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They walked well into the night, only pausing for short, tense breaks along the way. The damp air smelled of leaves and earth, a pleasant change from the recent stuffiness of Gywn’s cottage, and it thankfully grew a little cooler once the sun set. The trees began to thicken the farther south they went, intensifying the darkness and slowing their pace. Gwyn saw and heard no one except the birds in the trees and the occasional animal scampering through the underbrush; if Dominic did, he said nothing.
In fact, he had said nothing at all since she had explained to him about her magic, and she knew what that meant. It didn’t surprise her, and it shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did.
Maybe it was because it had sounded almost like he was trying to comfort her, maybe even like he could find within himself some acceptance of what she was, before she’d finally convinced him that she was a danger to him. For a moment, she had believed his words, or at least she had wanted to. Maybe he really could accept whatever was happening to him. Maybe he could even come to accept her. Maybe one day more than his body would want her, and it wouldn’t be as unsafe as she imagined. The eyes that had seemed so strange to her at first no longer seemed so; the smoothness of his skin had not seemed so odd when his hand had been under her chin and those eyes had been looking into hers.
There was a part of her that had been forced to admit in that moment that for all of Dominic’s oddity, he was beautiful, and now that the admission had been made, she couldn’t seem to banish it. It was not a word she would normally use in relation to a man, but there was no other word that suited. He was not handsome. He was beautiful, like the mountains in the distance when the sun set over them, or like a particularly magnificent tree. And out here in the woods, he looked like he belonged in a way that he had not in her cottage. He looked like a part of them, and he was lovelier still.
She fought the urge to glance back at him until it was too dark for such efforts to be of any use anyway, dreading the look she was afraid she would find on his face.
The way it had gone blank and cold before he’d turned away from her before had been more than enough. He understands about me now, she thought sadly. He needs to, it’s good that he does, but...
But it had been nice when his initial wariness of her had passed, it had felt more tolerable somehow. It was back now, surely for good this time and stronger than ever, and though Gwyn knew it was for the best, it lent weight to her shoulders and to her steps. She already felt ashamed at what she had done back in the cottage, and that shame only grew now that Dominic fully understood what he was stuck with. He surely regretted the things he’d said before he’d reached that point, and she had been foolish to listen to them. She imagined he was thinking about it as they traveled, remembering what she’d done, worrying that she would lose it and do it to him.
And she had no way to reassure him. How could she?
She kept telling herself that she would find a way to free him, but those thoughts seemed to lose a little more conviction every time she repeated them. She had no idea how she would even go about doing such a thing. Whatever bound them together apparently wasn’t magical, so even if she could find another mage, what good would it do? How could someone fight his own nature? If she couldn’t “unmake” herself a necromancer, then how she could she “unmake” herself his mate?
Even more pressingly, they needed to put as much distance between themselves and her cottage as possible. After that, she didn’t know what to do. I need answers. I need to know why we’re running, what started all of this. He doesn’t want to tell me, so it has to be pretty bad. But surely it can’t be worse than what I’ve already admitted to.
But the thought loomed over her now that maybe he’d changed his mind about wanting to go to the Union. Maybe he didn’t want to go any farther with her than he had to now. Maybe he was hoping she would find a way out for him after all, even if he had been skeptical before.
When she finally stopped, her mind was as exhausted as her body, and she couldn’t imagine how Dominic felt being fevered on top of it all. She disliked walking so far and so late with him being in the condition he was in, but the thought of Raiders pursuing them was enough to conquer her qualms.
She turned to him, her eyes still downcast even though she could barely see now, the weak threads of moonlight only just enough to keep her from walking face-first into the trees, and only then with her arm still extended for caution’s sake.
“Do you need me to take the lead now? ” he asked. Gwyn tried to find any emotion in his voice, any inkling of what might have been on his mind these past hours, but found nothing.
Her heart sank, but she tried to keep her own voice normal. “No. I think we should stop for a while. We’ve covered a good distance, and we can’t easily be followed away from the path like this. Not by Raiders on horseback, at any rate. ”
“I can keep going, if that’s why you’re stopping now,” Dominic said. She wished she could see him more clearly and judge his state for herself. She wanted to touch him, to check his fever, but she didn’t dare. Not now. There’s nothing I can do for him anyway no matter how hot it burns.
“No, it’s not just that. I’m tired, too. ” She stood there, miserable, not knowing what to do with herself.
“I’ll take the first watch then while you rest. We shouldn’t both sleep at the same time in case someone does catch up to us,” Dominic told her.
“Good idea. But I’ll watch first. Or listen first, I guess. I can’t see much of anything anymore. We’re nowhere near any roads though, so I think it’ll be fine. We’re probably in worst danger from animals. ”
Gwyn began to uneasily calculate the likelihood of being stumbled across by a bear or mountain lion in their current location.
But Dominic humphed. “Animals avoid me, generally. Haven’t you noticed them running off as we’ve been walking? Just worry about people. ”
Gwyn frowned. “I thought they were just shy of people. ”
“Much like humans, they can tell I’m not just people,” he mumbled.
She heard more than saw him sitting down by one of the trees, probably leaning against it, and she set down her haversack between them and sat down as well with a sigh of relief. Her feet were already throbbing.
She pulled out a water skin. “Drink first,” she told him, holding it out awkwardly and hoping he could see it.
It left her fingers, and she sat back against one of the trees. The bark felt rough even through her clothes, but anything resembling rest felt blissful after all the walking they’d done.
“Do you need this back? ” he asked after a few moments.
“No, keep it with you, if you don’t mind. ” She rubbed at her eyes.
He said nothing else, and neither did she. Silence fell between them as thick as any wall, adorned only with cricket song and the occasional owl.
Gwyn sat and listened, deciding after a little while that Dominic must have fallen asleep. She felt herself relaxing muscles that she hadn’t consciously been keeping tensed, fatigue washing over her. She rubbed again at her face and sat up a little straighter.
“It’s fine if you need to sleep now. I’m not sure if I can,” Dominic said suddenly, making her start.
“You have to be exhausted, though,” she protested, trying to cover how startled she was.
