Chapter 41 #3
“Oh?” I asked, raising my head to smirk at her, and her hands both slipped into her lap.
“No, but I will not risk ruining you again, so I suppose you will need to learn on your own,” she insisted drolly.
We sat staring at each other for several long moments, and I couldn’t help becoming distracted by how beautiful she was. Those mismatching eyes were so breathtaking.
“And what if I want you to ruin me?”
She looked initially hopeful at my suggestion but then schooled herself. “You don’t know what you want, Rian. You may very well go back to ignoring me right after this, so why would I give you even more reasons to distrust my intentions with you?” she demanded.
“Perhaps I just… want you to give me a reason to let down my guard,” I admitted sheepishly.
Nuala looked pained before she looked away from me and shook her head.
“Fine,” she breathed as her eyes lowered to her hands. “I suppose you will know eventually. What is the use in trying to delay your reaction?” she murmured to herself. And then with four words, she upended my whole world. “There is a cabin.”
I was not sure what I was expecting, but I could see it clearly now.
The quaint cottage in the autumn woodland against a backdrop of mountains.
I could smell the herb garden where a female knelt in a wide brim straw hat and a mulberry dress that had fallen down one pale shoulder.
Waves of long dark hair cascaded almost all the way to the ground beneath her and hid her face as she collected her harvest in a handwoven basket.
Yes, there was a cabin. The one I had been dreaming about and using to meditate through the worst moments of my life for hundreds of years before Nuala was born.
“That is not…” I tried to speak, but I could not force out the words as I suddenly recalled the peels of laughter. The laughter of children…
“No,” I blurted, nearly bolting up off the mattress in my distress. “That is not possible.”
Nuala merely raised her sorrowful eyes to me as if she had known this would be my reaction. I sat in a stupor as she rose from the bed and left the room with éadrom.
It took hours before I was able to focus on my work after what Nuala revealed, but I was finally making headway on the paperwork.
I had asked Darragh to take the witch to the bathhouse, which was not something I would have assigned to anyone else.
But in the many centuries I had known Darragh, the demidragon had never shown even a modicum of interest in sex.
And even more importantly, Nuala had assured me that she trusted him to take her.
She had since returned to the yurt, and it was quiet in the front room until I heard Carrick asking Nuala for my whereabouts. Expecting him, I tossed my feathered pen in the ink vial and leaned back to stretch my shoulders and neck as he parted the curtain to my chamber.
“May I come in?” he asked, and I waved him forward wordlessly.
Carrick let the curtain fall back into place behind him, his eyes roving over the messy room as he walked over to where I was sitting.
Then his eyes fell upon the plate of untouched food he’d brought me earlier, and he frowned.
But before berating me, my uncle jerked his head toward the curtain.
Knowing what he wanted, I heaved a sigh and erected a silencing ward using Darragh’s air magic.
“I am afraid to go near Sage’s tent. I hoped you could tell me if he is feeling better?” he explained sheepishly.
“Giving them privacy is wise. He was well enough to ask the rest of us to keep Ornella shielded,” I advised him significantly.
“Ah! That is… good,” he said with a discomfited nod that made me smirk. “And how are you feeling?”
“Me?” I blurted in surprise.
“It was clear to me and your aunt that you were upset at the meeting with the Sua. I have been meaning to come and speak to you about it but… Well, things have been rather difficult at home,” he admitted sheepishly.
He had been mourning the loss of his son and had little energy to spare, which was understandable. But I had not forgotten his admission that I took a significant toll on him whenever we had these kinds of discussions.
“I am alright,” I tried to reassure him, but as usual, Carrick saw right through me.
I sighed when my uncle instantly moved to sit on the edge of my desk. He was close enough that I had to scoot my stool away from him just to be able to meet his eyes, but he did not speak. He merely crossed his arms over his chest and waited for me to continue talking.
“Carrick, I know this is exhausting—”
“I never said that!” he interrupted sharply, but then his face softened. “I am sorry that I made you feel that way. But I do believe I also told you that I am usually willing to help you work through your feelings,” he pointed out.
His sincerity was unquestionable, but his willingness to support me was never the issue.
“Stubborn!” he sighed in exasperation when I turned my face away from him. “I could assure you a thousand times that I want to help you, and you still will not trust it. And yet it takes only once for you to believe—”
“She is my mate,” I blurted, taking him off guard.
“What?” he gaped at me and then cocked his head as if he thought he might have misheard.
“Nuala is my mate. She is dreíocha.”
Carrick was silent for an uncomfortably long moment as he stared at me. He’d always had excellent composure whenever I needed to confide in him, but this seemed to have genuinely stunned him.
“Dreíocha,” he repeated cautiously. “Do you mean the female descendants of Inanna? Ciaran told Sage a story about such creatures several years ago,” he recalled.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Can she use… How do you feel about her as a mate?” he asked me tentatively.
It had not escaped my notice that his first concern was whether or not Nuala could use my magic, but I could hardly take offense. My power terrified even me at times, and in the wrong hands, it would be catastrophic.
“Yes, she can use my magic. And I’m… conflicted.”
