As the Royal Son approached us, I knelt and summoned Nicu’s ferret. “A surprise for you, my friend.”
Fishing an acorn from my pocket, I offered it to the creature. “I searched high and low for this.”
Tumble caught the acorn between his teeth and scurried off. Nicu rewarded me with a smile before leaving to keep track of his familiar.
“That’s a risky gift,” Poet observed.
“It’s not one of those acorns,” I assured the clan while lowering myself onto a stone bench. “Even if it were, it appears Nicu’s familiar doesn’t need magic to cause mayhem.”
“Besides, those acorns don’t exist,” Briar attested. “The legend is a falsehood.”
Aspen twisted in her seat. “Which legend?”
Flare straightened in Jeryn’s arms.“Autumn has a myth about acorns?”
As everyone gathered closer, Briar cited a passage from a volume in her favorite book series, the same installment that inspired Eliot’s performance during Reaper’s Fest all those yearsago. Anyone with Autumn origins knew the tale, but many who’d been raised outside this kingdom did not.
“It’s said that certain acorns have magic, which is granted to the people who find them,” the princess said. “But it took me several rereads of the series to realize. It’s not the acorns that have magic, it’s the oak from which they come.”
I frowned. This part, I had not known.
While Poet encircled her midriff, Briar recounted her banishment, when she hid in a sacred woodland enclave with Eliot and Cadence. During that time, Her Highness accidentally offended a great oak in the forest. However, she made amends and earned the tree’s blessing.
Sentient trees existed in Autumn. This oak had been one such archetype, a ruling figure in its own right. Upon rereading her series, Briar noted the similarities between the fictional oak and the one she encountered. Then she recalled how the oak had shed acorns, which the breeze had scattered across nearby terrain.
As she described the incident, Flare’s pupils gleamed with fascination. Jeryn might have arched an eyebrow and asked pragmatic questions, were it not for his lady’s evident delight.
Aspen winced in pain, her thumbs massaging the foliage motifs across her arms. Then a disquieting thought gripped her features, and her fingers pressed harder into the symbols.
“This happened in the treehouse enclave where you lived?” she inquired.
Briar deliberated. “Not directly inside its borders, but rather near.”
I took judicious note of Aspen’s trepidation as she replied, “I didn’t know.”
My eyes narrowed. “Should you have?”
“Not really.” She released her grasp on both arms. “It’s just a figure of speech. Otherwise, I don’t have much use for fairytales.”
The clan had expected an elaborate answer from this professional fibber. Yet they didn’t dwell for long. While our fellowship processed the story, I watched Aspen’s fingers sketch the foliage markings across her knuckles once more. Then I continued watching, my gaze tracking the female as she excused herself and slipped through the crowd.
Despite the amorous nobles discreetly batting their lashes my way, they failed to steal my attention. Nonetheless, it had been an age since I bedded a woman. I’d been celibate for too long and couldn’t reconcile this lack of interest.
Instead of reciprocating and escorting one of the ladies to my suite, my eyes clung to the place where Aspen disappeared. I thought of her with that other soldier, fresh rancor tightening my joints. Then I recalled her smile while she brandished that axe, a spike of warmth unraveling down my chest.
Shit. Rather than comforted by this notion, unease settled in my bones, along with a troublesome realization. Too late, I grasped the impetus for my behavior, the source of these feelings toward Aspen, which hadn’t existed prior to today.
I was… attracted to her.
10
Aspen
With my heart clattering like the broken spokes of a wheel, I got the hell out of there. Weaving through the revelers, I rubbed my clammy palms together, struggling to untangle the thoughts snaring in my head.
From the second Briar shared her tale about that oak tree, the motifs in my skin had stung. This only happened whenever I exercised my fighting skills, cried saltwater onto my flesh, or from one other cause. The physical reaction sent my mind reeling.
A possibility. A revelation.