“Actually, I feel better out here. ”
“Are you...I mean, is the fever still...? ”
“I think so. But I don’t feel as cold. You shouldn’t concern yourself about it. I told you it will pass on its own,” he said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable.
She took heart at the fact that he sounded like something now.
“I’m really sorry, Dominic,” she found herself saying. Please don’t regret the things you said before, she pleaded silently, and the sentiment surprised her, both that she had it and that she meant it.
“Why are you apologizing? Which part is your fault? That I am what I am? That people are coming after me because of my choices? That you are what you are? ”
“I’m sorry I upset you. And I did upset you, I can tell. ” She looked down at her feet, or what she could make out of her feet.
“How can you tell that? ”
It was a simple enough question, but Gwyn didn’t know how to answer it. She shrugged a little, taking it on trust that he’d be able to see it.
“I just can. You go...cold. I don’t know how else to put it. ”
“I’m usually cold. I’ve been told so. Many times. Women in particular seem to think so,” he told her.
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to joke with her or not.
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But it’s different when you’re upset. ”
“You’re upset too. Should I be apologizing for something? ”
“If I said yes, would you? ” Gwyn couldn’t quite contain her skepticism.
“No. ”
“Then why are you asking? ” She squinted towards him in the darkness.
“Curiosity. It gets the better of me at times. ”
“I’m going to stop answering your questions, then,” she decided. “Then you’ll be able to empathize with how I feel when I try to pry out of you what you did to get Raiders after you and you refuse to tell me. I satisfy your curiosity too easily, that’s my problem. I should be making you beg for it like you’re doing with me. ”
“Oh, indeed. You’ve begged, have you? Where was I during this spectacle? ” Dominic snorted. “It will be a cold day in midsummer before I beg anyone for anything. ”
“I’ll remember you said that the next time you’re curious about something,” Gwyn announced, crossing her arms. “I’ll say, ‘seek answers elsewhere, I have none. ’”
“That’s not a good idea,” he warned. “I can be...persistent. ”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to see whether I can be more stubborn than you can be obnoxious. ”
“I said persistent, not obnoxious. ”
But she only yawned, her eyelids drooping.
“You should go to sleep,” he said again.
She decided not to argue and arranged herself as comfortably as possible amid the thick tree roots snaking out all over the ground around her and closed her eyes.
Gwyn was asleep within moments, too exhausted to dream. She woke to the feeling of a tree root trying to wear a permanent groove into her hip, her eyes fluttering open blearily only to see that it was already dawn. Dominic was sitting at her feet now, so close that she would have touched him if her toe twitched.
He appeared to be awake, but his head was thrown back, his eyes half-closed. The look on his face was almost dreamy, an expression that didn’t look nearly as out of place as she would have thought.
She sat up as quietly as she could, scooting her feet away from him, but he blinked once and looked back at her, the faraway expression vanishing just that quickly.
“You should have woken me up,” she said accusingly. “You need sleep, too. ”
“I rested. It’s different out here for me,” he replied. “I’m ready to leave whenever you are. ”
Gwyn climbed to her feet, rubbing at her sore hip with a wince. “Too bad a bear didn’t find us. That tree sure softened me up for one to eat. ”
“It likes you,” Dominic told her, his lips pressing into a thin line. He slanted a look Gwyn could only call disapproving at the tree behind her.
The fever has finally cooked his brain, Gwyn thought, dismayed. “Er, I don’t think the trees really care about people, Dominic. Probably just...other trees, if I had to guess. ”
“They’re aware,” he told her. “Not all of them, but the older ones. ” He frowned. “I thought of waking you, asking you to move somewhere else, but decided against disturbing you. ”
“That’s very sensible of you,” Gwyn said slowly. “Because it’s a tree. Aware of me or not, what can it possibly do? Drop a few leaves on me? ”
“I don’t like what it said about you. ” His voice came out as something very near to a growl, his eyes going back to the tree, the whites all but disappearing.
All right, Gwyn, stay calm, she told herself, trying her best not to stare at him. He’s lost his mind, but he doesn’t appear to be violent. Yet.
“And you didn’t seem to mind it, either,” Dominic went on, his eyes darting back to her briefly before returning to the tree. “You barely moved all night. ”
“I didn’t even notice it. Dominic, I was asleep. On the ground. And it was a tree root. Very common feature when sleeping on the ground in a forest. ” She tried to smile, but her nerves were quickly fraying. “Let’s move on now, shall we? ”
He said nothing, but he also didn’t stop glaring at the tree until finally, after gathering up her haversack again, Gwyn just started walking. She was relieved when she glanced back over her shoulder to see him following, a doleful look on his face.
“You do realize it’s just a tree, right? ” Gwyn tried, struggling to keep her voice light. Inside she was wondering what she was going to do if he decided to start randomly assigning enemy status to plants. She’d counted on having the relative safety of the woods while they traveled.
“It’s not just a tree to me,” he answered tightly. Then he sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand. ”
“Then why not explain it to me? What can it hurt? ”
“You’ll think I’m crazy. ”
“Yeah, a little late on that one, buddy,” Gwyn muttered automatically, then she immediately reddened. Oh great. I hope he didn’t catch that.
“They talk to each other,” Dominic informed her, his words clipped and testy. “I’ve always been able to hear them if I’m close enough. Yes, even before the fever. No, nothing else talks to me that shouldn’t. No, they don’t instruct me to build shrines or go on murderous rampages. They don’t speak to me at all. ”
She winced. Yeah, I think he heard me.
“And that one I was sleeping by said something to another tree about me? ”
“You’re soft, and light, and warm,” he murmured. His voice suddenly sounded a lot closer, and something about the way he pitched it low sent an unexpected shiver down her back. “You felt like a beam of sunlight wrapped around him with its sweet and gentle heat-”
“Ok, I get it! That’s a little creepy,” she interrupted quickly, her face burning. “I hope he didn’t go on like that all night! ”
Dominic said nothing.
