“Do you have to do so in person?”
Mordon tensed. “It would be best, but under the circumstances, I refuse to leave my place here. If we can establish a scrying connection?”
“We should be able to. With the way things are, it'll take a few of us.”
“Then let us do it,” Mordon said.
The carpets drifted closer together and I watched as they assembled the items for scrying—a silver platter, a silk scrap, a pitcher of water which had been purified by unicorn horn. While the others waited, I saw bit by bit the distemper towards Mordon drop from their behavior. They were letting him help. They were choosing to trust him with their cherished village members. It was too tender, too fickle of a time to comment on it, so I just sat quiet.
When the scrying was over, Mordon's message through and the reply was a quick affirmative, the feys let out a collective sigh. Then, carpet by carpet, they left, though I doubted any of them would be resting.
“Mordon, I think there may be a little bit of good to come out of all this evil.”
“It's sad that's what it takes at times.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Keep on moving, before Mother finds us,” I said. “She won't stay with the evac list.”
Mordon grumbled under his breath, stretched out on his side to see which portals were all gone and which ones were just damaged. A map of cracks on the underside of a stone outcropping kept people updated on the network of portals, put there by the Council last night. Most of the Council members were still sleeping off the effort. According to Leazar, it had never been attempted before, and no wonder. Even with reportedly four in five portals dead, the map was a complete and utter tangle of hairline fractures which I couldn't make sense of, so Mordon was the one taking a look now.
“Got our location. Where do you want to go?” Mordon asked.
“I want to go to the biggest hole in the map, I figure that's where the Unwritten is, or at least where it's the worst.”
“Why did I have the mate with a death wish?”
“It's not too late to back out on that. The mate part.”
Twigs were in Mordon's hair when he leaned out from under the rock outcropping to frown at me. “There a reason you have been pursuing the subject?”
“Like impending doom and disaster isn't enough to be thinking on things I'd like to do?”
“I'm a thing to do?” Mordon sat upright and shook his tunic clean.
“That wasn't what I meant,” I said, too snappishly.
Mordon grinned. “Does someone need happy hormones running through her head?”
I bit my tongue to keep from telling him something rude, and wondered if the urge to be vulgar would pass with time. We went down a path which was strangely quiet and still, one where the landscape wasn't constantly shifting under our feet.
I'd come around to dropping the subject altogether when Mordon seized me and I jumped out of my skin, looking for danger. Then he pushed me up against a tree. Rough bark scraped my shoulders.
I recognized his expression and my heart skittered to a new beat. Had he taken my mate comment seriously? I hadn't been thinking when I'd been cranky, I didn't mean to push him into this. Did I?
But I didn't care in the next second. I wanted those hands of his up and down my back. Skin to skin. Places which hadn't been touched in too long, and never by him. And from the look in his eyes, he wanted it, too.
We stood there, his hand grasping my wrist, his fingers rough from sparring with the local earth drakes, the warm metal of his rings digging into my flesh. The heat rolling off his body was too hot in the dry sun baking through the dying trees. I wanted to feel the press of his tongue against mine, the way we'd done before. I wanted to lose myself in the dark vault of emotions, to shut out any rational thought and just enjoy the now.
Mordon must have read my expression because he said, “We are going to live. This is far from the worst thing we've been in together.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“Why are you insecure about us?”
“I know we'll be fine.”
Mordon smelled my hair, sending goosebumps down my arms. “You trust me more than this. Tell me.”
A trickle of shame colored my cheeks. “I'm not…ummm.”
Mordon gazed at me, expectantly. I blushed worse and shifted uncomfortably, then broke the eye contact. Mordon prompted, “You're not…what?”
“Like, utterly inexperienced like you implied to Magnus.” It was too hard to say 'my father' in this setting. Just no, wasn't happening. This was mood killer enough.
Mordon laughed,. “I don't care if you're Genghis Khan or Saint Mary.”
“Oh.”
I didn't know what else to say. It shouldn't have surprised me that he would be cool with it, that he would even be a decent enough guy to take me as I was.
“I'm not like…you don't care?”
Mordon cocked his head. “Why should I?”
I laughed, unreasonably relieved. “I take it the colony doesn't teach abstinence-only sex-ed?”
“No,” Mordon said, picking his words carefully at this point. “Have you advanced your education beyond that notion, or are we going to have a lot to discuss?”
If I thought I was blushing before, I had no idea what it meant to blush. This blush was rewriting the very meaning of the phenomenon. “Oh gosh. Thank heavens, no. Much too inquisitive and free-thinking for that.”
