Chapter 18 Stellen
Chapter Eighteen
Stellen
Imust make Thyra understand how cruel my frozen world will be. Before I take her back out into it.
If she isn’t prepared to strike at all times, my kingdom will destroy her.
My hands tighten around her, the echo of my worst memory thrumming through my mind.
I tell myself she’s vulnerable in my arms. I don’t even have to use my Voice. All it will take is a trickle of frost power through my fingertips, and I will crack whatever fragile trust she has in me.
Too easily, I could prove to her how quickly peace can turn to pain. It would take only a single burst of power, and she would shatter in my arms.
But that isn’t the shattering I want for her right now. I want her moans of pleasure to wash over me again, cutting out my cruelty, smothering it.
My lips move to hers.
I force myself to stop before I make contact.
I remind myself: she must always come to me.
Always because she wants to.
While I pause there, my breathing ragged, another tear slides down her cheek.
“You could not have spoken like you did,” she says, “unless you had experienced incredible pain yourself. I’m sorry about your family, Stellen.”
I draw a sharp breath.
Nobody has ever said such a thing to me. Nobody mourned them but me.
And now I realize how much I’ve given away.
I had thought only of making Thyra understand what it will take to survive. I didn’t think about the story I was revealing to her through my songs and my words…
I ask myself what other stories I’ve exposed since I started humming all the way back in the bloodlands.
I want to warn her that just because I’ve felt pain in the past doesn’t mean I won’t deliver it.
Yet…all I want to do is stay still. Listen to her heartbeats. Accept that she spoke the truth. Accept the trusting pressure of her body against mine. Accept the depth of the sadness in her voice.
Even if I can’t feel grief anymore. Even if that destructive emotion can’t touch me now.
Very slowly, so I don’t startle her, I press my forehead to hers, a light pressure, but a certain one.
She closes her eyes, her heartbeats heavy.
She knows loss.
Her father died only three days ago, and it was clear from the tear stains down her cheeks and the way she shielded his body that his passing struck her hard.
His body lies preserved in the freezing catacombs beneath the Sacred Stone Temple, along with the knife that killed him.
Then she lost Antony.
I’m the reason his heart stopped beating. I remember the final thump like a stone dropping onto snow.
He asked me to keep his hope safe, and it was clear he meant Thyra.
The enormity of his request only now strikes me.
My enemy asked me to keep someone precious to him safe. As if he believed, not only that I could, but that I fucking would.
A weight settles in my heart. A stone heavier than Antony’s last thudding heartbeat.
I try to shake it off, but it’s impossible to dislodge.
Thyra takes a slow breath, an inhalation that feels as if she could wrap me around herself at will.
“What you should know about me…”
She opens her eyes, raising them to mine, tilting her head a little so I can see her while I wait for her to continue.
“I won’t ask for help,” she says.
I expect her to say more, but her silence stretches. “And?” Then my forehead crinkles. “But?”
The smallest flicker of a smile passes across her lips. “But I’m trying to figure out how to tell you what I need to tell you without asking for help.”
“That’s a fair dilemma,” I say. “I’m prepared to be patient.”
I am patient.
Always.
Just as an owl will wait quietly for its prey.
“We can’t leave the forest until dawn, anyway,” I continue. “No sane fae travels across the Frost Kingdom during the nighttime snowstorms.”
She arches her eyebrows at me. “‘No sane fae’?”
I grin at her, fully aware of how frightening my smile is—and that she doesn’t flinch. “Snowstorms don’t bother me. Even so, take your time. Tell me something easy. Something—”
“My feet are cold.”
Of course they are. The cloak isn’t yet fully wrapped around her body, only across her back, and it won’t cover her feet because I didn’t construct it that way.
We’ve remained pressed up against the rock wall, but before I can pull her away from it, she slowly, very slowly, takes a deep breath and says, “You should make my feet warm.”
A command.
Or an invitation.
Not a request for help.
Good.
Even so, I take my time stepping back from the rock and setting her onto her feet.
The moment I pull my hands away from her, the Lethian armor reseals down her side, covering her curves.
Allowing the thud-thud of her heart to fill my ears, I pull the Alak-Teahan garment around her shoulders. The webbing will insulate her against the cold, just as it seals heat into this forest.
I hum as I adjust the cloth to fit her precisely, enticing the webbing to change around her body and encouraging it to form toggles so she’ll be able to slip in and out of the full-body cloak on her own.