Gwyn groaned. “Oh, Lord. He did, didn’t he? Why didn’t you wake me? I would have understood! ”
“Understood what, that I’m crazy? ” he asked curtly. “That’s exactly the reaction I expected. ”
“No, not that...good grief, Dominic, all you had to do was explain! ” Gwyn all but smacked herself on the forehead. “Think about how it would look from my point of view, if our positions were reversed and you saw me glaring at trees and talking about them like that...I mean, how was I to know? ”
“So you believe me now? ” He sounded disbelieving and she shot a glance at him. He was indeed much closer, not even an arm’s length behind her now.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I? How much harder is it to believe that trees talk to each other than to believe I’m your...” She fell silent, not wanting to finish the thought.
“Mate,” he put in impatiently. “You’re my mate. I’ve had to struggle with that fact all night long while listening to a tree carry on about your softness and warmth, so I would appreciate hearing you say it so you can feel awkward and uncomfortable, too. ”
“Don’t worry, I am,” she grumbled, rubbing her hip again. “Apparently I have to watch where the trees stick their branches now. ”
To her surprise, he laughed. “That would be appreciated as well. ”
She stopped and turned to look at him, her eyes wide, but his face had already returned to his usual neutral expression. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she said, feigning wonder. “I think there was even a smile there for a second. If only I had your speed, I might not have missed it. ”
He rolled his eyes, but she saw the color creeping up his neck. “I wasn’t really that amused,” he grumbled. “It was the fever. ”
“You can’t blame everything on that, you know,” she teased. “Sooner or later, I have to be able to pin the blame for something on you. ”
He went very still. “Sooner,” was all he said.
And she knew the moment had passed.
––––––––
By the time the day was mostly spent, whatever solace the forest had been able to provide Dominic was gone, too. The chills returned, and with them, the ache down in his bones that slowed his movements against his will. It made him unusually clumsy, and by mid-afternoon, he could hear his own passage through the woods.
He winced at all the noise he was making, though Gwyn showed no sign of noticing. She remained in the lead, still heading south, though he didn’t dare ask her where they were going.
He knew if he brought the subject up, he would be forced to find a way to deal with her questions, but after the night he had, he couldn’t face them yet. The torment of the tree’s whispers had bordered on the demonic, and it was only pure obstinacy that caused Dominic to clench teeth and hands and try his damnedest to ignore them—obstinacy, and the overwhelming desire to avoid admitting to Gwyn how badly the ramblings of a tree had managed to disturb him.
It had been bad. He could still taste blood from biting down on the inside of his cheek during the worst of it. He felt like one cursed, unable to escape the continual effects of his malediction. In over three decades, he’d never once heard a tree engage in such a sensual monologue. He found himself contemplating certain of her attributes in ways now that never would have occurred to him before, and it made it all oh, so much worse.
Now as he walked behind the subject of that torturous speech, he was secure in the knowledge that he had won a battle against his traitorous flesh...one very minor skirmish to be certain, but the triumph was his. He, Dominic, had prevailed.
And in the wake of this hollow victory, his body ached, and where it didn’t ache, it burned, and where it didn’t burn, he was so cold he wanted to die, and the only safe refuges for his eyes were the trees and his own feet. Everything else conjured images of her skin turned silver by errant traces of moonlight, the curve of her neck, or of the hip she kept rubbing at, and if he managed to turn his thoughts from those things, he found himself replaying instead the laughter in her amber eyes when she had teased him. Cat eyes. Gods, how I want to pet her...no. Hold it together, Dominic, he told himself sternly, burying his fingernails in his palms.
Desperate for distraction, he finally relented and allowed himself to voice the question. “Where are we going? ”
“Curious, are you? ” Gwyn asked blithely.
He wanted to curse. “Then talk to me about something else,” he said through gritted teeth. “Anything else. ”
She stopped and started to turn, but he shook his head vigorously, holding up a hand. “No. Don’t. Keep walking. Just talk. ”
She hesitated but complied, and it was all he could do not to sigh in relief as they resumed walking. He didn’t want to look at her eyes again. Or any other part of her if he could help it. “Are you feeling badly again? ”
“Maybe something other than that, too,” he said. “I’m trying not to think about it. ”
“I’ll take that as a yes. ” He could practically hear her frown. “We can stop and rest-”
“No, that isn’t necessary. ” As difficult as it was to keep his mind off her when he was awake, he was beginning to fear sleep like it was one of the gatekeeper’s own minions. He was afraid of what the wrong dream would do to him right now, what images might enter his sleeping mind that, like the tree’s whisper, he would be unable to exorcise from his waking thoughts. At least if I collapse from exhaustion, I’m unlikely to dream or to remember it if I do, he thought glumly.
“You know I’m really not one for babbling on about things,” Gwyn said unhappily. “I don’t know what to say. Why don’t you tell me about what happened when you were attacked? That would help both of us. ”
Dominic sighed. “Do you want me to lie to you? ”
“Why do you think you need to? I already know that you must have committed treason or heresy, something along those lines. Why not just tell me? ”
“Because you won’t help me once you know. And I can’t do what I need to do without your help now. ” It seemed so obvious that he could hardly believe he had to explain it. “I’m trying to think of a way to soften it for you, but my mind’s been...elsewhere. ”
He hoped fervently she wouldn’t press him on just where that was.
“Dominic, have I failed in any way to help you yet? ” Gwyn sounded weary, though she still kept walking. “Even after Raiders came to my door? I could have kicked you out when I heard them coming, you know, let them deal with you. But I tried to hide you, remember? I don’t feel like I deserve this level of paranoia. I’d understand it if you thought I’d attack you or something, but you seem more worried that I just won’t help you. It’s rubbish. What do I have to do to prove myself to you? But I think...I think that’s decided me on where we should go! ”
He didn’t say anything, sure she was going to tease him by withholding the information, but to his surprise, she kept talking. “I know someone in Mariph. She’s a lorekeeper. There’s no telling what she might know about the elves. Maybe she’ll know a way to free you from this...whatever it is. ” She paused to step around a particularly large tree. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of her before. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, of course. She was a friend of my father’s. ”
Dominic resisted the urge to groan. This will be a waste of time, he thought miserably. And I don’t know how much time I have left. Maybe I should just tell her the situation after all and see how she takes it.
“Please don’t get your hopes up too high, though. I really don’t know how much elven lore she would know, if any,” Gwyn added, glancing back at him.
