Nurai steps away from the pair, giving them the privacy the sprite clearly desires. She peruses each bushel of herbs, gathering up a handful of the rare and more difficult to find. She tries her best to remain distracted and to be anything but curious about the conversation happening only a few feet away—or offended by being cut off from it.
Muri nods her head at the sprite in clear agreement about something.
“I’m sorry,” Muri whispers under her breath when she returns to Nurai, laying a hand on her arm, clearly concerned about how she might feel about the rejection.
“It’s all right,” Nurai says, offering her friend a smile and showing thesprite all that she selected from the stall.
The tiny fea folds one of her arms behind her, resting it on the small of her back, as she taps her chin with a finger, eyeing the herbs thoughtfully.
“H’tesh,”she says with an all too eager smile.
Muri can hardly contain her surprise as she translates, “She requests a favor in exchange for the goods.”
“What favor?” Nurai asks in true curiosity.
It is rare but not unheard of for bargains to be bartered in such a way. Still, though young she may be, she is well aware that a fea bargain should never be taken lightly.
“Ma’rei heth la’vei ma nesh ei’le,”the sprite answers.
“She says, she will tell you when she has need of you.” There is a question in Muri’s voice when she says it, clearly confused as to why the small fea would demand such a high price for the bundle.
Nurai considers the small handful of herbs, none exceedingly rare, only potentially difficult to obtain. The herbs would be most valuable in trade to the humans, and she had not made up her mind about whether she would return to their court. While the pink flowers could be dried and powdered to color the mortal’s faces and the others used for healing, the feyn had little use for such things.
She lowers her hand toward the basket, prepared to settle the bundle back among the rest and abandon them. An unnamed bargain is unwise and could be the highest of prices. And yet her hand falters before she can release them, a question forming in her mind. Why? Why would she ask such a price?
Perhaps it is no more than youthful arrogance when she clutches the herbs tightly, turns to the sprite, and agrees. Or perhaps it is the will of the fates when she feels the bargain etched upon her skin, weaving her into the loom of their design.
CHAPTER 37
THE A’KORI PALACE
Present Day
“You never saw the sprite again?” I ask, trying and failing to look as if I’m only making simple conversation with the female.
She’d hardly begun the tale of her youth and already the questions that have risen in my mind could keep us here until dawn.
“Never,” she says, smiling around a sip of mulled spices. “But I still bear the mark of our bargain and often wonder about the day she will come to claim her price.”
The memories of the feyn are clearly unlike the memories of my kind. They seem to recall with perfect clarity the events of the past whether it has been two days or two hundred years. I have no doubt the sprite will always remember the bargain, even if it were not etched upon her skin. How the fea will find her to exact that payment is another matter entirely.
“And … you are close with the Vatruke?” I ask.
She nods, and I’m relieved when she answers, “I was close with them, back then. Before they were known as the Vatruke. Divisions among the feyn only began after the sundering. I think many of us would have liked tomaintain those bonds, but the Vatruke made it impossible. I was either with them or against them. As were we all.”
“How could you maintain friendships when they were ending the lives of the fea?” I ask heatedly, and Nurai raises an eyebrow at my tone.
“That, child, is the reason I am not with them.”
I try not to bristle. To her, ancient as she is, I will be a child until the day I pass into the next world. Perhaps even then.
“After the sundering, the siblings became very guarded, very selective of those they kept close,” she says.
“Siblings?” I wonder aloud.
It is Xeyvian who answers from his place beside me. “Arda, Vos, and Nix.”
“And Muri,” Nurai adds, a flicker of sadness distorting her features.