As I work, I consider there might come a time when she wants to wear only the cloak and hood portion of the garment, and not the full body suit attached to it, so I sing again, gently separating the material at the shoulders and creating soft latches to keep the two pieces together for now. A body suit, and a cloak with a hood.
She watches me as I toil over the material, perfecting the garment, my hands barely making contact with her form, until I’m satisfied that the cloak fits her perfectly.
During the weaving process, I also managed to thin the wadding out so it will be thick enough to keep her warm, but not to hinder her movements too much.
But as for warm boots, the webbing isn’t tough enough to form soles for her to walk on.
I’m also certain from the nearly imperceptible vibrations resonating from her Lethian armor that it won’t relinquish its position against her skin.
The Alak-Teahan garment will have to be worn over the top of it.
Better that her armor stays concealed, anyway.
“For your feet…” I cast around, spying a pair of fur boots that must have been worn by one of the unfortunate fae.
Crossing the distance, I assess their size. Only slightly too big for her. They’ll have to do until I take her to the palace.
When I hand them to her, she promptly crouches, turns the shoes upside down, and whacks them hard on the ground. Only after peering into each of them does she finally slide them onto her feet.
“What creature do you fear might be lurking in those boots?”
“Spiders.” She raises herself back to her full height. “I’m not afraid of them, but I don’t want to be bitten.”
Fair.
“My hands?” she asks, clearly a demand this time.
I incline my head at the Alak-Teahan cloak with a self-satisfied smile. “Check the sleeves.”
She tugs on the wadding at her wrists and quickly discovers the edges are folded up.
Rolling the folds down reveals the pouches the sleeves form at their ends. Makeshift mittens.
She promptly tucks her hands into them. “Better.”
Now that she’s warm, I take another step back. I pause there for a moment in case she’s ready to tell me what I need to know, but the purse of her lips indicates: not yet.
It isn’t a problem. My feet are still bare, and I need to retrieve my swords. Even so, it’s hard to pull my gaze away from her and focus on my belongings, where they lie on the rocks, out in the open now that the cocoon is gone.
I pull my boots back on but hesitate to pick up my swords.
Retrieving the blades could agitate the Alak-Teah.
Crouching beside my weapons, I peer intently into the mist, watching for any reaction. Listening for any hint of clicking or hissing that might indicate agitation.
“They won’t mind,” Thyra says from across the short space between us.
I cast her a doubtful glance. “Why not?”
“Because they know I won’t let you hurt them.”
I nearly guffaw, but she returns my gaze with steely determination as she closes the gap between us.
Her Lethian armor is now completely hidden beneath the webbing; not a single silver strand is coiled up in her hair, allowing her tresses to fall around her shoulders.
As she moves, she pulls the long strands across her right shoulder, winding them and leaving a thick coil to fall down her chest.
I study her carefully for the seconds it takes her to reach me, aware of how agile she is. Now that she isn’t freezing to death.
Days ago, when I first saw her, she was dripping wet and shivering, her heartbeats heavy with physical pain and grief at losing her father. When I came upon her in the bloodlands, she was bleeding to death.
Both times, she was deeply vulnerable for reasons out of her control.
I should have remembered the moments when I was wrenched away from myself, and I saw her on a rooftop in the Iron Kingdom. She was fighting with all her strength to get away from Antony, pulling on the chain that bound her to him.
She was succeeding. Despite his strength, she was getting away from him.
I’m pleased when my cold smile doesn’t keep her away from me now.
But I’m disconcerted when she pulls the mitten away from her right hand again and raises her fingertips to my face.
She pauses. “If you want to retrieve your swords, you should first wipe away the blood.”
When I don’t step away, she brushes her fingertips across my left cheekbone.
Her touch is like…
A snowflake floating across my face.
She withdraws her hand, but she’s holding her breath, and I wait, listening carefully to her changing heartbeats, anticipating the moment she’ll break her silence.
“What you should know about me,” she says, “starts with a question.”
“I will answer.”
“Do you understand how my visions work?”
“I believe so,” I say. “I’ve studied the Oracles for as long as I could read. Your visions allow you to foresee harm to others. Sometimes you can foresee harm to yourself.”
Her breathing pauses. A held breath. “Are you aware that I’m vulnerable during them?”
Is this what she’s worried about?