“Don’t worry. They’re as low as they can get,” he assured her, catching a glimpse of her frown before she turned away again.
“It’s actually not all that far from here,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard him. “If we are where I think we are, we should be able to see her tomorrow. I hoped to get a little farther south before we tried going into any towns, but we should be all right. I don’t know how long it will take for that third Raider to get where he’s going and bring anyone back to the cottage, but they may not have even started yet. There’s certain advantages to being out of the way, I suppose. ”
“We’ll be going into a town? Do you really think that’s a good idea? It’s not very likely this person will even be able to help us. ” Dominic tried to pour every drop of cynicism he had into his voice in hopes of inspiring Gwyn to second-guess this sketchy decision, but to his frustration, she only gave a brief shrug.
“I don’t have any other ideas, and I’m not particularly interested in yours, since I’m fairly certain they involve being horribly killed while trying to abscond over the border into an enemy country. And since you’re being wholly irrational when it comes to telling me why in the world I should agree to such a thing, I think my mind is made up that it has to do with killing kittens for their pelts, and you’re getting my help over my dead body. ”
“What...kitten pelts? ” Dominic felt disoriented, as though he’d only just now woken up in some strange place he had no memory of. “What could anyone possibly do with a kitten pelt? ”
“I’m being sarcastic, Dominic. ”
“You should be sarcastic in a more plausible manner,” he informed her. “Surely there are more realistic terrible things I could be planning to do over there. Besides which, I’m rather partial to cats. ”
“Are you? ” He could hear the amusement in her voice, and it confused him, sending heat rushing back to his face.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? ”
“What do you mean by that? ” he asked stiffly, suddenly sure she must be mocking him somehow. People often seemed to laugh at him for reasons he only dimly grasped, if indeed he grasped them at all.
But she just shook her head. “Let me know when you need to stop, all right? ”
Dominic pressed his lips together tightly, irritated back into silence. I should know better than to talk about myself, ever, he seethed.
They continued to walk without speaking, and it was a solid hour before Dominic realized that he was so busy fuming over her cryptic but surely somehow insulting comment that he had experienced far less difficulty with troubling thoughts and wandering eyes.
The realization encouraged him, and he tried eagerly to think of other things about her that annoyed him only to be met with disappointment. Gwyn was actually considerably less annoying than most people. She respected his space, kept her hands to herself, spoke quietly but not too much...it was hard to find fault with those things even when he was trying to. And true, she was a deadly necromancer, but he couldn’t honestly say that annoyed him. It was intimidating, certainly, and disheartening as well since he would actually need to gain her voluntary cooperation, but annoying?
And the disappointment he felt at these thoughts just added to his aggravation. It was flat-out wrong that someone who was otherwise so inoffensive to his sensibilities was just like everyone else in laughing at him the moment he revealed anything even somewhat personal. If I have no other choice but to have a mate, I could have done worse than Gwyn, he thought reluctantly. It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t feel the same way about me, but it makes no difference in the end.
His feet and heart both felt heavier as he followed her, the bleakness he’d felt before at his own helplessness settling back over him like a shroud. He made an effort to keep his face carefully blank, not wanting her to know that she had the power to disturb him this way, as futile as that felt given the situation. I may not be able to help how my body reacts to her, but she doesn’t have to know about the rest, he thought, clenching his jaw. It’s ridiculous I should even take the opinion of a Lyntaran into account!
It was a long time before they finally stopped at Gwyn’s behest, for Dominic stubbornly said nothing. A couple of times she looked back at him, her brow furrowed as though perplexed, but she said nothing and he offered nothing, refusing to meet her questioning eyes.
But his pain had only been increasing as the day wore on, worsened both by fatigue and, he suspected, by the simple fact that the scent of her on the cloth around his arm was fading in the open air, and his pride had kept him following her at the greatest distance he could bear. His physical misery was so keen that he sat down on the ground before she did, too cold and sore and tired to care if it made him look weak as she pulled water skins and apples from her haversack.
She knelt on the ground next to him and tentatively offered him a water skin, which he took from her with unsteady hands.
“Are you feeling worse, Dominic? ” she asked.
He shook his head without looking at her as he forced down a swallow of warm water, but every inch of himself was screaming liar.
He jumped when he suddenly felt her touch his forehead, his startled eyes flying to her face, and she gasped, her eyes wide, her hand still hovering in the air near his head. Whether her reaction was due to his abrupt movement or the look in his eyes, he wasn’t certain, but the sound she had made coupled with the way her lips had parted sent a wave of heat through his body that made him swallow hard against a moan.
The water skin tumbled from fingers gone nerveless as he stared at her, transfixed, his entire body feeling as though it were coiled as tightly as a spring. She wasn’t close enough, he didn’t have enough of her...the smell of her, the feel of her. All other thoughts vanished as though they were nothing more than vapor burned away in the heat of a dawning sun.
She finally seemed to come to herself, closing her mouth and starting to draw back her hand, but it was too late. His hand caught hers and pulled her forward, and he pushed his face against the bare curve of her neck before she could react, filling his lungs with her as his other arm, the broken one, went around her waist, that hand clutching her blouse in a trembling fist in a wild last-ditch effort to stop it from roaming.
Gwyn went very still, scarcely seeming to breathe, but all Dominic could do was breathe, breathe her in, quivering with mingled relief and torment; relief because he craved her scent so badly, and torment because he felt an undeniable hunger for more than that.
“You don’t really want this, Dominic,” she whispered.
“You’re wrong,” he whispered back. His mouth was pressed against her skin, and his tongue darted out against his will. A shiver ran through her that made his hand tighten on her blouse until his knuckles protested.
She tasted like salt and heat, like a sun-warmed ocean. He wanted to submerge himself in that taste, drink it in...
“You would regret it later,” she insisted firmly. “This isn’t something you’re choosing to do. You’re sick, you’re burning up...”
