Vale’s a romantic.
I momentarily forget how damp I am, set down the book and take in the riot of book titles on shelves all around me, my attention set alight to be in the presence of so many volumes. Grimoires. A number of Alfsigr books. Books on language. History. Science. Apothecary medicine. Mathematics. Military history. Shipbuilding. Metallurgy. And more grimoires.
I make my way over to his closet and peer inside at the row of tunics—all black silk or wool, well made without ornamentation. I finger one of them thoughtfully.
I hear his heavy steps downstairs and give a nervous jolt, releasing the fabric in my hands.
He’s just below me. In Edwin’s bedroom. Probably sliding out of his wet clothes.
My breathing quickens. I pull one of his tunics out, and a pair of pants, giving them an appraising look for size. I find some twine on his worktable and cut it to size with a jewel-handled knife.
Standing before the woodstove, glancing worriedly toward the door, I clumsily reach back to loosen my tunic’s lacing. The wet laces have grown hard and tight, and loosening them takes some time. Finally, I peel off my soaked tunic, camisole and long skirt, hanging them over the backs of chairs to dry. I stand in front of the woodstove in just my pantalets, my shivers subsiding as the stove’s warmth courses through me, quickly drying the skin of my chest. I’m suddenly aware of the uncurtained window, my naked chest, my nipples standing out in hard points, gooseflesh rising on my chilled skin. I hastily slide Vale’s tunic on over me, the silk smooth over my breasts.
His tunic is loose and I have to roll up the sleeves, but it fits me like a short dress. The pants are disastrously ill-fitting, slightly tight in the hips, but huge in the waist. They pucker as I cinch them tight with twine, wrapping another piece of twine around my waist to secure his tunic. I hunt around and find a drawer of black woolen socks. I pull a pair on over my toes, the socks loose and bunching up, his feet so much larger than mine.
A hot thrill courses through me to be dressed in the same fabric he slides over his own muscular frame.
I sit down on his bed and run my hand over the covers.
He sleeps here. The man I’m now fasted to.
I try to imagine it. Serious, intense Vale, snuggled in under these very covers. His face blank and open in sleep. His black hair tousled on the pillow.
What does he look like when he sleeps?
I realize that I already know this. I remember him sleeping in Fain’s tent. Staying there with me. All night. I remember how he looked.
Troubled and upset.
Glancing at the door, I listen closely for him. His steps thud across the downstairs floor, crossing directly below me.
I lean over and smell his pillow, briefly laying my body in the same spot I imagine he lays his. An exciting warmth courses over me. I can smell his scent on the wrinkled linen—fresh wood just catching flame on a chill autumn day, smoke on the crisp air. A hint of warm musk.
I like it, I realize. I like the smell of him.
Reluctantly, I set the pillow back, smooth the sheets to hide the evidence of my curiosity and go to join him downstairs.
* * *
He’s in dry clothes as I haltingly make my way down to the kitchen, his too-large socks slippery on my feet against the polished Ironwood stairs.
Vale watches me as I descend. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, his lips slightly parted, staring as if I’m a breathtakingly beautiful vision dressed in the finest silks and gems, coming down a stately flight of stairs to a lavish ball. Not an exhausted Lower River girl with damp hair wearing ill-fitting men’s clothing and bunchy socks.
His eyes and his fire flicker over me.
He straightens, formal again, and blinks at me as if in a daze. “May I...may I show you the rest of the house?” One of his cats jumps onto the counter, and he idly pets it. “My library’s through here,” he says, pushing an adjacent door open to reveal a cozy room walled with bookcases, arching windows overlooking the ocean. There’s a couch placed up against the windows with a stack of books on one side.
“It’s good you have a library,” I archly comment, glancing back toward the tome-laden kitchen table. “There’s such a dearth of books around here.”
He laughs and shoots me a sidelong glance of amusement. “No. No dearth of books. You’ve had a dearth of food, though,” he says. “I’ll show you the pantry. In case you’re hungry for something.”