Carrick nodded, but I could see the turmoil in his eyes as he tried to decide whether to dig into my well-being or get more information about a potential threat.
“She has better control than I do,” I said in an attempt to assuage his obvious concern.
“That is not exactly reassuring for me,” he admitted as his fingers tapped out a nervous rhythm against his bicep. “Why are you so conflicted?” he added, my well-being evidently taking precedence over his safety concerns.
I slumped forward to brace my elbows on my knees and hung my head. I had not realized how much I needed him to make that choice until he made it.
“She is immune to my power. I can never… hurt her with it. And she can stop it from hurting other people.”
The hint of concern lingering in his eyes softened as he perceived my meaning, and then the rest of the tension in his arms eased. He forgot about the threat for a moment and focused more fully on what I was telling him.
“She could be a safe place for you.”
His observation felt like a swift kick right in the gut, but I forced myself to nod.
“Do you remember long ago when you taught me to meditate when my magic threatened to overwhelm me? You said to envision a place where I felt calm,” I began.
Carrick seemed unsure of the sudden change in topic, but he gave a nod. “I remember.”
“Well, I began envisioning a woodland cabin. I have spent so long building it in my mind that it is as real to me now as any place I have ever been. I know the shape of every tree around it. I know where the river behind it flows deepest, and where the fish hide. I know it smells like lavender and wild grapes in early autumn and like rosemary and elderberry later in the season. I know there is a creaky plank in the entryway, and the way the sun hits the bedroom window every morning. It is so real it feels like I could have built it with my own hands. And not once in all this time have I ever questioned why I chose such a… human home to build this imaginary sanctuary, rather than in a yurt. Until now,” I amended.
Carrick stayed silent, but I could feel his attention was fixed upon me.
“There has always been a female weeding in the herb garden. She is always faceless and nameless. She cooks over the stone hearth in the kitchen and hums a familiar tune I can never quite remember. She is always dressed in purple dresses, and there are always so many…”
I shut my mouth before mentioning the children I had always sworn I would never have.
Children I had never wanted to risk cursing with a monstrous power.
But they were always there in my dreams, in or around the cabin, always laughing and playing.
I still hadn’t fully processed it in the hours since Nuala left the room.
But I had spent some time trying to recall their faces in helpless curiosity about how many there were and whether they were boys or girls.
But they were as faceless as that female had been until Nuala confirmed her identity.
I was sure I had seen both boys and girls before and in different combinations over the years, so perhaps such details were still vague.
“I have been dreaming about her there for hundreds of years and never imagined it was real. But she is different in my dreams,” I added, my eyes drifting to the curtain where Nuala sat in the front room. “Softer and warmer.”
“Well, of course she is. One would presume the female in your dreams has known your love. Nuala has only ever known darkness and pain,” Carrick pointed out solemnly. “You disagree?” he asked when I flinched.
“No, it is just… What if I don’t know how to be that male for her? I never did figure it out for Aodhan.”
Carrick’s brows pinched, and I already knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.
“You did not fail Aodhan—” he tried to assure me.
“I did fail him, Carrick!” I interrupted in exasperation with his insistence to absolve me of this guilt.
I was shocked when my uncle pushed off the desk and squatted down right in front of me so I was forced to meet his determined gaze.
“Aodhan failed himself, Rian. He was unwilling to let go of the past. You did everything you could to help him,” Carrick insisted firmly, shoving a finger in my chest when I tried to look away from him.
“Have you forgotten the hours we spent talking through options to help him sleep? Because I have not. I have not forgotten how you went to every apothecary and healer in the Four Courts to find a remedy for him. Just as I have not forgotten how hard he resisted your every attempt to talk. Every herb and tonic you brought back for him. Were it not for his nightmares, you might never have even known what haunted him,” Carrick reminded me, and I shuddered at the reminder.
I could still hear the heartbreaking things that Aodhan would shout in his sleep.
The way he woke so violently, punching and screaming while I tried to calm him down.
How I’d often have no choice but to physically restrain him before he hurt me or himself.
I’d had to erect wards around the bedchamber to protect everyone else when he would unleash his magic in a blind panic.
And he would not let me touch him for days or even weeks after one of those nightmares.
He withdrew from the other riders and lashed out at everyone even more than usual.
And I had to watch them pull away from him until I was the only one desperately trying to keep him tethered to the world.
“He was sick,” I tried to defend my lover.
“And you could not have loved him hard enough to cure him when he was committed to his own destruction,” Carrick maintained.
I felt a dangerous flicker under my skin. The sleeping beast had awakened again at the first sign of my anguish, but thankfully, it was only a rumble.
“I was not always good to—”
“And neither was he always good to you. You cannot shoulder all the blame all the time, Rian. Other people must also take their fair share,” he insisted sternly.
I released a shaky breath and sat back from him just in case my magic slipped my control. I was silent for a long time as I grappled with his unwavering conviction.
“You really think I can… have this?” I asked finally.
“Yes, Rian. I really do,” he reassured me, and I hoped for both my sake and Nuala’s that he was right.