“Yes I am,” he murmured against her, tasting her skin again, relishing how soft and cool it felt against his mouth. He was quickly forgetting why he was trying so hard to keep himself still, why he was trying so hard not to touch her anywhere else. Even the desire to restrain himself was a fading, fleeting thing, a memory belonging to some other time and place.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will,” Gwyn said. She sounded very calm, but he could feel her trembling against him. “You’re not in your right mind right now. I know you would want me to stop you. ”
“I don’t care what you do. ” He had to force out the words, and they came out slurred. “Just let me keep touching you while you’re doing it. I need to touch you. ”
“If I thought you were choosing this of your own free will...” she muttered. His grip on her blouse began to relax, his broken arm started to move...and her free hand reached up and clamped down on it like the jaws of some hungry beast, her fingers digging in hard against the injured bone.
Pain shot up his arm all the way to his shoulder, sending a wave of sudden nausea through him as he jerked away from her in shock, his other hand reflexively releasing hers as he did so. He gripped his own arm against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut a moment as lucidity came crashing back, along with his ability to speak as he uttered several of the more vehement oaths he’d learned at Sebastien’s right hand.
When he opened his eyes again, catching his breath, he saw that Gwyn was on her feet and standing a fair distance away from him, not quite far enough away to trigger his panic, but not nearly close enough for his preference, either.
But he said nothing, looking back down at the ground, an invisible weight pushing down on his shoulders, pinning him where he sat. He felt her eyes on him, but he couldn’t meet them. His entire chest felt like it was being squeezed very hard by a great angry fist, and he closed his eyes again, willing the ground to devour him.
His thoughts were riveted on one thing only, his mortification both complete and profound: I licked her neck.
“Are you all right? Are you...thinking more clearly now? ” Gwyn asked him anxiously.
He gave a single nod, but his eyes stayed shut. I licked it.
“I can’t keep going this way,” he said out loud.
“We’ll stop more often to rest. If you’d only said-”
“No,” he interrupted, his voice flat. “I don’t mean traveling. I mean I can’t keep going in this...this condition, this state, period. I can’t accomplish anything like this. I can’t keep my own thoughts straight. I can’t control my own reactions. ” He finally opened his eyes, looked directly at her. “Gwyn, this isn’t me. Whatever I am now, I’m useless, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s already getting worse. How many times did you touch my forehead in your cottage without me...behaving that way? ”
He couldn’t bring himself to actually say the words he was thinking: “without me licking you. ”
“You’re just tired, Dominic. You’re being too hard on yourself. You had a difficult night, you didn’t sleep. You need to rest, that’s all. ”
“Oh, that’s all,” he mimicked, and he felt both satisfaction and guilt at the stony look her face took on in response. “That’s all. Good to know. ”
“You know what I mean,” she said, her voice colder than he’d heard it yet. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard, not that it’s entirely your fault. I’ve allowed it. I should have been more careful. What you did wasn’t that bad. You’re still in some kind of control. You sound like you’re giving up, but I think you’re seriously overreacting at this point. ”
“Overreacting? Were you even there? ” Dominic exclaimed, throwing up his hands and immediately wincing at the answering pang in his injured arm. “Do you have any idea how close I was to just ripping your clothes off? ”
“Yes, I do have some idea. I could feel the push against my shield—against my magic—of your, um, urges. ” A telltale flush was tinging her face pink, at odds with her cool expression. “But they were strong, not violent. I can tell the difference. It didn’t feel like it did with the Raider when he attacked me. Believe me, Dominic, you were handling it, and I didn’t let anything happen, did I? ”
Apart from the licking, you mean? he wanted to scream.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” she repeated firmly. “Let’s get to Mariph and talk to that lorekeeper before you make any dramatic decisions, all right? ”
His eyes narrowed. “You have some nerve. No matter what happens to me, you have the option to walk away. There is no such choice for me. Whatever I decide to do, you have no right to look down on it. I’m going through hell so that you can have that option. ”
“Oh, is that why? ” Gwyn arched an eyebrow, her amber eyes flashing. “So it’s all to do with sparing me and nothing at all to do with whatever important reason you claim to have for wanting to go to the Union? It’s all to do with my happiness and well-being and bears no relation to the fact that you don’t really want anything to do with me? ”
That brought him up short. “O-of course,” he stammered, blinking rapidly. “There’s those things too, they’re just not...that is, they’re my reasons. Of course. ”
Inside, however, his mind was a maelstrom of confusion.
Gwyn shook her head at him. “You’re tired, you barely know what you’re saying,” she said curtly. “We’re stopping, and you’re going to sleep while I keep watch. If you’re still wanting to do something drastic when you wake up, we’ll discuss it then. Right now, we’re both unsettled, and we’re only going to say things we’ll regret. ”
I already have, he thought morosely, looking away from her.
But he curled up awkwardly on his side under one of the trees with his aching arm still cradled to his chest, and against all expectations, his exhaustion caught up with him in moments.
It wasn’t enough to stop him from dreaming.
––––––––
It hurt to look at Dominic, at the raw vulnerability on his usually composed face as he slept, at the way he shivered even in the heat.
So Gwyn didn’t. She didn’t look at him, and she did her best not to listen to him either, even as he moaned in his sleep in a way that made her get up and pace to distract herself from it. She felt hot and uneasy, unsure whether he was in pain or...something else.
She tried to think of anything but him: the path they would need to take to get to Mariph from where they were, the last time she’d seen Meg. It had been before Gwyn’s magic had manifested, and she felt a pang of worry that the lorekeeper might no longer be there.
Still, there was nothing else to try. When Dominic woke shortly before dusk, she offered him water again without looking at him and gathered up her haversack without a word. They continued on their way in uncomfortable silence, Gwyn’s muscles so tense that they’d started to ache, her eyes trained straight ahead.
As she walked, her mind inevitably returned to the man following her. She realized she was angry, but it wasn’t the kind of anger that would make her control slip. This was a calmer kind of anger, a quiet seething rather than an explosion. It wasn’t until Dominic had made the ridiculous implication that he was only fighting the urge to bed her for her benefit that she realized, with a certainty that stung, that she wanted the words to be true. She wanted them to be, and inexplicably, it hurt that they weren’t. She couldn’t imagine why he’d even said such a thing, and she was angry that he had come up with it, angry that he’d introduced the thought into her head, angry that it had been his fatigue and ruffled feelings that were casually twisting a knife in her gut.