I follow him through a door at the far corner of the kitchen that cuts into the stone of the surrounding rock, the temperature chilling as we walk down a short, cavernous path. Vale grabs a hanging lantern and quickly lights it with his wand, the guttering light flicking over the stone. Over us.
I’m struck again by a surreal sense that I’m in a dream—following a powerful Level Five Mage into his pantry.
Vale opens a wooden door that has a small door for the cats hewn into the bottom.
I immediately gape as I enter, transfixed on the sight before me.
The entire room is lined with deep shelves and large barrels of grain. Carrots and root vegetables are packed in sawdust on the floor. A row of shelves houses wheels of cheese and a large variety of preserved fruits and vegetables in glass jars. Dried meat, fish and sausages hang from the ceiling.
The cats flow in and wind around the room.
“They keep the vermin at bay,” Vale idly comments, picking up and stroking the short-haired cat. The cat purrs loudly in response and pushes her head up against the sharp line of Vale’s jaw, making it clear Vale’s affection for these cats veers beyond the practical.
“It’s not a lot,” he apologizes, looking around. “Rather modest fare, but I hope you’ll find it sufficient.”
I stare at him, staggered.
It’s more food put together in one place, in one home, than I have ever seen in my entire life. Like a whole market full of food.
I reach behind me for the edge of a shelf for support, slumping against it.
“Is Wren...is he going to eat like this?” I ask, my voice gone low, feeling suddenly light-headed.
“Oh, good gods, no,” he says. “My house in Valgard is much larger. I have my own cook there. She’ll let them draw up a menu. Their favorite foods, and so forth. With an eye for health, of course. For your brother.” He gives me a significant look.
It’s over. All over. Our struggle for food.
The crushing weight of our poverty is lifting so quickly that the world tilts beneath me, the very ground shifting. The struggle of years and years coming to an abrupt end.
“We never ate like this,” I tell him, gaping at a hanging smoked ham. “I don’t think you understand.” I try to swallow, my throat gone dry. I stare at a row of berry preserves directly before me. “They stopped selling to us. So many of the Kelts. They wouldn’t sell to Crows anymore. Jules would bring us things, but we didn’t have money for much. Dried peas. Barley. Beans. Cheap food. I used to glean for the damaged vegetables that no one wanted. But...the farmers stopped allowing it. And soon, Doveshire outlawed it. For our kind, anyway. I... I’ve been through refuse bins, Vale. I’ve stolen food a few times. There were times it got that bad.”
My legs feel wobbly, and my hand slides down to find a soft, solid surface. I look down to find the largest bag of grain I’ve ever seen.
I own this. Wren has food. More food than he could ever eat...
“Tessla? Are you all right?”
“He’s sick,” I choke out, the floodgates suddenly flung wide open, a storm of emotion coursing through me. “Wren’s sick. He’s been sick a long time.”
“I know,” Vale says. He sets the cat down and looks at me closely. “The Red Grippe. I left orders for my family’s physician to tend to him. Fain will make sure he’s given Obsythian tonic this week.”
All
the blood drains from my face, and I stagger down until I’m sitting on the floor.
He’ll be cured of it. Just like that. He’ll live.
“Tessla?”
I bring my hand to my eyes, overtaken by a staggering relief. “Oh, Ancient One. Vale. Thank you so much. Oh, Ancient One. Thank you.”
“We’re fasted, Tessla,” he says, his voice low and gentle, tinged with confusion. “Of course I’d do anything for you.”
His noble sentiment and kindness send shockwaves through me. I cry hot tears of overwhelming gratitude into my hand.
Vale is quiet for a long moment. Then I hear him come closer, kneeling down before me.
“He’ll be cured,” he says, his voice near me now, his fire coursing steady. “Completely cured. He’ll have the best of everything.”
“Where are they now?” I ask him, my face wet with tears.
“I suspect they’re both in Valgard by now. Wanting for nothing. We’ll visit them at week’s end if you’d like.”