“That might possibly be worse depending on your sources. I hope your parents spoke with you at some point?”
Out came the soon-to-be-drake-lord and caretaker-of-his-people Mordon. Sexy kissy time was speeding away. I rolled my eyes. “Most awkward five minutes of my life.”
“Five minutes?”
“Shhyeah, I got lucky. All the other girls got a fifteen minute gum talk, I got five.” The mood was totally gone out the metaphorical window now, which was as much of a relief as a frustration.
“Gum talk? As in bubble gum?”
“As in the stuff you scrape off the floor every now and again, yes. That kind of gum.”
“What does gum have to do with sex?”
I mirrored the tilt of his head. “Huh, you've never heard of the gum talk? K, so…what they do is they give the Merriam-Webster definition of sex, which takes no time at all, then they pull out a fresh stick of gum and say you're like this stick of gum, and when you have sex with someone it's like being chewed, then they ask if you were offered a bit of gum, would you want a chewed piece of gum or a fresh stick. And of course, no one wants a pre-chewed piece of gum. That's the gum talk.”
I expected him to nod his head and get it and close the topic, or maybe go into how awkward it had been for him to have The Talk, and we'd commiserate for a few seconds, then go on as normal.
That didn't happen.
He got angry.
Had I ever seen Mordon angry before? I'd thought so, a few times, but I'd been mistaken. He was angry now. Thunderstruck was a better term. His hand tightened on mine and his body went rigid.
I wanted to hide from him. The blush from before drained away from my face.
“Look, forget I said anything.”
“Your parents told you that?”
My fingers went cold. “Mother did, but she said she was speaking for Magnus, too. I never doubted it.”
Mordon grated his teeth hard enough that I heard it.
“Look, it's common, alright? There's nothing to get upset over. My cousins got the same talk, and most every girl I'd been to school with. It's nothing.”
I didn't know how to reassure him or how to take the words back. When we'd started this conversation, I had never anticipated the way this would turn out to be.
“Really,” I said. “It's nothing.”
“It's fucked up.”
My jaw dropped open. I'd never heard Mordon swear, except with drake epithets. Never to express an opinion. He was the one who'd been prompting me to keep it clean and respectful.
And the thing was, I didn't get it. I didn't understand why he looked ready to go fight my father for real.
“Mordon.” What could I say? What could I do?
He seemed torn between staying with me and marching off to the village, but he remained, physically at least, where he was.
Mordon looked me in the eye. “You are not to give that talk to any of our children.”
A tingle went down my spine. “Wasn't planning on it. Can't say it's ever been helpful.”
The attempt to lighten the mood failed miserably. I was nearly in tears at the end, and I didn't know why, but I knew it had to do with Mordon's reaction. Embarrassed, I scrubbed at my eyes.
“Oh, Fera.” Mordon reached to hug me.
I pushed him, all at once outraged with him, but he didn't stop embracing me.
“I don't want to be held.”
“You're crying, I'm holding you, no disputes.”
“Why do you have to dig?”
“To understand you.”
“I don't like it. And the timing sucks.”
Mordon tried not to laugh. “You chose the timing, remember?”
“It's not funny. I don't see why it matters.”
Mordon kissed the top of my head and tightened his arms around me. “I think you do know, and that's why you're upset. And I'm not going to validate your insecurities by rushing our relationship, though I appreciate your eagerness.”
“This isn't about my issues.”
“I'm glad.”
But his answer was still the same. At least he meant what he said when he came to a decision.
I sighed and dropped my head against his chest. He smelled sweaty, almost too much so, but I buried my face in his tunic and tried not to breathe.
“There you are,” he said, stroking my back. “It will all be fine.”
“This place is part of me, Mordon. And it's drying up, and I'm the only one who knows anything about Unwrittens, and I don't know how to stop it.”
“We'll work it out.”
“But what if we don't?” I cleared my throat, envying the girls who could cry and make it look like something more refined than a toddler bubbling snot out of its nose. “I know I haven't been here long, but…I feel it, and it's scared, and its people are leaving it, and…just everything.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” Mordon rocked us side to side.
“How do you do it? You're calm always.”
“The more you face fears, the stronger you'll be. You have to use the fight within you. And I'll be here. Never worry after me. I know how to make the best of things. And so do you. It'll be fine.”
“Even if it's not?”
“Especially if it's not.”
It was silly, but I believed him, and it made the despair go. I gripped him around his shoulders. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
That wasn't enough. I steeled my courage and admitted, “But I still wish you'd let me jump your bones.”
