I stopped walking and sank down in utter misery, my knees in the hard dirt of the path. Not long after I scrubbed my eyes, I became aware that I had an audience waiting for me to pull myself together enough to talk with him. Taking a gulp of air, I gritted my teeth and prepared myself for further arguments.
But Mordon hadn't followed me.
Death was standing nearby on the other side of a tree, eating an apple.
There's something about him. You just know when he's close, and there's no mistaking him for anyone else, but neither can you truly say what he looks like. And it was surprising how unsurprising it was to have him show up without announcement, chomping away at an apple mere feet from where I sat. Nor was there any doubt in my mind who he was.
“Why didn't you take me instead?” I asked him.
“You'd be astonished how many survivors ask me that.”
“I don't want to be a survivor.”
“I could fix that. There's a splinter of your rib floating close to your left lung. If you're going to fall apart after every battle you, then it might be better for me to claim you now and pass your title on to someone else. That drake lord, for instance.”
“You leave him alone!”
“I come to everyone in their time,” Death said nonchalantly. “Listen to me. There are greater things happening here than an elderly woman dying. The Wildwoods are infected. You'll need help to overcome the problem if we wish to avoid another scene like today. I'll give you a spell to send the guilty straight to me, but you must not use it except for that purpose.”
“A spell? What spell?”
“You know what it is. It's been used on you before. Interesting little tidbit, unrecorded in any text. Only those who I give the power to may use it.”
I searched my memory, dredging up the image of a babushka who had come into my barn and assaulted me.
“Sisto cor.”
“That's it,” Death said with approval, “but be cautious when you use it, that it is not in the hearing of others, and that you do not use it for your own purposes, and that your target is the intended one. It is an invitation to my presence which no one can deny.”
“You brought me back,” I said. “Couldn't you do the same for a mistake?”
Death stopped crunching his apple. I heard the cry of people in the distance, and then Death knelt next to me. When had I fallen? My body was pliant beneath his hands.
“Rest on your right side, there, put your hands here and here, keep the pressure on it.” When I was suitably arranged, Death whispered in my ear, “I cannot restart a life without first there being a call for balance, a creation of something which challenges my presence, a thing which I cannot touch. An immortal. I cannot touch it, but you can. This is what gave you your life back, what returned your magic to you. And what has brought you in the Wildwoods. You and he, you are two ends of a magnet, balance and counterbalance. Opposite colors yet identical molds. As one of you grows, so does the other. He wants one thing, and one thing alone, and it would be disaster were it to come to be. You must prevent it. If you pass on, he will win. Lay still. Lay still. Keep your hands there. Help is coming. Just keep still.”
Hands stroked my hair.
“Just keep still. Help is coming.”
A kiss touched my cheek. I flinched.
“I am sorry, love,” said Mordon's voice. “I should have mastered myself better, not been so irrational. It was an unforgivable mistake.”
“Mordon?”
I squinted. I was laying just outside the willow hut, and I hurt everywhere. It was raining big, fat drops tainted with dust from tree leaves above me, and there was no sign of Death.
“What happened?”
“We argued and you collapsed as you were leaving the hut in a magnificent display of fury. Shh, keep still. You're hurt.”
“It's a bone splinter. My lung.”
“Shhh, the healers are here. Just keep still and know I love you.”
I felt too exhausted to struggle against the weariness anymore. My body weighed heavy on its skeleton. Mind was fatigued. The past haunted my dreams and anxiety for the future held me back from rest as I tumbled headlong into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I spent a day lying in my bed. When I was awake enough for it, I counted blades of grass beside me. My parents and Mordon took rotations watching me, forcing drinks of water and broth down my throat. Dimly I knew that I couldn't stop now, but I didn't know where to go from here.
Fey intuition, though, was a force not to be taken lightly. I could no more control who it was who died than I could conjure up a flame. The realization and acceptance of it did not come quickly, but gradually through dreams and a force of effort. And so it was that I became resolved to go back into the woods.
Before I was fit to do that, though, I had to regain my strength. During a time when I woke up to an empty room, I dragged myself up and went through the preparations for a healing potion. Years of practice made this automatic, and it seemed natural that the cupboard would supply me with precisely what I needed when I needed it. Mother's affection for the Wildwoods was wearing off on me, I thought while I stirred the no-cook drink together.
The information Death had given me posed a couple of problems. The first was that I would never have the advantage over the one he had called immortal. If he grew with me, it followed that the faster I gained power, the faster he would as well, so from that view, it was better for me to slow down on how fast I was learning. On the other hand, the faster he grew, the faster I would, too. With this in mind, I wondered if the inverse was also true—a devastating blow to him would cause a corresponding blow to me.