“I can never thank you enough,” I cry, breaking down again. “Ever. Thank you. Thank you, Vale. Thank you.” I wipe at my tears with my tunic sleeve, realizing, too late, how messy I’m getting his clothing. “I know you’ve money, Vale, but still, Obsythian tonic—it’s so wildly expensive.”
He gives a short laugh. “Tessla, I’m extremely rich. And now you are, too.”
I nod, trying to catch my breath. “Of course. Your mother’s money.”
He pulls his head up sharply. “No. My money. Tessla, I cleared the entire Salish Pass of kraken. There’s a hefty bounty for that. Three years, on and off, at sea, killing the vile things. Plus, as a Wind Mage, dealing with storms and so forth—I’ve a fair bit of wind power, Tessla, just like you do. So I’ve more than enough of my own money. None of it from my mother.”
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammer, thrown. “I meant no offense.”
Vale sits down against the shelf opposite me, the hard edges of his expression softening. “No offense taken.” He takes a long breath and lets it out, studying me. “Tessla, you’ve been carrying a heavy load for far too long. Let me help you.”
His large, green-eyed cat jumps up into my lap, purring. Weeping, I stroke the cat’s silky fur, and it spins around to form itself into a contented, sleepy ball. A leaden exhaustion presses down on me. I shake my head from side to side. “I’ve been so lonely, Vale.” The confession catches me off guard, but I’m starved for companionship. It seems to startle him, too. As if this moment of intimacy has pierced a constant feeling of isolation for the both of us.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he says, his fierce eyes hot on me. “You’re safe here. And you never have to be alone again.”
Chapter 24: Blue Lightning
I’m exhausted but oddly restless when I return to Vale’s bedroom. I pull off Vale’s woolen breeches and climb into his bed, nestling in under the covers, dressed now only in his tunic, my pantalets and socks. Dark rain streams down the windows, but it’s warm and cozy in here, with a roasting fire crackling in the woodstove.
Vale’s short-haired cat, Vor’nin, jumps up on the bed to curl at my feet.
I turn, taking in the tower of books he has on his bedside table. The volumes are stacked unevenly in a way that seems quite precarious. I carefully pick up the Alfsigr poetry book and the language translation dictionary just under it, then puzzle through the volume for a good long while by the flickering lamplight. It’s a good distraction, trying to translate the complicated Alsigr language, and it slightly dampens the turbulent firestorm churning inside me.
I notice the book is heavily creased on one page in particular. I try opening the book several times to see where the pages open up to on their own, and always come back this poem.
“Sollil’lynir.” Loneliness.
I spend a while piecing together the translation, the poem full of metaphors for painful solitude.
A winter moon. A frozen lake. A single candle in a midnight forest.
Vale’s steps sound out below, and my heart quickens.
Is he as aware of me as I am of him, even separated by a whole floor?
Cheeks flushed, I go back to translating, but eventually, my eyes grow too heavy for the task, and I clumsily reach to set the book back on Vale’s teetering tower of volumes.
Half the tower falls onto the bed, a heavy history of the Urisk clonking painfully against my shoulder.
My eyes watering from the painful blow, I inwardly curse at the ceiling, then turn back to the destroyed tower of books, now cut in half. Another slim volume rests on the small tower’s top, its cover a tapestry of rioting colors, its spine embossed and hand-gilded. A Noi water god and goddess passionately embrace in the center of the riotous design, their hair made of the ocean’s waves.
I immediately think of Fain’s tent and his cacophony of Ishkart tapestries.
It seems so out of place among all the scholarly volumes, and my curiosity wins out over my crushing fatigue. I set it aside, restack Vale’s volumes, then pick up the exotic book and flip through it.
My eyes widen as I take in the images that make up the volume. Each print depicts a divine couple, their water hair wild and flowing. They’re dressed in intricately embroidered yet conservative clothing, but their tunics are unfastened, cast into disarray.
A surge of hot, titillating shock sizzles through me as I realize that the couples are copulating, their joinings depicted in shockingly graphic detail.
