I chuckled, then my gaze dropped to the falcon feather at the end of his braid.
“Why the feather?” I waved a hand at it. “I mean, I get the obvious reason, but that's too small to be a Falcon Faerie's feather. Is there a story behind it?”
Taeven went quiet and pensive a moment before responding to my question with one of his own, “Have you heard of messengers?”
“People who take letters to other people?” I grinned, knowing that couldn't be the answer.
“Yes, but I'm referring to the Goddess's messengers.”
“You said she speaks to your people, is that how she does it, through messages?”
“It's one of the ways.” He did a sort of side-nod. “She also speaks directly to faeries on occasion. I'm told that valorians hear her voice when they're transformed.”
A shiver ran through me. I wasn't a religious man, but I might become one if a god spoke directly to me and proved his or her existence. Taeven was so certain of his Goddess, but it wasn't a fanatical certainty, just that of a man who knew what he believed was fact.
“Sometimes, when a faerie is deeply troubled, the Goddess will send a messenger to comfort and guide them. It's seen as a sign of her affection for that faerie.” Tae's expression went grim as he continued, “Just before I left Varalorre, I was in a dark place. I didn't want to leave. Although I'd excelled at warfare, it wasn't what I wanted to do.”
“No one wants to do this. I mean, yeah, a few do, but they're psychos, you know? Normal people don't like killing, not even when it's Farungals. We do it because someone has to.”
Taeven's expression softened. “Yes, you're right. But I, as I told you earlier, didn't want to go to war for any reason of my own; it was all for my father. That made me feel cowardly and then it just got worse from there. I started to question my worth and my honor. I began to have nightmares about leading my army to ruin—destroying it completely because I was the wrong man to be its warlord. I didn't have the passion for the fight that other soldiers seemed to have. I felt . . . out of place. As if I had let my desire to please my father sway me into making a horrible mistake.”
“You were having doubts.” I nodded. “I freaked out too, the night before I got transferred from boot camp to your army.”
“You did?” he asked as if surprised.
“Tae, we all do. It's normal. We're taking a job to kill and possibly be killed. It's fucking scary. I'll bet you anything that every warlord has had those doubts.”
He looked dubious. “I don't know, I'll concede that maybe most of them have, but there are a few who I believe are beyond such worries.”
“Then they've got other issues,” I huffed.
Taeven laughed brightly, then he simmered down to a smile and said, “You just eased an ache inside me that I didn't realize I still carried.” He shook his head in amazement. “And you did it so casually. So quickly. Thank you for that, Shane.”
I grinned at him. “Aw, you just needed someone to point out the truth to you.”
“The truth?”
“That you're not alone. That every soldier, from a private to warlord, has felt what you have.”
“That's important, isn't it?” He asked wistfully, his gaze going tender as he stared at me. “Knowing that you're not alone.”
“Yeah, it's important,” I whispered, seeing a kinship in his stare that made me feel less alone too. Then I cleared my throat. “You didn't finish telling me about the feather.”
“Oh!” Taeven blinked, coming out of the daze we'd been in together. “I was thinking about turning down the post as warlord.” He looked away from me, his stare going distant. “I remember staring at the sky, thinking that I'd like to start flying and never stop. Just go somewhere far away where no one knew me and start fresh. Maybe get it right.”
My chest and throat tightened. I knew that feeling—even the flying part. I'd often watched the birds, thinking to myself that very same thing; that I'd like to fly away and start over. Go somewhere no one knew me, where they wouldn't judge me. That this man, so powerful and divinely handsome, would feel the same way, rocked me to my very core. He had said that it was important to not feel alone, but there was more to it than that. There had been a wall between us, one that I'd put there. I had seen him as beyond me; someone so incredible that I could never cross over to his side of the wall. Forever out of my reach, despite everything he said. Now, suddenly, he was standing right before me, extending his hand. Nothing standing between us. Tae was just a man with fears and dreams like any other. A man like me.
“It was cold that day,” Taeven went on, ignorant of my epiphany. “Winter is harsher in the mountain cities because they're so high up. I stood at the edge of a cliff,” his voice fell into a whisper. “Rocks skittered over the side, down the sheer drop. I was mere seconds away from shifting, from just . . . fleeing.”
I didn't care if anyone saw us. I reached over and took his hand. Taeven looked down at our joined hands in shock, then up at me. His bleak expression shifted to joy—pure joy—and the tightness in my chest transformed with it, becoming something light and bubbly.
He wove his fingers with mine and continued, “Then the Goddess sent me a messenger—a falcon.”
“A falcon?”
“She sends the beasts as her messengers,” he explained. “It's her way of showing us that she is a part of us. That although she is not a shapeshifter, her magic flows through the animals as it flows through us. She is a goddess of nature, which is why we can control the elements.”
“What did the falcon say?” I whispered.
