Page 44 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

I motioned for him to sit since the first two pancakes had finished cooking. “I need to check on the wards today and wash your clothes since the weather looks good. A walk might do you good. Care to join?”

“I’ll wash my own disgusting clothes.” He made a face like he’d just gulped down curdled milk. “And I could use a bath.”

My voice was too loud, too eager. “There’s a waterfall a short hike away. The location is near a wardstone, so I can check its charge while you get clean.”

His face dipped into a sleepy, half-lidded expression that practically smoldered. “A waterfall?”

“Do you see a tub?” I covered my blush by plating the first pancakes for him and grabbing some milk. But he just sat at the table, not moving, as if he were waiting for something.

I could practically hear his stomach protesting. After he’d eaten four servings of stew the previous night, it was obvious that his appetite had returned with a vengeance.

“Eat,” I ordered. Authority came easily when I was flustered.

Rowan seemed startled by the order but pushed back unexpectedly. “Waiting for you to join me.”

I rolled my eyes. Was this to be like one of his noble dinners? He certainly had the posture for it, back perfectly ramrod straight.

Breakfast was pleasant but quiet. I let the urge to become small and unseen, to retreat into my shell, win. I didn’t want to ask too many questions for fear that I’d learn too much, and he seemed to be thinking about something that made him scowl between bites. In some ways we were succeeding at keeping each other at arm’s length; in others, like this morning’s cuddle fiasco, failing miserably.

When it was time to head out, Rowan pulled on his dirty boots and wrapped an old blanket around his shoulders for warmth. I wore my heavy woolen winter cloak and gloves. It was cold enough that we’d be lucky if parts of the waterfall weren’t already iced over.

“I forgot to ask,” I said as we started the gentle climb uphill through the forest, Muffin trailing behind, “can you use magic to warm yourself in icy water?”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “A simple charm.”

“Are you Assembly trained then, Rowan?” I was prodding, but the fear my parents had instilled in me about them was impossible to shake.

Rowan flinched at the fake name. Maybe he was growing weary of the deception too. “No,” he said too quickly. “My aunt taught me.”

“Not your parents?”

He shook his head. “They died before my magic came in.”

I understood his pain. “My parents died ten years ago. Mated, so they went together.”

I’d buried them myself.

Rowan’s sudden stop forced me to halt my own steps. The knot at his throat bobbed up and down before he said, “Mine were mated too.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “So both your parents were part Fae?”

He nodded. “My grandfather and aunt on my mother’s side were the Nocthel. My father’s line were all elemental evokers. She… My mother never really recovered from having me. The Assembly was supposed to help her, but they failed.”

“My parents were similar. My father was the healer, mother the ward-weaver. The entire village fell ill that spring. Even while battling his own illness, my father kept trying to help our neighbors. He eventually grew so weak that he collapsed, and the illness won. So, I can almost understand, and…I’m sorry.”

I hadn’t known until the day after my father died that they’d shared a mating bond—something incredibly rare even amongst the few remaining Fae-blooded. It was a surprise to learn of yet another instance.

“Lunette, I need to find a way to leave Selmont. Soon.”

I coughed in an attempt to mask the sorrow gathering in my features. He was walking quite well now, and he could have someone else take his stitches out. “I can ask around about borrowing a horse. Though no one will give us one here without collateral… Can you part with your armor for a time?”

He waved it away, expression nonchalant. “Of course. I have more.”

Gods above and below.

The one half-ruined set sitting in my cabin could buy all of Selmont with gold left over.

Instead of wallowing in everything I hadn’t had enough of and yet was already on the verge of losing, I allowed the scene unfolding before me to absorb my attention. Ahead, the forest was a riot of colors with the leaves still clinging to the trees, even after the last storm. Vibrant yellow and orange hung above, with red and purple leaves clinging to the brush lining the trail.