Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2)

by Brian W. Foster

  Her shoulder had healed quickly, and he’d not seen her much since the last time he’d checked it.

  She gestured at a woven basket looped over her forearm. “Foraging. Thought maybe there’ll be fruit trees or something about.”

  “No one else can go with you?”

  She wrung her hands. “Everyone’s busy.”

  The last thing he wanted was more walking. “Do you have to do it now?”

  “If’n you don’t want to go with me, I can do it myself.”

  The rate she squeezed her hands increased, drawing his eyes to them. Noting his attention, she stopped, whisking one hand to her side where it clutched at her skirt. Her face reddened.

  She turned and began walking away.

  “Frae, wait! Who knows who or what is around here. Could be dangerous.”

  She didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow.

  Argh! He’d been so looking forward to sitting for a while.

  “I said wait!” He sprinted after her, slowing when he finally caught up. “I’ll do it.”

  “No,” she said. “I was being stupid asking. You’ve more important stuff to do than go with me.”

  Xan frowned. He’d apparently made her feel insignificant. If he believed in curses, he’d have thought he was destined to hurt every girl he talked to. There was nothing he could do about Tasia, but Frae …

  “What could be more important than spending time with you?” he said.

  “I reckon you made your thoughts pretty clear.”

  “When I asked if someone else could do it, I meant I was worried your father might get mad at you and I being unchaperoned.”

  Frae grinned. “His head would explode if’n I went off with any other boy, but he puts a lot of store in your honor.”

  “Well, then …” Xan bowed in his best approximation of how he’d seen the male servants in the castle treat Ashley. “My good lady, may I be your escort on this fine day?”

  “I reckon so, my good sir.” She crooked her elbow in an invitation for him to grab it, and her face reddened again.

  “Uh …” His ears heated at the thought of touching her. “Which, uh, direction do you want to search?”

  She looked to the northeast. “As likely a way as any, I suppose.”

  “Great. Maybe I should, uh, walk in front just in case we, uh, encounter danger or anything.” He cut between two bushes ahead of her, not daring to look back at her face.

  From the dead leaves being crunched behind him, she followed, and he trudged farther and farther into dense woods. A quarter hour passed, then a half, without either of them speaking a word. He opened his mouth a few times but couldn’t find any words to break the awkward silence.

  Luckily, he spotted a blackberry patch. With mid-fall approaching, they were at the tail end of the berry picking season, but he spotted a ripe one hiding behind a couple of leaves.

  “Got one,” he said, bending to pick it.

  When he turned to put it in her basket, her head was tilted to the side.

  “What?” he said.

  “You’re an odd one,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “I reckon I’m not used to men helping with women’s work.”

  Xan didn’t think he’d done anything Dylan or Brant wouldn’t have. “What else would I do? Seems inefficient to just stand here and watch you work.”

  “I reckon most men like watching me.” She smiled shyly.

  His ears heated again. She wore a simple white blouse with a slight “V” at the neck and a long brown skirt. Both most have been hand-me-downs because they fit her tightly, emphasizing the swell of her chest and curve of her hips.

  “I … uh, yes … I could, perhaps, understand that men might, uh, like …” He had no idea where his mouth was going.

  “I reckon that’s another odd thing,” she said. “Pa, Master Hunt, and even Master Stout listen when you talk, but with me, you act like you’re a colt who hasn’t never taken its first run around the pasture.”

  Xan bent to pick another berry. He so didn’t like where the conversation was headed.

  “It’s like you’ve never even kissed a girl,” she said.

  “I have!”

  She giggled. “And I reckon you’re more embarrassed about seeing me in my shift than I am.”

  Why did she have to bring that up? His head was about to burst into flame. He kept it pointed at the ground, pretending to check for ripe berries.

  The worst part was that he knew he was being ridiculous. He’d kissed Tasia. Been engaged to Ashley Asher, the niskma of Vierna. There was no reason for him to still be so intimidated by girls.