The thought made me stop with my potion at my lips.
If he was hurting like I was, now was the best time to find him out, while he was weak. Though with me weak, too, that might not work so well. But would he heal faster, if I did? Untouched, I lowered the cup to the counter.
“I had the feeling you wouldn't be resting for long,” Father said. He entered the hut and slumped into the chair.
“You here to stop me from going out?” I asked.
Father passed his hand through his hair and thought about it. “No, but the village is grieving. Going out among them might not be a wise course of action. Better they think you at death's door.”
“I was.”
“I know. How many times do you have to do that to us?”
I couldn't resist the urge to tell someone. “I talked to him again.”
“Who?”
“Death.”
Father lifted his head and he stared at me. Long seconds ticked by, neither of us moving, me gripping the counter to keep my feet, him weighing what I had said.
“What did he say?” Father asked.
“This is the second time I've talked to him. The first time was after he broke the gryphon's curse.”
“Feraline, is this a hallucination?”
I shook my head. “I've had enough to know. Have you heard of encounters with him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe them?”
Father hesitated. “I did not. Not at first. But when you hear the same thing over and over again, by people who have no connection with one another, it becomes impossible to deny it.”
“He brought me back to life. That was how to break the curse, but he wanted something in return.”
“Your services.”
My heart skipped. “You've found another agent? Who is it?”
Father shook his head. “I have heard stories. Agent, that's a new term. I'm familiar with 'hero'. Great deeds, great heartbreaks, difficult times. I would rather have heard that you were to settle down quietly. This is a burden I wouldn't wish on any of my children.”
“Death told me of an imbalance. He called it an immortal, something he couldn't touch, but that I could.”
“Did he say who it was?”
“No.”
“You will be at a disadvantage. Your name and deed
s are splashed across newspapers and in public debates. Heroes can hide while their opponents take the public eye.”
I shivered. “And I'm being painted as a villain by some people.”
“You'll have to be cautious.”
“Perhaps, it's for the best,” I said. “If I gain a following somewhere, he will gain one elsewhere. But if I can avoid popularity, then will he have any better fortune?”
“It is impossible to know.”
“You don't think I'm crazy?”
Father got up, uncorked a green bottle of a sweet-smelling booze, and poured some for both of us. “I think you're crazy for falling in with Mordon so fast. How long have you two known each other?”
Crap. How long had it been?
“A while.”
“Tell me it's been at least three months.”
“Um.” Had it been three weeks or four or five? Something like that? Should I count all the time I spent under Lilly's sleep potions?
“Feraline.”
“To be fair, I don't know how long to count our time spent in the Wildwoods as.”
“Discount it, then. How long had you known him before you decided to be his mate?”
“Oh, some weeks,” I answered and swigged the healing potion. It tasted worse than I remembered.
“Weeks? Like, eight weeks?”
I knocked back Father's booze in one fell swoop. It burned and gave me an excuse for a raspy voice. “…like, two.”
“Two weeks!” Father threw up his hands and stalked off. He rubbed his hair into complete Alfred Einstein disorder, then looked back at me. “He's a stranger. You don't know him at all.”
“Which is why I didn't tell him yes. Not that I told him no, either.”
Father sighed. “You're leading the poor fellow on.”
I poured myself another measure of the stuff from the green bottle. “A minute ago, he was a predator, and now I'm a teasing hussy?”
“You're dropping a lot on me at once.”
“Hey, I didn't come home randomly with a spouse, unlike my brother.”
“Men are allowed to come home with wives. When it happens to a woman, we assume there's another reason behind it.” His eyes narrowed and he scrutinized my stomach. “Which there isn't, is there?”
My cheeks flushed. “Another comment like that and I'll toss you out or break a rib trying.”
“I know you slept with him.”
My face went pale and I gasped. “What I do with him is none of your business.”
“You are my daughter. It is every bit my business.”
By a herculean feat of willpower, I resisted the urge to throw the bottle at him. “There's no winning on this subject, is there? If we marry, you'll panic about me wedding a stranger. If we don't, you'll fret about him knocking me up and not sticking around. Or is it just my virtue you're guarding?”
“Welcome to parenthood, you've summed up the dating season very aptly.”
I rolled my eyes.
“For the remainder of the visit, he will be a perfect gentleman. If I so much as see the two of you necking…”
“Whoa, hey, I can't even stand to see you and Mother kiss, alright? You watching me doing anything is totally off-limits.”
