Chapter 28 Faylinn
Faylinn
“Where the fuck did that book go?” I muttered to myself as Cotton meowed in response from the corner of the sitting room.
“Is that so?” I asked him, reaching my hand beneath the couch, fumbling around blind. “I know you like the fish, Cotton, but there’s none left from breakfast today. You ate it all, you fat cat.”
“Meow,” Cotton hissed with a roll of his deep yellow eyes before he sprang from his perch, tail fluffed and pointed in the air.
“Yeah, yeah. Go take a nap on my bed, why don’t you?” My hand connected with a book, and I yanked it from its hiding spot.
Theories on Plant Growth in Northern Elyria.
Interesting, but not what I was searching for.
I tossed it in the general direction of the stack of books that all focused on plant life.
It smacked into a teetering tower, which sent the books falling asunder.
I sat back on my heels and blew a wayward curl from in front of my eyes.
As always, it simply fell back against my forehead.
Ugh.
I cracked my neck and stretched the ache in my back before bending down again to reach beneath the sofa. I pressed my cheek against the soft rug, trying in vain to see the tiny of sliver of space beneath.
A knock sounded on the door, and I shouted a muffled “come in!” as my hand continued to flap uselessly.
Dust bunny, hair ball, potential dead mouse, ahh!
“Aha!” I exclaimed and wiggled my ass in the air in a victory dance.
A little giggle sounded behind me and I whipped around, my curls bouncing around my face. “Should I come back later?”
Ellowyn d’Refan stood just in the doorway, one arm crossed softly over her waist while the elbow of the other rested atop, her long-fingered hand covering her mouth. Her grey eyes sparkled with amusement even as I felt my cheeks pink in embarrassment.
“No, uh, I, uh, found what I was looking for!” I shook the book in question, dust motes and a stray hair or two falling off from the motion. I winced, but Ellowyn didn’t seem to mind.
I was a clean person, except for under the couch, apparently.
Really, who cleaned beneath their couch every day?
And, yes, I had stacks of papers and books littering every surface of my sitting room—and part of my bedroom—but they were all organized. I knew where everything was and didn’t dare try and reorganize. I’d simply lose all of the information and have to begin again.
A complete waste of time, in my opinion.
“And what book is that?” Ellowyn asked as she gracefully stepped around the short stacks of books nearest the door, picking her way through the labyrinth of my sitting room until she found a semi-cleared spot on the floor and sank down so she was sitting across from me.
The woman moved with an effortless grace, something I had never even tried to master—the semi-full skirt of her plain black dress swished elegantly against the floor and seemed to obey her every command.
Her movements were sharp and sure, and she carried herself with a poise that fit her willowy frame.
Ellowyn was grace and class personified, and I was . . . not.
I glanced at her feet poking just beneath the hem of her dress as she sat sideways on the floor, her spine erect. Even her feet were beautiful—thin and covered in black silk slippers. I was barefoot as always, the calluses, blisters, and tattooed runes on full display.
Even her face showcased an interest in what I was researching, and it appeared genuine.
She fits this role perfectly.
“The first Sundering,” I said with a shrug, and her expression showed a polite interest.
“Oh? The first? I thought there was only one?”
I winced slightly at my loose tongue—I had long speculated that a second Sundering was sneaking closer, especially with the arrival of the gods. But it was still just that at this point—a theory.
“Uhm, yes. There is only one. I just was looking at the causes and events leading up to that Sundering,” I admitted.
“Anything of note you’ve found?”
I frowned slightly and narrowed my eyes. “Are you asking to be polite, or are you actually interested?”
She tilted her head, her perfectly curled light-blonde hair cascading down her shoulders to nearly rest on the floor.
“Why can’t it be both?”
My lips turned down slightly and I bobbed my head.
“Fair enough,” I admitted, and Ellowyn laughed lightly again.
It was a beautiful sound. Everything about her was magnetic, and I was drawn into her orbit.
“There were massive, nearly cataclysmic storms and other natural disasters, the emergence of godlings, villages eradicated, hyper-nationalism. Those sorts of things. I was just going back to look at some of the specifics.”
“Godlings?” Ellowyn tilted her head curiously.
I nodded once, butterflies floating in my belly, both at the prospect of someone else taking interest in my research and the subject of that research.