Angry and guilty. What, do I want him to suffer now? Is that what this is? She scowled at the trees for want of any other subject for her ire that wasn’t Dominic.
But it wasn’t that she wanted him to suffer. She wanted to think she’d begun to matter to him as something other than a body that he was involuntarily attracted to. Somehow, somewhere along the line, he’d begun to matter to her.
Which is stupid. I barely know him, and we’re going right now to get help so I can be rid of him. I’ll have to start over again somewhere new, which I hate. Earn the trust of new villagers, which is aggravating. Learn my way around different woods, which could get me eaten by a bear. I may not have been happy, exactly, but I was content. Now I have to start all over again, and to thank me for my efforts to save him, he’s just going to run off and get shot by the border patrol. He won’t make it a week once this mate nonsense is over with.
Gwyn paused in her unspoken tirade just long enough to kick a rock that was in her path. It sailed off and hit one of the trees with a small but satisfying thud, and she glared darkly at the innocent victim of her attack, daring it with her eyes to say something to Dominic about her.
Dominic cleared his throat. “Are we...waiting for something? ” he asked cautiously.
“Is that cheeky bastard talking about me? ” she growled, narrowing her eyes at the tree.
“Are you mocking me? ”
Despite the question, he didn’t sound offended, only completely baffled.
Gwyn lifted her chin but kept her eyes on the tree. “Absolutely not. I’m just waiting for it or one of its fellows to give me a reason to light a campfire. A nice, big one. ”
“It’s not fair to take out your irritation on them. Why don’t you kick something at me instead? I, at least, can defend myself. ” She noticed his voice had gone a shade cooler.
“No, you can’t. Not against me. You may as well grow some leaves, Dominic. ” She pronounced it with all the finality of a tomb, then felt a painful twinge in her chest. Good gods, I’m channeling my father from beyond the grave. She clamped her mouth shut, looked away from the tree and resumed walking, aghast at her own behavior but entirely unwilling to do anything about it.
Defying all odds, the silence now contrived to be even more uncomfortable than it had been before.
When it grew too dark to keep walking, Gwyn stopped, tossed her haversack at Dominic’s feet, and laid down with her arm under her head and her back to him, making absolutely certain she wasn’t touching any trees.
If the dirt starts waxing philosophical about my hips or something, I will burn and salt this entire forest if it’s the last thing I do, so help me Orwyn, she thought furiously.
It was a long time before she managed to calm down enough to fall asleep. When her eyes opened, it was nearly light again, and despite the fact that the sun was only beginning to brighten the sky, she was already soaked in sweat. She felt an immediate twist of guilt that she’d been out for so long. Dominic was the one who needed the lion’s share of rest.
She immediately sat up, only belatedly noticing that the cloak she had stuffed in her haversack was draped over her.
She frowned at it. “Even me sleeping bothers you now? You are getting worse. ”
“It wasn’t that,” Dominic said gruffly from where he was sitting by one of the trees. “You were shivering. ”
“I was not,” she said, but she was startled to vaguely remember the already-fading fragments of a dream, a dream full of Raiders.
She swallowed hard, fighting back a sudden wave of remorse for snapping at him.
“You shouldn’t be nice to me. I’m a mean person. Ask any tree I’ve kicked a rock at recently. ”
“I wasn’t,” he retorted. “It was distracting, that’s all. ”
Of course. That’s all, she thought, and the sting of the day before, dulled by sleep, came sharply back into focus.
“It’s your turn to rest now,” she said. She winced at the way her own voice wavered, but she didn’t repeat herself, and she still didn’t look at him. What good would it do anyway? I can’t touch him. I can’t help him. I can’t do a damn thing but drag his sorry hide to Mariph and pray that Meg is still there and knows something useful.
“I don’t need to rest. ”
“Like hell you don’t! ” Gwyn exclaimed, incredulous. “You’re not the one who has to put up with Suicidal Dominic every time you miss your nap! ”
“I can’t believe I ever thought you weren’t annoying,” he hissed. “Clearly there will be nothing salvageable left of my brain by the time this fever is gone! ”
Gwyn humphed, picking up the cloak and getting to her feet. “Clearly. Do I have to confiscate your knife now, or do you think you can deal with this revelation until we’ve at least made it to Mariph? ”
Dominic said nothing. She risked a glance at him from the corner of her eye and saw he was obviously grinding his teeth, his eyes resembling little more than dark slits under his lowered brows as he glared daggers at the ground, his arms rigid at his sides.
Somehow I don’t think he’s even going to try to rest, no doubt just to spite me, she thought. She shook her head a little but stuffed her cloak back into the haversack. As she picked it up, she stepped back in surprise as Dominic all but snatched it from her.
“I’ll carry it for a while,” he all but spat.
“What? Why? ” she asked bluntly.
“You’ve only been carrying it all this time because you think I’m too weak to do it. But I’m not that far gone yet. ”
Gwyn was sorely tempted to agree with him just to goad him, but she looked up before she could catch herself and nearly sucked in a breath at how pale and drawn he looked up close.
Immediately she felt her earlier pique evaporate.
“I’m a mean person,” she repeated in a small voice, remorse making her throat constrict. “Ignore me, all right? You won’t have to put up with me much longer. ”
“Because I’ll be dead? ” His voice was flat.
“No,” she said, appalled. “Because hopefully the lorekeeper in Mariph will be able to help you. Why are you so ready to die? What happened to your big important reasons for getting murdered by the border patrol? ”
Dominic sighed heavily. “I told you...no matter how important my reasons are, I can’t accomplish anything like this. I was fooling myself to think it might be possible. I was as good as dead when I was left in that forest. You may not have literally reanimated my corpse when you found me, but you may as well have for all I’m worth now. ”
“My god,” Gwyn said, startled. “You are something else. What makes a person worth something, Dominic? Do you see me as worthless? Because whatever you’re aiming to do, odds are, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Not if it involves evading border patrols. ”
“You are not constantly thinking of...well, you. ” He sounded so gloomy that Gwyn wasn’t sure she shouldn’t be taking some kind of offense at it.
