“That didn’t give me as many years as my dear husband.” Ruby ran a fond hand over her husband’s claws as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You have a brother in theAnderfel mountains, in the mortal realm. He has a spell that can link your lifelines together.”
“I will consider that,” Vale lied. He hardly knew this mortal; he was not about to bind them together for the rest of his life. “I must go. I will seek out the mortals who gave her to me and demand answers. If it is a mortal spell, it will not be too difficult to figure out.”
He began to close his eyes and concentrate on his own void. But before he let it pull him under, he paused.
“We have a plant in my void,” he began. “The heatbloom. Have you heard of it?”
“The mating plant?” Slate’s gaze dropped to the spots of pollen on Vale’s usually spotless robe. Then he chuckled, a noise so rare Vale had not recognized it the first time he heard it from his brother’s fanged mouth. “Of course I have.”
“Do you know how it affects mortals?”
“The same way it affects any creature, I would imagine.”
Vale growled again, the sound rising in the silent forest. “This is different. She said she wasconnectedto something.”
“Her desires,” Ruby guessed.
“No. I think… I think it may have been my void. But that is impossible.”
“Why?”
“It would not reach out to her,” Vale argued. “It barely reaches out tome, the one who has cared for it for millennia. Why would it connect with a mortal after mere minutes?”
Ruby and Slate traded a look. Slate’s tail flicked. Ruby flicked her hand back at him, a silent conversation that Vale did not understand.
“You should return,” Slate said. “Your mortal needs you.”
“She is notmymortal,” Vale replied.
“Still,” Ruby said, oddly sweet. “Do let us know how she is. And you may want to visit your Anderfel brother first.”
“If I am to go to the mortal realm, it will be to confront the mortals who provoked this situation,” Vale said. “Not to extend my new assistant’s life.”
“He does not only extend her life,” Ruby said, her dark hair swelling with magic as she got more excited. “He can also help with the… size problem.”
Vale said nothing. His mind filled with images of the small, plump human waiting for him back in his void. Her flushed cheeks and needy words, which would surely be needier as the heatbloom sank into her blood.Help with the size problem?How, by causing him to shrink? That seemed like the only way he could mate with her.
“You need not worry,” Slate assured him. “Neither of you will be changed. Not permanently.”
“And it will not hurt,” Ruby added.
Vale shifted uncomfortably, glad for his long robes. They hid the stirring happening underneath. He had not seriously considered mating her, even as the pollen took hold. He still hoped that it would resolve itself some other way, or that she would suffer in silence. But if she was truly beloved by the void—no matter how nonsensical it was—then he owed it to her, did he not? Even if she was just an assistant who the void ignored, as it largely ignored him. She did not deserve the agony that set in if the pollen was ignored.
“Do let us know how it goes,” Ruby said again, smiling far too excitedly.
Vale nodded. Then he closed his eyes, concentrating on his void.
It pulled him home in an instant.
The silver pool felt…off. The water stuck to him for a moment before sliding away, as all filth did in his void.
Well, Vale thought grudgingly.Almost everything.
He wiped fruitlessly at the pollen stains on his robe and then examined the evidence of the pool’s corruption. The crack next to the pool was bigger, carving jagged white lines into the dark ground.
Vale would visit the mortal realm again, he decided. They could not have gone far. He would track them down and then demand answers.
But before he could close his eyes again, something landed on his arm.
