It is done.
My body is achy and stiff when I crawl off him. I pitch sideways, but I’m suddenly pressed up against a hard chest, inhaling that scent that is clean of infection and his body that is warm and hard; it feels safe and right, though very odd.
He feels… nice.
“Strega?” he murmurs, and there is awe in him.
“What is a Strega?” I ask.
“A witch.”
“Is that what I am?” I murmur, half out of it. I haven’t done a healing like this in a long time. It was complicated; my whole self aches.
“What is your name?”
“Mei.”
“Mei,” he repeats in a voice that makes me want to beg to hear it again, and then I’m being lifted in his arms, and he’s standing, so tall, so strong. It has been a very long time since someone called me by my name. Since I even gifted it to anyone.
I have no way of defending myself against him, but if he rescued me from Deux, then I will die here instead.
It would be a better way to die,I muse.
He carries me up, and as we go, the air gets cooler, I can hear wind dancing over leaves and rock. Lirin sets me down in the cool shade of vibrantly rich-smelling plants. There is fresh water somewhere close, trickling over rocks. I twitch my nose and inhale the world around me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
My veil is plucked off my face, and I let out a hiss of protest, but Lirin ignores me.
“You can’t see? Such a strange creature. A face like a rat, but horns like a deer, and the body of a human. What are you?” Hismurmured voice is kind and light, and I find myself turning to him, leaning closer, ignoring the mildly offensive words.
What am I?
I don’t know. I’ve never had to ask that before. Am I something strange?
I reach up before I can stop myself and run my hands over his face. He has no fur, and his mouth and nose are much flatter to his skull. When I reach the top of his head, there are no horns. He is human.
No, not human. A human was never this strong.
“I am Fae. I was Fae, now I am a Siren.”
Fae? I remember the stories my mother told me about the Fae folk. Tricksters, magic, fairies, they are very, very beautiful.
“What am I?” I repeat, because I don’t even know.
“You are a…” he trails off. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like you. Or heard of anyone using runes before. You are strange, Strega.”
He shifts towards me and takes my hand, pulling me up. I take a few nervous steps back before his grip pulls me up short.
“Come, there is water,” he says and walks away.
I follow him because I’m curious, because it feels like there is a tether from him to me, because his voice is like that song I keep hearing, and now I just want to hear more of it.
I crouch down and use my arms to investigate the edge of the stream. It smells fine, but I’ve been burned before. I swipe my fingers through it, and nothing happens. I lick a single drop off my claw. It’s clean.
Suddenly, I’m so thirsty I could die. It has my throat aching and my mouth as dry as the barren grave sands that I was about to run into.
I lean down headfirst and lap at the water.
“Huh.”