“No, but I am constantly thinking of how to keep you alive. Surely that counts. So if we’re both worthless in your eyes, we must be a perfect pair after all. We might as well look up a priestess in Mariph to bless us! ”
Gwyn had meant it as a joke, hoping to lighten the mood a bit, but she was wholly unprepared for the thunderous look that darkened Dominic’s face, the sudden way he stepped toward her that made her instinctively grasp her magic, sensing the threat behind it.
“Don’t. Mock. Me. ” He bit out the words slowly and deliberately, his dark eyes blazing. “I would rather die than serve as entertainment for you, necromancer. ”
Gwyn felt the blood draining from her face. “Dominic, I swear, I wasn’t-”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he interrupted icily, but she saw his knuckles had turned pure white where he gripped the haversack, the bag itself shaking almost imperceptibly. “Are we going to Mariph, or should we just wait here until someone finds us? I have no opinion either way. ”
She continued walking.
The trees began to thin as the sun rose in the sky. Several times along the way, Gwyn paused to give Dominic the chance to rest, but he kept walking until he passed her, forcing her to catch up and take the lead again. He looked past her stonily as though she wasn’t there as she walked by, and her chest ached.
But finally they made it to the place she’d hoped they would find: the woods outside Mariph. She slowed as she recognized her surroundings and realized how close they must be to the town. “It’s very close now, I recognize this area. This is about as far out as I’ve been on my own. ”
“Have we been going to Mariph the entire time? ” Dominic asked abruptly, his voice still curt. “Is that why you’ve been going south? You made it sound like it had only just occurred to you when we were already heading in this direction, but that wasn’t it, was it? ”
Gwyn frowned a little, caught off guard by the odd question. “No, we were already heading south when I remembered Meg. The lorekeeper, I mean. ”
“Why? ” His gaze was so intense that she felt like it was burning a hole in her chin, which was apparently where he was choosing to look.
She recalled her earlier teasing about thwarting his curiosity, but it already felt like such levity had happened a lifetime ago. She couldn’t stomach it now. “I wasn’t sure where we should go, and you wanted to go south, so...”
“But you don’t intend to help me cross the border. ”
“I guess I hoped you would deem me worthy of your confidence by the time I had to make that choice. Stupid of me, I know. ” She tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a cough. “Anyway, it’s probably best that you stay here in the woods. I’ll go directly to Meg. That’s safest, I think. ”
“I think you know that isn’t possible,” Dominic said stiffly.
Gwyn glanced at the cloth still wrapped around his arm. He flushed as he followed her eyes.
“It’s...not working so well anymore. ”
“What about the cloak? ” She nodded towards the haversack. “I was sweating like a pig when I woke up. Maybe you just need something, er, fresh. ”
She watched as Dominic pulled the cloak out of the haversack, then tried valiantly to ignore the embarrassment rolling through her when he didn’t even have to put it close to his face before he nodded.
“It should suffice. For a time. ” His eyes flickered to her face and then back to the cloak.
“I won’t take long,” Gwyn promised. “This isn’t a social visit. I’ll come straight back after I’ve spoken with her. ”Or if I can’t find her, she added silently, not wanting to alarm him. “Try to stay in this general area if you can. Otherwise I might have to hunt for you. ”
Dominic only snorted as she headed off into the trees. The forest continued to thin out as she came closer to town, the trees growing farther apart and the vegetation becoming sparser.
She thought she would feel some sense of relief at leaving Dominic behind; she’d had little time apart from him since they’d met, and she was no longer accustomed to spending so much time with other people. Instead she felt like something was missing without him following behind and found herself straining to listen, just in case he’d been wrong about her cloak being good enough.
But she heard nothing coming from behind her, and soon the sounds of civilization began to drown out anything else she might have been able to hear: wagon wheels and hooves and the indistinguishable clamor of voices.
Mariph wasn’t quite a city, but it was much larger than the villages closer to Gwyn’s cottage. She rarely came out this way except in search of herbs that thrived at this lower altitude in the surrounding woods, and if she actually entered the town proper at all, it was usually only to buy a meal and rent a room for a night at one of the inns closest to its outskirts. She had never even seen its marketplace and shuddered at the thought. The continual din and the careless jostling of crowds that always seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere else were enough to set her teeth on edge and assailed her bodily senses. The drives and urges of hundreds were like a battering ram against her anima shield that only intensified after dark, and her departures from Mariph were always marked with the urgency of a refugee glimpsing the last hope of sanctuary.
Already she could feel the crowds pressing against her, and she had yet to actually see a soul. An irrational longing to run back to Dominic came over her, but she pushed herself forward. I’m doing this for him, she reminded herself. Once I’ve seen Meg, we can leave.
The trouble was, she didn’t know exactly where in Mariph Meg was, and it was a large town. The few times she’d met the woman, Meg had been visiting Gwyn’s father, not the other way around. Gwyn remembered that the lorekeeper lived—or used to live—in Mariph because of the colorful stories the woman used to tell around the dinner table about her hometown, stories Gwyn and her sister had devoured without criticism.
In retrospect, Gwyn was decidedly more skeptical of the likelihood of hill trolls and faeries coming even by night to a place like this. She paused by the tree line long enough to smooth a hand over her hair and straighten her dress, not wanting to stand out in her disheveled state, but her heart was already pounding, an excruciating awareness of exactly how out-of-place she was making her palms sweat.
She wiped them against her dress and took a deep breath, stepping out from behind the final fringe of trees. The town sprawled before her just as she expected, the first building barely five strides ahead of her. Huts, shops, and cottages were loosely sprinkled around the outer border, packing together ever more tightly as Mariph literally spiraled downward: the outer edges were hilly and tapered gradually down to the heart of the town, which was entirely flat. From her perspective on the edge of its border, standing at its highest point, Mariph strongly resembled a whirlpool churning its way into the earth, with structures of wood and stone and thatch bobbing like foam along every ripple.
Another breath to steady herself, and she advanced into the town, soon finding herself carried along by the inevitable tide of people as they swept along their business, chattering and calling to each other. They appeared to take little notice of her as she walked in their midst, but she was keenly self-conscious and did her best not to meet anyone’s eyes until she finally spotted an older man sitting by the roadside, smoking a pipe.