  “So?” she said.

  “I thought you were being rhetorical.”

  “If’n you don’t mind …”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” he said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Least of all explaining something so personal.”

  “I reckon I understand.”

  “It’s just … I’m not comfortable talking to anyone about this kind of stuff. Dredging up my childhood. Telling you that up until a couple of months ago, literally no girl I knew had any romantic interest in me whatsoever.”

  “No need to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she said.

  “I tried so hard.” Xan found another berry. “Chased after so many girls. Each one turned me down.” He paused. “No, not even that. They didn’t take enough notice of me to reject me. More like I was an annoying speck not even worthy of brushing off.”

  “You’re kind and smart and likely to make a sight more coin than most boys,” Frae said. “Back where I’m from, every girl from miles around would’ve been bringing you sweetcakes.”

  “Where I’m from is larger and located on a major trade route. Compared to guys with even a low position in a merchant house, an apothecary isn’t that impressive,” Xan said. “And all the girls were older than me.”

  Good grief! He sounded like an idiot. How the blast had he ended up spilling his guts to her? “That basket probably won’t fill itself, huh?”

  They got to picking, quickly exhausting the patch’s remaining ripe berries.

  Frae showed him the bottom of the basket, more than a quarter covered. “Not bad.”

  Xan glanced at the sky. “We’ve still got a couple of hours before nightfall. Want to see what else we can find?”

  She grinned. “Lead on, my good sir.”

  They fell into an easy silence as they walked, for which he was grateful. He’d had about as much talking as he could handle. Though she had raised interesting questions. At some point, he’d want to find a wife, so whatever his problem with girls, he needed to get over it.

  Eventually, they encountered a grove of peach trees. Most of the fruit lay rotted on the ground. None of the ones left growing were bigger round than his thumb.

  While Frae was checking other trees, Xan found one with half a dozen baby peaches. He placed his hand against the trunk and trickled life magic into it, directing tendrils to each of the fruits. They ripened before his eyes, but he stopped when they were still rather paltry. Quick and small was his mantra for magic use. Limited usefulness was much better than being detected.

  “Frae! Found some!”

  She practically jumped for joy at his find and rushed to the base of the tree. After putting a foot on the lowest branch, she glanced back at him. “Did you want to … uh, wait over there?”

  He stared at her, confused.

  “Or are you going to stay? I reckon you can if’n you want.” Her face turned red.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to climb the tree.” She looked down.

  At her skirt. She was wearing a skirt. And about to climb a tree.

  Xan stood frozen. Hard for a girl to remain modest while … And she’d invited him to stay. He didn’t understand.

  She pulled herself onto the first limb.

  His ears burned, and he cleared his throat. “Uh … maybe it would be better i
f I did it?”

  She glanced back at him, confused. Maybe relieved. Maybe something else he couldn’t quite determine.

  “Your history retrieving fruit is rather … problematic,” he said.

  To his great relief, she laughed. “I reckon that’s true enough. Help me down?”

  As soon as he made it to the trunk, she toppled backward, and he found himself holding her in his arms. He put her down about as fast as if she were a live snake and scrambled up the tree to retrieve the fruit.

  “Half for your family and half for the Stouts?” Xan said, once he was back on the ground with his prize safely in the basket.

  She grinned. “I reckon that’s fair. Same with the berries.”

  He nodded.

  Frae opened her mouth to say something but snapped it shut again.

  “What?” he said.

  “It’s just that … No, I can’t. I reckon there’s bold, and there’s a mite too bold.”

  “Now, you have to tell me,” Xan said.

  “Sorry. Can’t.”

  “I understand. It’s not like I saved your life or anything …”

  She turned away from him. “I reckon that’s what I was talking about, your saving my life. I never really thanked you for that.”

  Xan shrugged. “I’m an apothecary. That’s my job. But you’re welcome.”

  “Still,” she said. “I don’t reckon you’ve been properly repaid.”

