about to flow over. “Is Eveling not fae?”
“It is.” Lavellin’s face transmutes into a mournful expression. “It thinks that the moniker of king gives it power. That it’s a king’s right to be brutal and unforgiving. Merciless.”
“No gods, no kings,” he offers uselessly.
“It…hurts,” Lavellin’s jaw twitches. “Knowing that my people suffer. That there’s nothing I can do. That I left them…”
Its voice wavers, eyes shining with unshed tears.
“And that your people suffer too. From Eveling’s choices—the traditions it upholds. The cruelty…”
He’s more surprised than Lavellin when he takes its hand in his.
“I wish I could take the pain away,” he says, threading its fingers between his, just how it had done when they’d been leaving the Dodwood.
Lavellin smiles weakly and Torver tries to smile back, hoping that he’s doing this right—being supportive. He doesn’t have a great deal of friend experience. Bassen isn’t like other people.
He squeezes its hand before he lets go, running his fingers through his dark hair.
“We should sleep,” it whispers, rubbing its hand over its face, its opal eyes rimmed in red. “Is it okay if I—turn?”
Without waiting for a reply, Lavellin turns its lean back to him, pressing it flush against his front. It reaches behind itself to take his arm and pull the limp thing over its body.
Before he knows it, Torver’s palm is pressed to its beating heart and he can’t fall asleep for the longest time, even when he feels it soften in his arms. He feels strange—tense.
But at least he isn’t cold when his dreams of the Beast come for him.