“He saw Garnel before we left our resting place, but that medicine of yours was making him seem better than he was. When we arrived here, I didn’t wait for Savine to see Garnel. I should have, but I needed to get him to Hyacinth in time.”
Avery nodded her head, understanding that Kyla did not want to share her grief and fear with someone else. Avery was becoming used to carrying the burden of her grief with her. She glanced at Garnel sleeping peacefully on the bed. His golden skin gleamed again. The furry texture of the essence below his skin was getting brighter. It was incredible how quickly he was healing, despite Hyacinth’s claims he would heal at a mortal pace. Hyacinth had obviously never seen a mortal heal.
She needed to get out of this room. Give these two their space together. She also desperately needed a shower, bath, or whatever she could get.
“Do you know where I could bathe?” Avery asked. Kyla looked at Avery as if she was finally taking in how disgusting the human looked. To add to the layers of dirt and grime from traveling was a new stain of poison. She was going to have to burn these clothes.
“Yes, of course. Up the next flight of stairs on the left is a washroom. It has a bathtub and a shower. You turn the knob for fresh water to flow. The left is hot, and the right is cold. You can also pull a stopper to shower. The water will run over you like rain.”
Avery raised an eyebrow at Kyla and laughed. “Did you just explain to me how to operate a tap and shower?”
“Oh! I wasn’t sure if humans had such things,” Kyla said, smiling back.
“We humans have running water, and I’m thrilled to hear Bayberry does too.”
Kyla looked at Avery’s dirty human clothes. “May I request that a healer bring you some clothing to change into? Perhaps it’s time to retire those clothes.”
“Yeah, I think that black poison has finally done my human clothes in. I’ll miss them, but they’re just clothes.” Avery shrugged as she looked at her stained yoga pants and tank top. Yet another connection with Earth severed. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but Avery couldn't help the tiny bit of sadness at no longer having decent human clothes. Only her wool base layers and rain gear remained.
“Would you prefer pants and a tunic or a dress?”
“A dress would be lovely.” Here’s to embracing a new life in Aeritis.
Chapter twenty-eight
Savine
Savine’s place wasn’t in that room upstairs. He would be no help, and he would just impede Hyacinth and Avery’s work. Yet, it was still difficult to think about his closest friend up there, nearly dead, as his sister wore her emotions on her sleeve, and Avery denied her magical healing abilities. The thought of Avery controlling Garnel’s fate made Savine feel as if a stone settled in the pit of his stomach.
Not that he didn’t trust Avery. Her caring heart was makinghimcare, which was against his better judgment. That was the only explanation he had for why he told her about his time in Nephel, and why he didn’t better understand the power of soulmates’ bonds.
His mind drifted to her touch. The warmth that radiated from her was both a turn on and a comfort all at one time. Not to mention when he caught her staring as he removed his clothing. Damn him to the Abyss. He wanted her to touch him all over when she looked at him like that. Like sheneededto touch and explore his body.
Wanting physical touch from someone was such a foreign thing that even though he wanted it, his mind and body rebelled against the thought of her hands feeling his invisible scars. She would ask questions about who had hurt him, and he did not want to explain the trauma he’d suffered as a child, the mind fuck he underwent whileimprisoned in Nephel, or the narrow escape that nearly cost him his life as he fled Orofine.
But Avery, with her soft smile and warm eyes, might make allowing her to touch him easy. If he let himself, he would get lost exploring her small, soft human body. He’d learn every curve and taste every angle of her.
What he really needed was to get out of the healer’s center. Stop fantasizing about Avery. He needed to do his Goddess-damned job like he did every day, even when it was hard.
At that thought, Savine got his ass off the couch and walked out into the late summer sunlight. There was a touch of crispness in the air, beckoning autumn forward. In less than a month, the valley would change from late summer’s harvest to the golden, orange, and red gleam of autumn. In only two months, the first frost would settle in the valley, and the mountains would be coated in inches of snow. Only after those first winter storms closed the passes would Savine rest easy, knowing that he’d protected his people through another season of warfare and bloodshed.
But now? Now he needed to speak to the forest. Get reports of where the rest of his army traveled. If he was lucky, the trees would share the loyalists’ location too. Hopefully beyond the pass by now.
Nobody disturbed his long strides into the forest. They all knew better than to disturb him on his way to the forest. Generally speaking, people avoided him when he walked with purposeful strides. His people adored and revered him. It was plain to see, but rarely did they approach him or share their daily lives with him. Maybe he was as unapproachable as Avery said?
Bayberry sat at the edge of a lake. The mountains were less than half a day’s ride, and their imposing peaks dwarfed the valley below. Unlike near Quartz Mountain, thesemountains contained a dense forest of evergreens and aspens. Some trees grew to the lakeshore, creating a stretch of trees that cut through the otherwise open prairie. Savine trekked toward those nearby trees, knowing that they would speak with him after several months apart.
Any typical summer, Savine would have made his way to this forest weeks ago. But thanks to Avery’s arrival, the rebels were behind schedule. Would the trees wonder where he was? Did the forest care about a single fae with the ability to communicate with them? Most likely not, if Savine was honest with himself. Trees were aloof, and Savine often wondered if they were above the wars and conflicts of the folk.
As he approached the forest, Savine heard the gentle rustling of aspen leaves in the wind. A few of the trees were beginning to turn that brilliant goldenrod yellow. A few weeks is all he had left to communicate with his best network of spies in the nation. Once the aspens lost their leaves for the season, hibernation would set in soon. There was no way to wake a slumbering aspen.
Savine reached out and touched the snow-white bark of one of the older aspens. The tree stirred under his touch. This was how it had been for decades. The only contact he’d offered was his hand on a tree.
“Hello, friend,” Savine said in mycilious. The whispery language slid off his tongue, like a leaf in the wind.
“The Prince of Chaos returns,” the tree slowly said.
“Later than usual and without my army. Can the network of aspens detect their movements?”