“Yes! Godlings. They were these . . . beings. Not full-fledged gods, almost like adolescent gods? I don’t know for sure; the information is unclear.
They’re only mentioned a few times in what I’ve read, and their descriptions were passing at best. But it seemed that they possessed the same type of power as the gods—could wield it in the same fashion—but they were mortal. ”
“Huh. What do you mean could wield their power the same way as the gods?”
“Well, from what I’ve read”—I let the book fall to the ground next to me so I could talk with my hands—“gods had an infinite well of power to draw from with no need to refill those reserves. Godlings had the same well.”
“Ah,” Ellowyn’s face was suddenly ashen, and she twiddled with the bracelets on her wrists.
“Yeah,” I said, noticing the sudden change in her demeanor. “Uhm, but it’s all just speculation, obviously. There’s no one left alive from that time. Except for the gods, of course, and I doubt they’d be open to a conversation with me.”
Not to mention the only description I’ve found of godlings was in a book given to me by a dead Keeper.
The irony was not lost on me.
The disinterest faded from Ellowyn’s expression only to be replaced by wry amusement.
“I would imagine not,” she agreed, and silence fell between us.
“Was there something I could help you with today?” I asked, crossing my legs in front of me and leaning my elbows on my knees, hands propping up my chin.
“Oh! Yes. So Alois says that, in order to take these off”—she shook her wrist at me and the bangle softly chafed against her skin—“I need some sort of Containment Rune? Something to help keep my magic in check while I learn to control it.”
I frowned.
A Containment Rune?
I’d never seen one used that way on a human before—generally they were constructed around pieces of pasture to keep animals grazing in one area while foliage regrew in another pasture.
Putting that type of rune on Ellowyn would not only be cruel, it would probably kill her, forcing her magic to bottle up with no way to release it.
The longer I stayed silent with my brow furrowed, the faster I saw Ellowyn wilt, her gaze growing dark and despondent.
She needed this; that much was clear. Keeping her barred from her magic for so long was more than barbaric at this point, and I wondered how it would affect her once she had full access again. To me, it felt like forcing the bracelets on her only made her magic wilder and untamable.
But maybe that is Lord d’Refan’s goal. But why?
I chewed my lip in thought as I pulled my personal journal from my waist belt and quickly jotted a few notes in the margins of a nearly full page. I snapped it closed and placed it back in my belt before schooling my expression.
Improvise.
“I . . . can do something like that,” I hedged, and Ellowyn’s face instantly brightened.
“Really? You can? I can get them off today?” The hope in her voice nearly brought tears to my eyes.
I motioned for her arm and clinically studied the bracelet on her wrist. It was thin and marked with runes; all were simple in nature, but when combined, created a binding effect.
Interesting.
Not only could I remove them, I could negate their power and study them at a later date.
“Yes, I can,” I said confidently.
And fuck Lord d’Refan if he doesn’t want these removed.
“Now?” Ellowyn whispered fervently, a light in her eyes I hadn’t seen yet, even when we visited her home in Hestin.
I smiled, the skin at the corners of my eyes crinkling with the motion.
“Let me grab a few things, but we’ll do it in your room. Just in case there’s any lethargy afterward, I want you to have access to your bed.”
And just in case you blow something up from being repressed so long, I want to save my research. And my cat.
Ellowyn sat on her couch, legs crossed beneath her, face intent on my blood-tipped finger. Her room was the same setup as mine, even down to the same furniture. But it was so much cleaner that the space felt cavernous.
I don’t have that many books. I grumbled internally as I made a few marks on her skin.
The rune I tattooed would fade over time, gently releasing her powers.
She would feel her magic and be able to draw if but only a trickle at a time.
Eventually, over a month or so, her full abilities would be restored.
Hopefully, by then, she would have control over her magic.
I muttered beneath my breath as I saw the rune brighten briefly before darkening into a thin black tattoo on her forearm, just beneath her elbow.
“Feel anything?” I asked, and Ellowyn shook her pretty head.
“Nope. Nothing. Though I love how it looks, I look like you!”
I smiled a bit at her enthusiasm; a singular rune that would fade in a month was not the same as the hundreds I had inked on my skin in various patterns. But the thought was adorable and incredibly endearing.
Even though we came from vastly different backgrounds and lives, I felt an odd kinship with the woman across from me.
Maybe we could even be friends.