  “Buck gave me more than a fair recompense for the amount of actual work I put in, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  She faced him, her face burning red. “I was thinking there might be a way I could repay you? If’n you want …”

  “Like I said, we’re square. Besides, even if we weren’t, your family has no food or supplies to spare.”

  “I reckon I was thinking more like us … maybe … uh, taking a tumble in the hay?”

  His jaw dropped.

  Her face went scarlet. “Not like that! Just, you know, kissing? Or maybe a little more. If’n you want …”

  Xan had no idea which one of them was more mortified at that moment. “I … I …”

  What, exactly, was the proper etiquette for declining such an invitation?

  “I-I’m sorry,” he said.

  She bit her lip as her eyes scrunched. “You don’t think I’m pretty?”

  Blast! He’d upset her. Really, he shouldn’t be allowed around girls. There should be a law or something.

  “Of course, I do!” he said.

  “Then why … Is it because of the Holy One?” she said. “No shame in being observant.”

  A perfect excuse he should have thought of himself, but he’d be a complete jerk if he used it. She was so willing to give of herself for him. The least he could do was be honest with her.

  “No. It’s …” He sighed. “You’ll think I’m even more odd.”

  “At this point, I reckon I have much more right to be worried about what you think of me.”

  “Fine.”

  Xan looked around for a comfortable spot and found a nice oak with moss at the base. She sat across from him.

  “So a couple of months ago, I met a girl,” he said. “Ashley. And not just a girl. The girl. The most beautiful I’d ever seen.”

  Frae screwed her face into a fake pout.

  “Up until that point in my life, of course,” he said, smiling.

  She laughed.

  The humor removed tension from him that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His shoulders unclenched. “Under quite improbable circumstances, Ashley and I were thrown together, alone, for a long while. We laughed and, even though she wasn’t able to tell me a lot about herself, we talked. Eventually, we kissed.”

  He met Frae’s eyes, and she gave him an encouraging nod.

  “As you can imagine,” he said, “I fell for her. Hard. I took dangerous risks and made enormous sacrifices so I could be with her. In as much as I knew what love was, I loved her.” Xan’s voice choked. “And obviously, it didn’t go well because here I am, and you don’t exactly see her tagging along.”

  He sat staring off into the distance, his mind back in that meadow and then in the tower.

  “No,” Frae said.

  “No, what?”

  “No, that’s not enough. You still haven’t told me why you’re … you’re not …”

  “Look,” Xan said. “She did bad stuff. I did bad stuff. Then there was another girl, and I did more bad stuff. I just … don’t want to do any more bad stuff.”

  “I reckon Master Stout would say something akin to, ‘If’n you can’t talk about something, you probably need to talk about it.’ ”

  Trouble was, Xan could imagine Hosea saying exactly that. He stared at the ground and traced designs with a stick. “Turns out, Ashley is rich. Really rich. Meaning that, besides being ridiculously beautiful, she’s so far above my station that she shouldn’t be able even to see me. And to make matters worse, I did something incredibly stupid that made her think I was rejecting her.”

  “So she did the same to you?”

  “If only that was all she did. She treated me like dirt. Lower than dirt. Wounded me and then rubbed salt in it.” He fingered the scar on his stomach.

  Frae let out a breath. “I reckon I’m sorry for you, but … it happens. People get hurt all the time and move on.”

  “Once I figured out why she was so mad at me,” he said. “I apologized, and she forgave me. And since I had saved her life—”

  “You saved her life?”

  Xan shrugged. “Anyway, her father granted me her hand in marriage as a reward, and I was shocked. Stunned. Me? Marry Ashley? She’s rich and powerful and beautiful and perfect, and I’m … well, not any of those things. But I decided to take a chance. Though she agreed we were a decent match, she didn’t love me, so I set out to win her heart.” He grimaced. “And it was working. I swear it was working.”

