* * *
Three days later,I was sitting in the keep’s kitchen with my morning meal, swirling my spoon in the thickenedruskoats, which Telaana had told me had been milled in Salaire.
Telaana, the culinarian of Erzos Keep, was singing at the prep block, a whispery, ethereal voice pouring out from her. Haunting in its beauty. I smiled as Kelan, a keeper who oversaw the north wing, entered.
“Good morning,” I chirped.
He shook his head. “Humans and your greetings.”
He was a bit of a grump, but I quite liked him.
Or maybe I liked him because he was one of the only keepers who didn’t treat me any differently than how he treated everyone else. I wasn’t a fool. I’d poked and prodded around. Kythel had never had a permanent blood giver living within his keep. Only me. Moreover, his strength was plainly evident after our feedings. They all knew what I was to him. Because of that, many keepers gave me a wide berth.
Even so, I was settling in at the keep nicely. Perhaps too nicely. I found myself spending more and more time at the cottage in Stellara because it frightened me how easy the last couple weeks had been.
“What’s for eating today?” Kelan asked Telaana, peering over her shoulder at whatever she was chopping, trying to snag a shriveled root that still needed rehydrating.
I smiled into my porridge, spooning out the last few mouthfuls before standing. Strangely, I took comfort in its blandness. My father had always told me that you couldn’t truly appreciate great food if you had it constantly. Most mornings, our breakfasts had consisted of simple fare, just like this porridge, only seasoned with a pinch of blue salt.
I washed up, enjoying Kelan’s grumbling as Telaana made him his own bowl of porridge. I slipped out the side door, hitching my pack up over my shoulder, and made my way to the keep’s border.
It was a beautiful day, and though Kythel would surely protest, I wanted to walk to the cottage this morning.
* * *
The day passed swiftly.Today I’d worked on tearing out the crumbling fence of the front garden. I had plans to expand it, to plant seeds for vegetables and herbs, since the sun shone more brightly there than it did toward the back of the house during the mornings and afternoons.
But the fence was in the way. The path leading to the front door also needed replacing, and I’d started prying out the loosened, heavy slabs of stone, finding thick, wiggling grubs and worms beneath each and every one, which burrowed into the damp earth upon discovery.
I’d only cried once, thinking about my father that day. But now that he was returned to Krynn, I knew that my search for Ruaala was pertinent. The black book that Kythel had given me, all those weeks ago, still lay within the cottage, sitting face up on the table I’d repaired, sanded, and sealed. It had a permanent place within my blue pack, and I told myself that I’d read the passage on Ruaala’s history with House Kaalium every day…only to avoid it.
Truthfully, it frightened me. What if I never found her soul gem? I’d already searched the shrines in Erzos. Kythel had said her previous husband now lived in Vyaan. Had Ruaala lived there when she’d died? Was that where her soul was rooted in the Kaalium?
If so, I’d need to journey there. But with my agreement with Kythel, I would need to wait until after the next moon winds.
My heart gave a dull little pang. IlikedKythel. I cared about him more than I probably had a right to. Every moment I was with him, those feelings only deepened. Stretching softly, sinking heavily in my body until I felt brimming with contentedness and hope. Every stray thought—of which there were many—had me smiling, a flutter of awareness and anticipation building inside me.
All while knowing that he would likely break my heart. That he would shatter it so completely.
It was a strange duality, constantly fighting inside me. The need to fall into him, damn the consequences. The need to let him hold me, to quiet the grief and anxiousness that had been my constant companions these last few months. He was my centering point of calmness in a storm. He was a stable pillar to cling to when all I wanted was to sink into the earth. He made me feel safe. Protected. Cared for.
A part of me feared that I couldn’t stand on my own. I’d realized that I’d relied on my father for much too long. I’d felt lost when he’d passed. I worried that I was doing the same with Kythel, letting him support me when he was a crumbling, decaying column that would be gone from my life within a few weeks.
In the end, as I tore the pickets of the fence from the ground, I decided to let it go. It wasn’t in my nature to dwell on something so ephemeral. Growing up as a child of the universe, moving from place to place, experiencing dozens of different lives in the span of one, I knew that nothing ever lasted. Why not enjoy it while it was here, right in front of me?
I wanted Kythel. For now he wanted me.Thatwas all that mattered.
If only he wanted me enough,I thought next. I’d been taking marroswood for the last week, purchased from the apothecary with blushing cheeks, though Eriaan hadn’t batted an eye as I’d paid for it across the counter. It would prevent me from conceiving a child should Kythel lose a smidge of his frustratingly fierce control.
It was only a matter of time, but I was becoming more and more determined to nudge him over the edge. We werealive, warm blooded and lustful creatures. Sex should’ve only been an added benefit to our arrangement, one I was more than prepared for.
If only Kythel felt the same.
As the day grew longer, the sun stretching across the moss until it disappeared behind the canopy of the purpling trees, as night deepened the sky to an inky blue, I realized how easy it was to lose myself in this forest. Was this how Father and Ruaala had felt? Why they’d called it their own realm?
It didn’t take me long to realize my mistake because Kythel came thundering down outside the cottage, the angry flap of his wings sounding like the crack of anakkiumstrike right above my head.
I swiped at my brow, straightening. I was a mess, covered in dirt. But the plumbing worked upstairs in the washroom, connected to a fresh well I’d cleaned the other day. Only cold water, though. Theakkium-power source needed a replacement tube from the market that I didn’t want to pay for quite yet.
