I was exhausted, and I could’ve murdered a steak and a real bed. For the first time in a long time, I yearned for my childhood bed. It felt like years since I’d been home to Hamor, and though I’d seen my father only recently, I missed my mother and my brothers. My grandparents. My cousins and my pack and my Line. I wanted to gohome.
But I wanted Avalon to forgive me even more than that. I just freaking needed her to figure out that I couldn’t talk about it directly. There was a geas placed on every Third Line child once they started to speak, which prevented us talking about it, mostly so small children didn’t run up to people from other Lines, yabbering about how their uncle turned into a wolf, or their sister turned into a hawk.
Or how their Heir turned into a fucking Spryrix.
It also stopped teens from whipping out their beasts as soon as they got riled, or drunkenly spilling secrets with a belly full of ale. It limited our ability to shift in front of people, not of our own Line, unless we believed that our lives were truly in danger. The geas wore off once we turned twenty-five, and I had a depressingly short amount of time before this would no longer be an issue.
Still, if she would justask,I could answer direct questions about it.
But first, Avalon needed to stop giving me the silent treatment. I’d even take Lierick or Vox bringing it up at this point. Anyone other than a political acquaintance or a spy, who I couldn’t betray my whole Line in front of, just to make my Soul Tie understand.
I let out a low groan. Was that too much to ask? “Avie, please…” I begged softly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Taeme. I’ve tried to stay out of this, because it’s your business, and I try to respect your privacy by staying out of your head. But if you could’ve justsuggestedthere was a geas, even in your thoughts…” Lierick muttered to himself. “Hayle Taeme, please tell us about your fucking man-eating Spryrix, and how it is that you shift into it, and why you can’t talk about it with the one person who shares your soul,” he said in a slow, drawn-out manner, like he was talking to an idiot.
I wasn’t even mad at his tone. No, I was so fucking relieved.
I grabbed Avalon up in my arms and walked to the couch, sitting her on my lap. “Thank fuck. The whole Line is under a geas not to talk about our ability to shift into beasts until we’re twenty-five, unless asked about it directly. I’ve been dying over here,” I groaned.
Avalon didn’t look any less confused. “What’s a geas?”
“Like a magical ball gag,” Vox answered helpfully. I shot him an irritated expression, but he just grinned back.
“Something like that. A magical binding that prevents us from doing something. It’s old magic, not used much by other Lines. At least, I don’t think it is.”
Vox snorted. “We use fear and manipulation in the First Line. Got to keep up with those time-honored traditions.”
Lierick shrugged and tapped his temple. “Not particularly necessary.”
I shrugged. “Right. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t that I didn’twantto tell you, but more that Icouldn’t.”
The tiny truth that I’d keep to myself, though, was that I hadn’t really wanted her to know. She wasn’t from the Third, and I think a part of me would’ve died if she’d been terrified of me. I wasn’t ashamed of my beast—having the Spryrix was an honor—but shifting into one of the mythicals came with a lot of pressure. The Sixth Line had proved that; there was a whole damned prophecy about it.
Maybe this was how Avie felt all the time. That constant niggling in the back of your mind that this wasn’t just it for you, that there was something right there on the horizon that meant the world you built would change.
Avie chewed her lip. “So if I ask you direct questions, you can answer?”
“Yes,” I told her eagerly. I wanted this tension between us gone. These past two days had been the most miserable of my life.
Her eyes bored into mine, as if she could see the beast that resided deep in my body. “How long have you had the Spryrix?”
I snuggled her closer, burying my nose in her neck. “Since I was fifteen. He emerged while I was on my Great Hunt. It’s the first time we head out into the Mistwoods by ourselves. It’s how we gain our animal companions, and sometimes our beasts. Although, Alucius and Braxus have been with me a lot longer than that. I can hardly remember a time without them. It’s where I met Quarry, though.”
I looked past Avalon at the men who’d once been my political enemies. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be spilling the Third Line’s most closely held secrets to them, I would’ve punched the person for accusing me of being a traitor.
But now? My life was tied to theirs.
“The Second Line knew already,” Lierick said, reading my thoughts. “Or at least, we strongly suspected, due to some of the knowledge stored within our libraries and among the temples that hold the Votresses.”
Well, I was only half a traitor then. “The ritual is not that important, but basically, we go to a place in the Mistwoods, use our powers to call creatures to us, and when we reach the temple ruins, we ask the Goddess to grant us a beast to better protect the people of Ebrus and our brothers and sisters in the Third Line. Sometimes, she’ll grant us a beast, and sometimes, we gohome empty-handed, but it never hurts to ask. For decades after my father got his beast, not a single person came back from the Great Hunt with the ability to shift, and we wondered if the Goddess had finally forsaken the Third Line.” That time had been hard for us.
“But then my eldest brother went out on his Great Hunt and came back with a beast. And then my next eldest brother. And so did I. As did my younger brother. To say we were all relieved would probably be an understatement. However, I’m the only one with a mythical beast; the last Spryrix beast gifted to the Third Line was over four centuries ago. And the last wild Spryrix died out before we even wrote histories. I felt doubly blessed.” I gave them a crooked smile. “Though perhaps it was because the Goddess thought I was going to need something more overpowered for my future endeavors.”
Avalon huffed a laugh and relaxed into me. I sighed gently into her hair. This was right. This was what we needed, not that strained bond that had plagued us.
“Any other life-altering secrets you’re keeping?” she asked lightly, though there was still a vein of steel in her words. She hadn’t been happy and wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily, even if she had forgiven me.
“Only how much I love you and how fucking miserable I’ve been the last two days.”