  “But …”

  Xan ran a hand through his hair. “Her father asked me to do something morally repugnant, and Ashley backed him. Told me, ‘Do this one thing, and I’m yours. All of me.’ ” He shook his head. “So there I am, on the cusp of having the thing I wanted most and all I had to do was one little, tiny, insignificant thing.”

  He frowned. “To this day, I don’t know if I was a complete idiot for refusing or if I did the right thing. The wedding was called off. I was arrested. Everyone I thought cared about me deserted me. Except one.”

  Frae arched one of her eyebrows.

  “Ashley’s cousin, Tasia.”

  “You didn’t …” Frae said.

  “You have to understand how just … you know …” He turned from her and wiped at his eyes. “It was a bad, bad time. But Tasia was this one ray of light burning through the clouds. Someone warm, caring, nice. Everything that Ashley wasn’t.”

  “What did you do?”

  He hunched his shoulders. “I sent Tasia a note proposing marriage.”

  Frae’s hands went over her mouth.

  “I know. I’d been engaged to her cousin not a day before, and I sent her the same ring I’d given Ashley.”

  Frae let out a gasp.

  “Yes, I was that stupid,” he said. “I’m humiliated. Mortified. I can’t even find a word to describe my feelings about what I did. I’d rather the ground open up and swallow me than have to face her again. But at the same time, I find myself constantly wishing she were with me.”

  Xan barked out a laugh. “And as horrid as my shame makes me feel, that’s not even the worst part.”

  “I don’t reckon I could rightly know what could be worse.”

  “I hurt her,” he said. “I don’t even know how or why, but you should have seen the look on her face. Devastated. Miserable. She dropped that ring like I’d crushed her will to live.”

  “Well, I reckon your best bet is to save this girl’s life.” Frae smiled, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Worked for … Ashley, right?”

  Xan hung his h
ead.

  “What?”

  “During my escape, there were these soldiers, and Tasia was in danger …”

  “See, and I was thinking I was special because you saved me,” Frae said. “Turns out, you do it for all the girls.”

  “It’s not like—”

  “I’m just joshing you.” Frae laughed. “But if’n you’re going to reuse a move, I reckon that’s a good one.”

  Xan really tried to find the humor, but it escaped him. “Will you answer a question for me? Completely, brutally honestly?”

  “I reckon I owe you that.”

  “Am I … am I a bad person?”

  “Why would you think that?” she said.

  “I was about to marry a girl, and about a half second after things went bad, I proposed to that girl’s cousin. If I really loved her, shouldn’t I have fought for her? And even if what I felt wasn’t love, didn’t I owe her something? Certainly, pursuing her cousin wasn’t … right.”

  Frae paused before speaking. “I reckon the heart wants what the heart wants, and you ain’t a bad person if you can’t control it. But getting between cousins …” She shook her head. “You’re looking at a hard row to hoe.”

  “Maybe I’m not a bad person. Maybe I am. But I’m definitely odd.” Xan sighed. “None of it matters, anyway. I’ll never see either of them again.” He paused. “So to finally answer your question, as nice and pretty as you are, I need time to lick my wounds.”

  “Stand up and come over here.”

  Xan hesitated. Was she going to slap him? Reject him? Did it matter?

  She rose as he did, and he approached her cautiously. When he neared, she pulled his head toward her and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You’re a good man, Basil, and if you’re odd, then I wish I knew a lot more men who are odd.”

  14.

  Xan trudged along, putting one foot in front of the other, not paying much attention to the passing hills and forests.

  His conversation with Frae had stirred up all kinds of thoughts. Okay, more like fantasies. Him and Tasia married, raising a family. Happy.

  More like delusions.

  Hosea had decided to make up for stopping early the previous two days, so they’d walked until almost dusk. Xan chose a spot away from the others and, eschewing a fire, magically heated his skin against a chill that had settled over the area following a morning rain. After checking and securing his apothecary supplies, he bit a piece of bread, boosting the energy it provided his body, and prepared to turn in for the night.