That got a real laugh out of him, one which revealed his rich, warm chuckle and put me at ease. “Something to think about, love,” he said, “is how a third party would react if I said that to you.”
“Alright, that would be pretty bad,” I said, envisioning it. “Way to make me feel like a predator.”
“Hardly what I had in mind. But you are stoking my ego.”
“Jerk,” I said and thumped a fist against his chest.
“And now we're moving out of sexual harassment and into assault and battery.”
I laughed, finally. “Whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“Whatever.” I kissed him on the lips. “We should go to the big hole of nothingness now, before my parents find out I'm not joining the evacuation last minute.”
“Oh hey, what do you know, that's where we're going, too,” Leazar said from out of thin air. “Where's the big hole of nothingness? It sounds like adventure.”
Simbalene was with him, and she said, “Yes, we shall go, too. And if you refuse we shall tell your mother that we have found your location.”
“Straight to the blackmail. I think the two of us can tolerate being sisters, Sim,” I said.
“Yes, you have no choice but to accept it, as I am already married to your brother,” Simbalene said.
Leazar elbowed Mordon. “It seems I always find you snogging my kid sister. Really, man, slow it down.”
Mordon raised a brow but refrained from saying anything.
“Nah, I don't want to know,” Leazar said and started striding down the trail. “I assume the big hole of nothingness is away from the village.”
Simbalene jumped after him. “But I want to know! Drake courtship is a strange topic and so engrossing.”
“Not something I want to see my sister doing, Sim.” He paused. “Sim. I like that name. Thanks, little sis.”
I looked to Mordon. Mordon shrugged. “Shall we?”
We could use the extra hands, I supposed, and Simbalene would tell on us just to witness the fallout. So I went along with it.
I proved to be the slowest walker, but I had no idea how Simbalene had managed to outpace me. Watching her was like watching a hummingbird. Buzz here and buzz there, dart, dart, dart, stop to smell at the air, then she was away again. My brother kept his steady trod, his wife circling all around him. Once I had the image of a dog owner with one of those expandable leashes in my head, I couldn't shake it free.
“Right, M-man, where are we going?”
Mordon paused, examining the trees and the trails. “Fera, is there a portal nearby that goes to the community kitchens?”
I felt around with the wind and watched where the portals took my magic. “There are four still in working order. One's a lavender farm, one's a cottage, one's a fishing lake, and another goes to your blackberry hut thing. But there's a lot of partially closed portals around.”
“We're close, then. Fera, can you lead the way to keep us from stepping into a portal by accident?”
“You just want to see my butt,” I said, taking the front position.
“And you're just trying not to be nervous by poking fun,” Mordon said. “Though it is a very nice butt.”
“My ears. They burn,” my brother said.
“You wanted to come along,” I said over my shoulder, accidentally striking Simbalene's favorite pose.
It took us a little bit to settle into our walk again. Mordon had been right to ask me to take lead. The Wildwoods had been good about keeping us from stepping into a portal accidentally in the past, but no longer. After Simbalene almost stepped into a creek, I started marking the portals with sticks. She was the first to start moaning, at the same time that she stopped doing her hummingbird impression. Then Leazar took up uttering complaints, which must have been her influence because he never used to do it.
When we crossed over the invisible line into the Infected zone, I called a stop.
“It's all dead,” Simbalene said. “Everything. The ground is sterile.”
It was a grim sight, the hundreds of withered trees which were nothing but dried matches sticking up out of ground. All that was left now of the land which had been teeming with life and unruly plants was just a desolate wasteland devoid even of water. There were still river beds and even a pond, with sand and gravel laying in the bottom, a strange muck in the bottom which I didn't want to think too much about. It smelled of dead bodies and I suspected I knew why.
“I don't like it here, either,” Mordon said. “Fera, any idea where the Unwritten is? Or do you still want to seek out the center of this place?”
I shook my head. Where we were, where we were going, I didn't know. Even if I saw the spell now, would I be able to do anything about it?
The husk almost beheaded me. It dove out of the clouds, an eagle-sized bat was my first impression, one with talons and brown skin. I'd felt it slice through the air just in time to yank it to the side. Leazar acted first, whacking it in three successive strikes with his walking stick. F
ather's swordplay lessons hadn't gone wrong with him. Mordon looked impressed.
“What was that?” I asked.
Leazar poked at it where it lay motionless on the ground. It flinched and screamed. A single clomp over the head made it stop moving. Leazar flopped the wings open and said, “It's a … huh.”
Swift Magic (The Swift Codex Book 2) Page 23