Something about him was familiar to her in a way she couldn’t identify, a feeling which in her experience usually indicated another mage. Gwyn wasn’t entirely certain that the lorekeeper actually had any magic—she’d certainly never seen the woman use it or talk about using it—but her father had had few friends that didn’t. Mages tended to be tightly-knit as a rule.
He blew out a lazy ring of smoke as she approached, his shrewd pale eyes taking her in at a glance. “Lost, are you, pet? ” he asked, returning his attention to the pipe dangling from his fingers.
“I am, sir,” she admitted meekly. “I’m looking for an old friend of the family. I’m afraid I don’t know her exact direction, only that she lives in town. ”
“And you think I know where every person lives in this town, hmm? Or just the old ones? ”
She opened her mouth quickly to deny it, but she caught the twinkle in his eyes as he glanced at her again.
“Just the old ones, sir,” she said, demurely lowering her eyes at his answering smirk.
“As I thought. Well, out with it. Who are you seeking? ” He took another puff of his pipe.
“Her name is Meg, though I’m afraid I don’t remember her family name. I was a child when I last saw her. She’s a lorekeeper by trade. Does she sound like anyone familiar to you? ”
The old man went still, the smoke leaking out of his nostrils as he regarded her again. There was a different flavor to his scrutiny now, and she recognized it immediately, all but recoiling as she finally noticed the subtle vibration in her shield. “Now, that’s hardly necessary. You had only to ask,” she chided him, affronted.
He smirked again, the vibration disappearing in the same moment. “I had to know. This lorekeeper is one of us, you see. We mages keep our heads down here in Mariph, particularly now. ”
“Why? What’s going on? I don’t come out this way very often,” Gwyn admitted.
The old man grunted. “Trouble with Raiders. Or what looks like Raiders. They certainly don’t act much like them. ”
She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Raiders exist-”
“For other countries, to aid the Emperor in his conquests,” he interrupted impatiently. “Everyone knows that. They don’t have much use inside of our own borders, and yet you must be living under a rock if you haven’t heard of the things they’ve been doing all over Lyntara these days. Loyal citizens are being harassed. ” The old man leaned forward conspiratorially, dropping his voice a shade lower and waving his pipe for emphasis. “Harassed and sometimes killed, but the Emperor does nothing. And lately they’ve been coming ‘round, asking about mages. Who’s a mage, who knows a mage. Some of our number have just up and disappeared after these little inquiries. So you see, you can’t be too careful around here, pet. Keep yourself to yourself, or you might be the next to disappear. ”
“Meg...is she one of the ones...? ” Gwyn couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, her heart in her throat.
“No, no...or at least, if she is, I’ve not heard of it. ” The old man sat back again. “No, Meg is still around. One of the old-timers like me, not that you’d know it to look at her. Takes more than a Raider to scare her off. We call her a midwife in these parts, but she’s never delivered any babes to my knowledge. ”
Gwyn sighed with relief. “Please, sir, where can I find her? ”
“Where you’d expect. By the woods, but on the northern side of town. ” He indicated the direction with his pipe. “She has a cottage with the midwife’s mark on the post outside the door. If you ask around when you get over there, you should have no trouble being pointed the right way. ”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, but she hesitated. “Do you have any ideas about why Raiders would be taking mages, sir? I believe you that it’s happening, don’t get me wrong. It’s just very strange. ”
The old man shook his head. “Strange happenings abound these days, pet. Just steer clear of any Raiders you see and keep your business your own. That’s my advice. ”
She thanked him again and started walking in the direction he had shown her, but her mind was still on the Raiders. Her eyes scanned the sea of people going about their business as she moved through them, but she saw no telltale black garb, no scythe-emblazoned arm bands. If they are here, they’d likely be farther in, at the taverns, she told herself. And they may not have heard anything about half-elven men and necromancers yet.
She wished she knew what direction that third Raider had gone in. It could have given her some idea of how fast the news would travel and in which direction, but as things stood, she had to assume that it could have preceded her to Mariph. After all, Raiders had horses. One could have easily made it there and spread the word before she and Dominic had arrived.
I hope he’s all right out there in the woods, she thought with a pang of anxiety. She tensed, seeing a black tunic on the other side of the road, then sighed when she saw it was only that. I won’t be back any sooner than dusk at this rate, though it’s fortunate I found someone who had heard of her right away. In a town this size, it could have easily been much more difficult.
That thought made her pause, nearly causing her to be trampled by a horse-drawn cart that had apparently been about to weave around her. She scurried out of the way at the sound of the driver’s curses, her heart hammering away. Lord, how I hate towns!
But the moment the danger was past and she had resumed her walk, her pulse beginning to slow again, her thoughts drifted back to the old man. He had seemed harmless enough, but...
“This is too easy,” she muttered out loud. “Nothing is ever this easy. ”
By the time she made it to the correct part of town and was directed by a woman selling fruit at one corner to the midwife’s cottage, she had worked herself up to the point where she fully expected to see that the cottage itself was no more than a smoking husk, perhaps only the night before struck by lightning and burnt to the ground, or perhaps she would spy Meg’s funeral procession marching past her. The woman had been fairly young when Gwyn had last seen her, but that was closing in on thirty years ago.
But the cottage was intact and standing, a lovely little building not much larger than Gwyn’s with the front door painted bright blue. White roses bloomed on a trellis along the front, filling the air all the way out to the road with their heady scent. A post painted the same shade of blue as the door stood next to the road, the midwife’s mark—an egg—carved prominently on the front of it, clearly indicating that this was indeed the correct cottage, but although Gwyn listened very carefully, she heard no sounds of mourning emanating from anywhere nearby.
She shrugged a little and went to the rap on the front door, only for it to swing open before she could touch it. A dark-haired woman stood there who didn’t look much older than Gwyn herself.
But she looked exactly the same as Gwyn remembered her.
“Well, if it isn’t Silas’ baby girl. ” The woman smiled, displaying a row of startlingly white teeth. “Welcome. I’ve been expecting you. ”
She stepped aside, and that’s when Gwyn saw the Raiders.
