55. Rohak
Chapter 55
Rohak
I was interrupted from my sleep by a loud banging on my door.
“Rohak! Rohak, open up!” That voice, I knew that voice. Usually it was softer, but right now it possessed an urgency and excitement I had never heard before. Her anticipation was palpable, and I wondered what she had found.
Her excitement, and the incessant banging on my door, was what ultimately pulled me from the comfort of my bed to the door of my rooms. I grabbed a thin pair of linen pants before I opened the door, Faylinn’s hand still moving to knock. Her small fist ended up hitting my chest rather than the door and I grunted in surprise.
She, on the other hand, felt no remorse. “Oops, sorry. Sorry to wake you, I know you need to sleep and you’re grumpy as it is, but I have to show you this! Also, where is your shirt? Never mind, at least you have pants on. I can maybe recover from seeing you shirtless, but a no pants situation would do me in for sure. There’d be no coming back from that.”
She got like this when she was nervous or excited—words and thoughts all over the place. I didn’t even think that she knew what she was saying half the time when her mind was whirling with an idea.
“Does my lack of shirt distract you, Faylinn?” My voice was husky from sleep, and I saw her pupils widen a fraction .
“N-no. It doesn’t. Quite alright for you to wear whatever you want. It’s your room after all and the middle of the night. But maybe you should put one on, you might burn out the retinas of your guards or something.” The guards in question were doing their best to not look at the two of us, and they were undoubtedly holding back laughs. A few of which escaped, and I shot them a dark glare, which sobered them enough that they weren’t outright laughing at Faylinn.
“Faylinn, why don’t you come inside,” I suggested.
“Nope. Nope, absolutely not. The staff already think we’re sleeping together and me disappearing into your room in the middle of the night while you have no shirt on is just not going to end well for me.”
The guards did outright laugh at that, and I huffed my own sigh. “Fine, then. What’s got you all . . . excited?”
“Look!” She opened her journal, Cotton falling unceremoniously to the ground with a loud meow before trotting in the direction of the stairs, and thrust it into my face. I pushed it back slightly so I could see what was written, but it was all in runes. “Love, I can’t read any of this,” I said gently.
She frowned before pulling her journal back and quickly scanning the pages. “Oh. I’m an idiot. I rewrote the rune passage in more runes. That’s annoying.” She seemed to be talking to herself as she quickly translated her scribblings while standing up. “There! Fixed!” She shoved the journal in my face again and I read what she wrote.
“That’s . . . great, Faylinn. But I’m not sure why it warrants waking me . . .?” I didn’t want to be rude, but I truly didn’t understand why she was so excited. The girl was practically vibrating with energy and the high of her find, and my skepticism did nothing to dull that.
“I can do it!” she screeched. “I can cure Mage Sickness.”
My heart stopped beating for a moment as I regarded her. She was positively beaming, confidence written all across her face. “You’re sure?” I asked, and she nodded. I snapped her journal closed and turned back into my room to grab the tunic lying across my couch. I slipped a pair of boots on my feet before shutting and locking my door.
“Please wake Lord d’Refan. Tell him it’s urgent and he’s needed in the servant’s wing,” I informed the guards as I grabbed Faylinn’s hand, leading her down the stairs and into the wing where we housed Ben. “Where did you find this information?” I asked as we ran through the hallways.
“Oh! The Bondsmith ,” she panted. I halted and she practically ran into my back.
“A children’s book? You’re basing your information off of a children’s book?” I asked, incredulously. She simply rolled her eyes at me.
“Yes,” she said as we continued to walk. “I know what I read and what I saw. And at the end of the day, I’m testing it on someone who is important to me, not one of your Mages. It’s the only thing you’ve got, right? You have no other way to help them other than to ease their passing?”
I jerked a nod, running my hand through my sleep-mussed hair.
“So, what’s the issue, then?” Her voice had taken on a defensive edge, the excitement of her discovery fully drained. “If he dies, it’s just another person close to me that leaves. No one else is affected,” she said cooly, tugging her hand from my grip, but I saw through her frosty demeanor.
She was scared. And hurt by my question.
I put my hand on her back, lightly stroking her spine. Her cheeks flushed a beautiful pink at the contact, and I continued to rub comforting circles.
“I trust you, Faylinn. And no matter what happens, you’re incredibly smart and capable.” She smiled softly at me, some of her defensiveness melting away at my touch and words. Alois chose that moment to come around the corner and he raised his brows at my hand.
I dropped it from her back like she was on fire and took a healthy step away.
Alois, thankfully, didn’t say anything, he just looked at the two of us.
“Well?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest. Somehow, he was fully dressed and completely put together.
Does he ever sleep? I was starting to think that the answer to that question was no.
Faylinn didn’t speak up, so I took the opportunity to fill Alois in. He nodded as I explained the situation before unlocking the door and ushering us inside.
The room was dark, a low fire lit in the fireplace. The steady rise and fall of the sheets over the lump on the mattress was the only sign of life in the room. We approached the bed cautiously, and I saw Faylinn start to fidget with the notebook in her hands.
