4. Chapter 4
Lunette
I woke after a long nap to a pair of enormous, slitted green eyes glaring inches from my face. I groaned, head throbbing painfully. “Ughh, Muffin. You can feed yourself! Go murder a rat or something, you terror!”
The little veska’s claws scrambled across my chest, seeking purchase on the cloth of my dress as I half-rose. My vision blurred, and I instantly regretted the quick movement.
I rubbed my aching temples. Maybe it was time I started demanding more for draining myself so no one else would have to suffer. I’d forgotten to eat this morning after performing an emergency healing before the sun rose, so this afternoon’s case of magical exhaustion felt more like a hangover.
Slow and steady then.
I stood but immediately had to brace myself on the nearest chair. But instead of grabbing wood, my hand landed on the apron I’d worn to cover my clothes. It was still covered in blood. Half-dried flakes came off with my hand.
Gross.
To my incredulous delight, Muffin hadn’t chewed through anything while I was passed out. Instead, he was perched on the headboard, his tufted ears twitching as he tracked a fly. His elongated, beige, fur-covered body was a coiled spring as he waited to pounce on the intruder.
Built like a sausage, bent on violence.
I washed my hands and body quickly then changed into my most worn-out linen dress, glad for its familiar softness as I slipped it on over tired muscles.
It had holes all over the front and shoulders from Muffin practicing his climbing when he was still a kit, but this afternoon would leave me filthy with so much to do in my little garden.
Plus, my only visitors would be those too distraught to notice my appearance—not that anyone cared what I looked like anyway.
My cabin was tiny. Three people had lived here once then two for a time.
Now, only I and the moody veska I’d adopted called these four walls home.
I crossed the small space between my bed and food preparation table, limping from stiff muscles the whole way.
Muffin followed on four stubby legs, long furry body snaking around furniture and up the side of the cabinet to demand treats with a high-pitched growl.
With a crack of the seal, I opened one of the containers I stored his food in and pointed a piece at him.
“If you weren’t adorable. I’d let the tanner make you into something useful like a neck warmer.
” I didn’t mean it, of course, but he was my mirror in so many ways—a loner who turned grumpy when hungry.
He blinked once, utterly unimpressed by my threat. Unfortunately he wasn’t the only creature in Selmont who knew I was harmless, but he was the only one I didn’t mind exploiting it. The jerky would keep his mouth busy long enough for me to make something to settle my mutinous stomach.
When I creaked open the wooden shutters covering the windows, the sun was already lowering in the sky.
I’d slept the entire morning away. Some cheese, a thick slice of bread, and a few gulps of apple juice were all I made time for.
I had to harvest a few pumpkins and root vegetables then see if I would be lucky enough to find mushrooms on my walk through the forest later.
The fading sky through the window was a muted pewter, heavy with the scent of the changing weather. A storm would be here in two nights—a trial for my aged roof. I’d have to get a few buckets ready to catch the leaks.
As I gathered the materials, I fumed. I desperately needed new shingles, and the villagers were supposed to pay me for tending to the wards and healing them.
Keeping me fed was no longer enough. Soon, I’d tell the men plainly: help me with my roof or the wards wouldn’t get charged.
They could decide if they valued their safety more than their scorn of me.
The thought brought a bitter spark of satisfaction that only lasted until I opened the door.
I found the usual offerings left on my porch: a generous basket of oats, some thread, and parchment-wrapped jerky.
I could name the worth of every item they gave me by weight and season, but none of that measured up against what they refused to give me.
One look. One thank you. One person saying my name like it belonged to a woman and not a tool.
I took their goods anyway, because hunger didn’t care about my dignity.
I stooped and gathered the basket against my hip, hauling it inside. I told myself it was enough. I didn’t need their gratitude, their trust, or their company. I told myself that the barter of silence suited me.
I told myself these lies often enough that they almost sounded true.
“Lunette!”
A boy’s sharp cry rang down the lane leading to my forest-wrapped cabin. All my senses snapped awake at the sound.
I turned just as Louie, the potter’s son, hurtled into my yard, trousers muddied, cheeks bright with breathless exertion and the streak of urgency seemingly common to all eight-year-olds. His dark hair was sticking to his forehead as he skidded to a stop, shoulders heaving.
“What is it, Louie?” I asked, heart rate picking up.
Before he uttered a word, his small hand was already pulling me toward the lane. I followed, pushing the last of the offerings inside and closing the door.
“Sis dropped a pot! Has a nasty gash on her face, and her arm won’t quit bleeding. Mama’s panicked. Says that unless it’s fixed, her prospects for a good marriage are doomed. Had to get you!”
An open artery apparently ranked lower than a hypothetical husband. People’s priorities were a marvel. I wanted to scream at the state of the world, but it was pointless. My voice would change nothing when no one wanted to hear it.
My throbbing headache from using so much magic earlier would only allow me to keep up a slow jog toward their house without collapsing.
“Pa said there were royal guards scouting the road south of the village last night. Said even their horses had armor!”
His eyes gleamed with an excitement that was harmless now. But life in Avanfell would teach him about mortality, about the grim reality of the world outside our tiny village.
“There were purple-robed mage-men asking questions in the market town too,” Louie added, lowering his voice with all the solemnity of a child delivering a ghost story.