I got Father to turn beet red. He stammered on his threat, so I was spared having to hear it. At last, he managed, “I know you're a grown woman and you don't need to listen to me anymore, but I do wish you would listen anyway.”
I sighed. “Look, I'm crazy in love with him, and he's a good man, and I trust him, he's got a good future and I can see myself in it with him. Can you ask for anything better for me?”
Father's lip twitched into a slanted smile. He put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head, then gave me a hug.
I sagged with relief.
As Father went out the door, I heard him say in passing a single-worded greeting,
“Meadows.”
“Magnus.”
At once I bolted upright again. How much had Mordon heard?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mordon came to a stop right in front of me, put an arm around each side of me so I was trapped between him and the counter. I averted my gaze to his forearm. Mordon lowered his head, I dodged meeting his eyes.
“Mordon,” I murmured, biting my lip.
“Fera.”
“What did you hear?” I asked at last.
“I decided it wasn't a good time to interrupt when I heard you say that there wasn't any winning with your father. Some of the things you said I would rather hear you tell me face to face.”
I felt dizzy. The counter steadied me. “I…I wasn't lying, but I'm scared of this. Of us. How you make me feel. Sometimes, I'm afraid of what you could do, if you wanted to.”
Mordon smiled and lifted his head.
We didn't speak again while we made something to eat, neither one of us hungry, just the two of us working together. It started with me slicing an apple, expanded when he pulled a wedge of cheese from the cabinet. Then the same with thin pieces of cured salamis and chorizo, brined olives of various colors, and even a little bit of bread and butter and balsamic vinegar. Mordon assembled it on a tray made of a giant leaf glossed with something that smelled like honey yet which left no sticky residue. He held a piece up for me. I ate it straight off his fingers. He smiled.
It was the best dinner date I'd ever had, perfect in its silence because I found we were communicating without words, connecting on a level even more basic and primal than anything that talking could provide. It was talk with just a few light touches, a couple smiles, and a good giggle. Mordon waited until I was done.
“You are precious to me, Fera.” He trailed his finger along my pinky then back up and down every finger on my hand, giving me goosebumps. “I had a very poor way of displaying this during our argument. When you collapsed, I was tormented thinking that it might be our last conversation together, you weren't in any shape to be standing, forget yelling at me. You were right to counterpoint that I did not know the entire event. I told you I was sorry once before, but I'll say it again. I'm sorry for the way I behaved. Please tell me if you left out of fear of what I'd do to you.” Mordon brought my hand to his lips and pressed a lingering, moist kiss on it.
“I don't remember why I left. I know I was angry.” I reflected. “And hurt. Your opinion matters to me, a lot.”
“I feel the same way.” Mordon turned my hand over and kissed my palm. I cupped his cheek and ran my thumb over his lips. He turned his head and kissed it again. “I wish I had chosen my words better, but I can't undo them now. Will you allow me to say what I meant?”
I nodded, too breathless to say anything, wondering what he was going to do next, needing the touch and reassurance, though I hadn't known how much so until just now. My thumb brushed his brow, and he shut his eyes and leaned into the caress. “Mordon, please tell me,” I whispered.
He kissed my cheek. “I will.”
Our foreheads touched and I grinned. A smile of his own broke over his mouth.
“Where should I start?” Mordon touched the hand still holding his cheek, followed my arm up to my shoulder, then up my neck. He stopped at my ear, toyed with the lobe between thumb and forefinger. “You make me feel relaxed when I'm frustrated and elated when I'm excited.”
I licked my lips. “What about when you're happy?”
“When I'm happy?” Mordon swirled the back of his knuckles gently over my cheek, then stroked beneath my chin. “Best to save that answer for later.”
“How much later?”
Mordon kissed my other cheek. “Much, much later.”
I moaned. He rubbed his nose against mine, brought his lips so close they nearly met, and murmured, “Yes, that's what you do.”
His lips met mine, a light kiss which had the room spinning. I clasped against him, chest heaving, and he kissed me again, firmer this time. I wanted to forget what Father had said to me, wanted to forget that embarrassment and shame which had always plagued me. Now th
at I'd paid for a crime I hadn't committed, and was still raw from the way those words had hurt, I saw no harm in committing the deed. It wasn't right to scold me, not that it should have even been a thing to scold me over. And it wasn't this one scolding which had me feeling burned, it was all the ones which had come before it, the years of abrasive condescension on the topic, the minutes of one-sided lectures which totaled up into hours. All the good I'd done didn't seem to matter in light of my infractions. I needed the comfort Mordon could provide, and I wanted all I could get. Nothing else mattered, nothing at all. I just wanted to feel, I was so sensitive.
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