CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Wylfrael
The blunt, if clumsy, courage of her question gave me pause. Made me stop and study her, rubbing my hand across my jaw. I wasn’t considering the answer to the question itself – I already knew I wouldn’t kill her now. I was considering her. This fragile creature with her skinny little neck, useless little knife, and enough spirit to go chasing down the question of her own death, even if it meant throwing that question at the feet of a god.
“What would you do if I tried?” I mused, more to myself than to her, wondering just how far that spirit would take her. I knew she wouldn’t understand the question, and she didn’t. But she held the knife a little higher anyway, as if in answer.
I smirked at the futile fierceness of the gesture.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I finally said. I waved my hand in a dismissive motion. I didn’t know how to construct a sentence in the negative in her language, having only just learned the words “kill” “you” and “me,” so the hand movement would have to be enough. I did not feel like putting more effort into the communication than that. Let her understand me, or let her not. If she is afraid that I will kill her, it is only because she has earned that fear. Let her deal with the consequences of invading my world. I do not owe her anything.
But if I did not owe her anything...
Why had I given her back that knife in the first place?
Because it’s dull, I told myself as she watched me and clutched it. Because she could never hope to harm me, or herself, with it even if she tried.
It was certainly not because of the way she’d slumped forward, as if in grief when I’d taken it, such a small thing, away from her.
No, that was not the reason. Because if that was why – if I were for some absurd reason beginning to care about what this criminal human felt...
I need some space from her. I needed to keep myself away until I’d seen Rúnwebbe and could properly interrogate her. Once I could put words to all her vicious motivations, learn from her own mouth just how much wrong she’d done by me, I would be able to find my equilibrium again.
“Worry less about me killing you and more about starving to death,” I grumbled, rising from my seat and walking to her side. I nudged the plate closer.
She stared down at the plate without moving for so long I thought I’d have to force her to eat again. But finally, keeping the knife in one hand, she picked up the bread with the other. She ate slowly and without looking at me.
When she’d finished the bread and started reaching for her mug of sweetened sotasha milk, I noticed a dark reddish-purple mark marring her wrist. Some sort of human colouring? It looks swollen, though...
Before her fingers closed around the mug’s handle, my hand shot out and gripped her wrist. She cried out with more than just surprise and anger when my thumb pressed into the spot. Hers was a sound unmistakable across species – a short and strangled melody of pain.
“A wound?” I asked, immediately loosening my hold. I did not let go, though. I raised her arm higher, inspecting the dark mark. No bleeding. A bruise? “When did this happen?”
She gave me no answer besides the curling of her fingers into a fist. I ran my thumb, more gently this time, along the swollen area, all the while mentally reviewing the places I’d touched her since yesterday. Her jaw, her waist, her upper arm... Had I grasped her flimsy little wrist here, too? I stroked the dark mark over and over, back and forth, wondering with something that felt far too much like shame if I’d done this.
The human shuddered, a feverish tremble running up her slender arm. I released her as if I’d been branded. She took back her arm and hid it beneath the table.
“What is your name?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh and hoarse in my ears. I cleared my throat, and the sound made her finally turn her small face back up to mine. “You already know mine. You called me Lord Wylfrael. What is your name?”
She pressed her lips against each other and looked away.
I fought the urge to grab her arm again, to make her face me even if it hurt, to force her to tell me what I wanted to know. It was bizarre – ridiculous – that I cared this much about her insignificant name at all.
But that didn’t stop the wanting.
“I will find out eventually, little human,” I muttered. It would only be a matter of time until I learned her name and everything else I wanted to know, too. In the meantime, I’d already gleaned one facet of information about her, whether she’d wanted me to or not.
As I stalked from the room, it was all I could think about, that blooming secret I’d stolen from her skin:
The hateful, ugly, beautiful colour of her body when it bruised.
I DECIDED THAT GETTING space from my prisoner, as I seemed so desperately to need, meant leaving the castle entirely. I stationed Shoshen outside her chamber and then went outside. I did not use any of my powers to whisk snow away from my path as I walked, instead ploughing directly through it, enjoying the seep of cold through my trousers and boots. I spread my wings as I walked, stretching the flesh, and breathed deeply of the winter air I knew so well. I headed for the back of the estate, pausing for a moment when I saw the remnants of last night – footsteps, and the pile of collapsed snow I’d heaved up to stop the human’s escape.
Breathing out harshly, my breath like smoke in the clear daylight air, I lifted my hand and drew upon my powers, smoothing the snow, erasing every mark. Not quite satisfied but not sure what else to do about it, I kept walking, entering the treeline that stood between the castle and the mountains. Back here, the sotasha barn stood, a broad building made of thick crystal tile that housed the animals Sionnachans used for leather, milk, fur, and meat. I could hear the massive, shaggy white beasts huffing and grunting inside. Beside the barn was a structure much more open to the air. A single sontanna stood there, its antlers and fur snowy silver, its mane a luminous pale pink, like Sionnach’s sky. It watched me warily. Pain hit me, like a blow, when I remembered this sontanna did not know me. Like Aiko, Ashken, and Shoshen, it was a descendent of creatures I’d once loved, and it looked at me like I was a stranger.
If Ashken and Shoshen had done their jobs as Masters of the Grounds, the sontanna would be well trained. I would be able to approach it, to command it, and ride it if I wished.
But I turned from it instead, forging further into the trees, until the silent sontanna, the snuffling sotasha, the castle, and my prisoner, were out of sight.
I did not stop walking until I hit the mountains. My wounds hurt, but I could tell that even the deepest ones inflicted by Skalla were healing well. Slowly, my power was returning. By tomorrow, I might be strong enough to open a sky door to Rúnwebbe’s world...
That thought spurred me on, gave me energy. I bent my legs and launched into the air, throttling higher and higher. Once high enough, I caught the wind, sailing easily among the mountains and over the valleys. I decided in the air I’d visit the nearest villages. I wanted to see what information they had about what had happened while I’d been gone, and to re-establish myself among them. To assert that I was still alive, that I was here. That I had returned, even when they’d all feared I wouldn’t.