She sucked in a breath when she saw the Earth Mage—Ben—in the bed. He was smaller than when he first arrived, his muscles had atrophied from lack of use. His skin was pale and dry, his lips cracked, and there was a steady stream of blood that leaked from his nose and ears. Faylinn cautiously reached out to brush his hair away from his forehead, an almost inaudible whimper leaving her.
I watched as she delicately wiped the blood from his nose and ears, softly murmuring something as she did. And my heart ached.
It ached for Faylinn and the loss she had already endured.
It ached for the love she clearly held for Ben.
And it ached for me, for the longing I felt for a woman who wasn’t—and never would be—mine.
I rubbed my sternum, trying to soothe the organ underneath, and stepped back from the bed, giving Faylinn and Ben a modicum of privacy.
Alois cleared his throat, his gaze jumping from me to Fay. I shook my head slightly, I didn’t want to talk about it and there was nothing there to talk about, anyway.
Faylinn’s head shot up like she forgot we were in the room.
“What do you need, Rune Master?” Alois asked, not unkindly.
“An Earth Vessel,” she said confidently. “I have everything else that I will need.” She removed her hands from Ben’s head and placed the notebook on the table next to the bed, open to the page she showed me. She procured a knife from a sheath on her thigh, and I noticed that it was etched with runes.
It looked old, though the craftsmanship was impeccable. It was something I’d never seen before, and I knew that it piqued Alois’ interest as well.
So many secrets .
Alois spun on his heel, his gaze connecting with mine before he left the room.
Yes, we’d be discussing those secrets soon enough .
The silence in the room was deafening without Alois, and I sunk into a chair near the fireplace, content to just watch her work.
That’s all I’d ever be able to do, once her love was awake again. Just watch her work from afar.
“Why do you need an Earth Vessel, Faylinn?” I asked. She stopped her preparations to regard me, her expression shifted, and she looked almost guilty. My heart raced for a moment, afraid of her answer. “Faylinn,” I tried again, my voice harder, “why do you need an Earth Vessel? ”
She opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by the arrival of Alois and a servant girl. She was younger, probably in her mid-twenties, and her eyes were wild. She was dressed for sleep, her threadbare nightgown doing little to hide her frame.
“W-what is happening?” she croaked, her shaking hands held tight to the end of her auburn hair and her golden eyes flicked about from Alois to me to Faylinn. Her eyes widened impossibly further when she noticed the knife in Faylinn’s hand and she started to shake, slowly backing up toward the door.
“Wait!” Faylinn called, dropping the knife with a clatter on the night table as she reached for the girl. Her hand closed around the girl’s wrist, halting her progress. “What’s your name?” Faylinn asked softly.
“A-Asha,” the girl’s voice cracked, and Faylinn gave her an encouraging smile, gently petting her hair.
“Asha, my name is Faylinn, but you can call me Fay.” The girl stopped shaking a bit, only slight tremors running through her body.
“Y-you’re the Bondsmith everyone keeps talking about,” she spoke reverently, and Faylinn rolled her eyes.
“I’m not the Bondsmith, just a girl who knows about runes.” Her denial did nothing to dash the stars from Asha’s eyes.
“Are you going to kill me? Use my blood for some rune or ritual?” Asha’s question was quiet, but strong.
Faylinn laughed quietly, still stroking the girl’s hair. “No, Asha. Nothing like that.” And the girl visibly relaxed, enough so that Faylinn released her wrist. “I do need your help, though.” And Asha nodded eagerly.
“You see that man there?” She gestured with her head to where Ben slept in the bed. “He’s . . . he’s one of my closest friends. And he has Mage Sickness.” Empathy and sadness swam in Asha’s eyes as she glanced from Faylinn to Ben and back again. “I can save him, but I need an Earth Vessel to do it. Will you help me?”
“You can save people from Mage Sickness?” The reverence was back in full force in Asha’s tone. Faylinn gave a small smile and stopped petting the girl’s hair, turning back to the nightstand, confident the girl would follow.
I was in complete awe watching Faylinn. There was something . . . magnetic about her. She was like a flame and we were all moths, drawn to her. She could be a spider, waiting in her net for prey, and we’d all willingly jump into her web.
“I think so. It’s something I’ve never done before, but I’m confident it’ll work.”
Asha stood next to Faylinn at the side of Ben’s bed, no longer shaking, completely at ease in Faylinn’s presence. “My brother died from Mage Sickness,” she said softly, and Faylinn cupped the girl’s head.
“I’m so sorry, Asha.” And you could tell that she truly meant those words.
“If I can help, I’d like to. Plus, it would be an honor to say that the Bondsmith needed me.” Asha said the last part with a grin.
“I’m not the Bondsmith,” Faylinn grumbled as she readied her tools. “With any new rune, I’m not fully sure of the side effects if it works, and I’m not sure what’ll happen if it doesn’t work. Are you okay with that?”
Asha simply nodded her head.
“What are you going to do?”
Faylinn gestured for her to crawl into the bed next to Ben as she pulled the covers back from her lover.
“I’m going to Bond you to him,” she said simply.
My blood ran cold.