I gulped down air through rising worries.
If royal scouts were headed this way, did that mean border tensions were getting worse?
Decades ago, when the old king who had a Fae bloodline still ruled, my family had enjoyed an air of respectability.
Now there was only his mostly human son who’d forgotten that the borderlands existed.
I’d have to keep the wards strengthened until I fell to pieces. The thought festered in my stomach like spoiled meat. I was tired of being a sacrifice in an unofficial war none of us had chosen.
But if Assembly mages were in the area, I needed to make myself scarce. My parents had been clear about all the horrible things they’d do to me if they found me.
After that, Louie kept up his rapid-fire talking the whole way there. I welcomed the distraction. The village children were my only reliable source of news since no adults would talk to me.
We found his little sister cradled in their mother’s arms on their front porch. Lana pressed a wet cloth to Celine’s face with one hand while the other held her arm in a steel grip. On my approach, Lana pulled her hand away, revealing a long gash along the four-year-old’s cheek and lip.
The wounds dripped blood steadily, and Celine’s thin shoulders shook, her sobs muffled against her mother’s chest. The keening sound she made was the kind that burrowed into a woman’s chest and held tight.
Someone so small didn’t deserve to suffer. Children still believed help would come when they called for it. The world would teach them otherwise. But I wouldn’t.
Lana’s face showed the usual mix: relief that I’d come and the careful distance of a woman who had to keep her hands clean of my taint.
The village needed me close enough to use and far enough to deny.
She knew I’d healed a neighbor just this morning, so she likely worried I wouldn’t be able to help her daughter as much as she hoped.
“Please,” she said, voice thin. She didn’t hold my gaze for longer than necessary.
I turned to Louie. “Get clean linen or bandages you can wrap around her head and arm.”
As Louie ran into the house, I kneeled, pressing my fingers over his Celine’s arm.
It was time to stand up for myself. I thought of the bare patches on my roof and the buckets I’d need to set across my cabin to weather the coming storm.
Gathering my courage with a deep breath, I prepared to ask for something outrageous: basic survival.
Even so, it felt like the cost of asking far surpassed any magical price my body had ever paid, because magic didn’t look at me like I’d overstepped simply by existing.
My pause forced Lana to look at me. I nearly lost my nerve.
“I’ll heal her,” I said, keeping my voice even. “But the wards need more upkeep with the frequent raids and I can’t keep pouring magic into stone while rain pours into my bed. I need someone to help repair my roof after the coming storm.”
Lana’s mouth tightened as if I had dragged greed onto her porch instead of her daughter’s blood. After a long moment, Lana nodded. “Agreed.”
I started breathing again. The world hadn’t ended from my asking. No one had shouted or called a mob to take my head.
I should’ve been more specific about how much help, but at least I’d found the courage to ask for more.
Tense exchange at an end, I began my work.
“Keep the rag under her,” I told Lana as Louie returned with the requested cloth. “The bleeding will worsen before it gets better.”
Whenever I sent threads of my magic into a person, it sent back vague images of everything it touched.
My worry about Celine nicking an artery was proven correct; the broken pot had scratched a small one.
If the cut had been an inch to the side, Louie’s baby sister would’ve bled to death while Lana waited for me to arrive.
Considering how drained I still was and the fact that I needed to shore up the wards tomorrow, healing just that nick would take a significant amount of magic, but it had to be my priority.
I hated the importance placed on beauty, but I’d do my best to persuade Celine’s face to heal faster and with more finesse.
It wasn’t the girl’s—or even her mother’s—fault that we lived in a place where being an unprotected female was incredibly dangerous.
I did it only because I had no other choice.
I tugged on the weary magic surrounding my heart, coaxing threads of it to travel down my arms. It left a chill behind as it drained from me, hands on her bloodied arm.
But I was stubborn. The threads obeyed, working their way into the sobbing child’s skin.
One thread sealed the artery closed, three more bound spongy flesh, and two closed her torn skin more perfectly than nature had intended.
Celine hissed in pain then sagged with a shaky sigh as the wound became a thin line of pink. I moved my hands to her face and repeated the process much more quickly this time. When I was done, Lana visibly relaxed.
“You’re going to be okay, darling,” she whispered against her daughter’s bright hair.
Still, the woman’s eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
I rose, wiping the blood from my fingertips with the extra cloth Louie had brought for the task.
I swayed on my feet from the hollowness spreading through my body.
“The wounds need to stay moist,” I murmured.
“Cover them for a few days. Keep her out of the sun and wind so the scar can fade completely.”
Lana offered a polite nod, still cradling her daughter. Then she ordered Louie, “Bring her the chicken I just butchered and a bottle of wine.”
She offered no thank you. Only business.
I was like the village well—always there, essential, but only existing to be used until I dried up. I accepted the chicken and wine from Louie because hunger had never cared about dignity. At least wells weren’t expected to smile while they were drained.
I felt myself shrink, withdrawing farther into the wards of bitterness I’d begun to weave around my heart. How much thicker could they get before air stopped coming through? How long would it be until I suffocated?
Tomorrow would mean pouring myself out for Selmont once again. The only question was whether I would be strong enough to remain standing afterward.