I close the book quickly, heart thudding, a bolt of sparking heat flashing through me, as if I’m committing a salacious crime and will be discovered at any moment. I look nervously to the door, furtive, hunching down. I bring up my knees to hide the book on my lap, ready to slip it under the covers at the slightest sound. Ears primed for any sign of Vale coming up the stairs.
But the house remains silent.
I sneak another peek at the book, a hot flush starting on my face, streaking down my neck. A warm, wildly disconcerting tension rises between my legs. I tense my thighs against it and keep looking.
I’ve never seen anything remotely like this.
Where did Vale come across such a book? I flip to the inside cover and find Fain’s artistic script.
To Vale,
So you’ll know where to put it.
As Always,
Fain
I flip through the book again and, like the poetry book, it opens easily to one heavily creased page. It’s clear that this page has been returned to again and again, like a fly to a sticky sweet. It depicts a woman straddling a man, the man on his back. She’s riding him like a horse.
I stare, mouth agape, both fascinated and shocked.
Is this what he likes?
I hear Vale’s footsteps moving toward the stairs. I panic, fumbling with the book, dropping it on the floor, a giddy, nervous tension flashing through me. I scramble to reach it, then thrust the volume deep under the pillow behind me, my heart hammering, sure that he’ll be knocking on the door at any moment.
But the knock never comes. Instead, I hear the downstairs door slam shut.
I go to the window and peek out to see Vale stalking into the night, the storm moving off, the rain lessening. A full moon fitfully pokes through the fast-moving clouds, thunder still rumbling in the distance.
He’s thrown off his tunic, the skin of his back glimmering a faint emerald in the dark. His wand tight in his fist, he follows the path down to the beach, then drops down on one knee in the sand and throws blue lightning out across the water. The bolt’s crackling intensity casts blue light over the entire world, clear into the bedroom.
Vale stands and stalks up and down the beach, and I can just make out his expression, fierce and full of a tense frustration. He stops and hurls his arm out, lightning branching clear up to the clo
uds, piercing through them, sending more branches of lightning bolting sideways through adjacent clouds and then scything down to the ocean below.
The whole world pulses blue.
I watch him for a long time, my forehead pressed against the cold glass, in awe of his power. The ferocity of his magic. My breath sends foggy puffs to coat the glass’s surface, rendering Vale’s unsettled form misty. My eyelids grow heavy and I fall asleep for a few seconds at a time, jerking back awake at each new crack of his lightning.
Eventually, I rise, and take one last look at him as he furiously throws out bolt after bolt after bolt.
Then I slip under the warm covers of his bed, firelight and blue light pulsing over me. I turn and inhale Vale’s enticing scent deeply, pull myself into a tight ball and surrender to sleep.
* * *
I’m running through the dark woods, twigs cutting at my face, my heart racing, my panicked breathing loud in my ears.
I’m prey. And they’re after me—the huge ax-paladin and the Icaral demon.
The ax-paladin’s hand clasps tight around my arm, jerking me back, blunt nails digging into my skin as the Icaral looks on, the creature’s demonic fire coursing through me with churning ferocity.
I cry out as the ax-paladin throws me to the ground and falls on me, the demon close on his heels.
I struggle and scream as the ax-paladin pins my arms down and looks me over with manic eyes, excited by my fear and desperate struggle.
“Tessla!” Someone shouts my name from somewhere, far away.
I scream louder, wrench my wrist free and punch the ax-paladin in the face with all my strength.
* * *
My knuckles explode with pain, and the scene shatters around me. I’m thrust into immediate, wild confusion.
There’s a half-naked man before me, cradling his face, one hand around my wrist as I buck and struggle and flail against him. He pulls sharply away, and I wrench my hand from his grip, scuttling toward the back of the bed, wildly disoriented.
“I’ll kill you if you come near me!” I snarl at him, violence coursing through me like black fire, both hands clenched into fists. “I swear I will!” I turn, grab up a short sword from the head of the bed and pull it from its sheath with a metallic screech.
Wandfasted Page 16