Page 27 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
Aislinn unscrunched her eyes, blinking rapidly. She wanted to say she was fine, but the words couldn’t form. “I’llbefine,” she said instead.
Caerwyn hovered nearby. He was only half dressed, his faded charcoal shirt only partially tucked in, shoeless and devoid of the gloves he usually wore. He fiddled with the beads on his necklace.
“Can you get up?” he asked, still standing over the threshold. He sounded like he’d rather do anything other than help her.
“Yes,” she answered, words still laced with pain. She grabbed hold of the bed frame and pulled herself up.
“Should I get Flora—”
“If you know which pain draught is the one I’m supposed to be taking, there’s no need to wake her.”
“Right.” He glanced up at the shelves, and then back at Aislinn, as if he were stepping into the cage of a wild animal.
“I don’t bite,” she told him. “Usually. Unless it’s called for. Or asked for.”
Caerwyn’s cheeks reddened. “Not what I’m afraid of.”
“I won’t cast any faerie magic on you, either,” she added. “Not unless—”
“It’s called for, sure.”
He stepped into the room, turning towards the shelves, still glancing at Aislinn like she was a wildfire he was turning his back on. He selected one of the jars quickly and thrust it down on the desk. “This one,” he said, scurrying out of the room. “Don’t take too much.”
“Noted.”
He hovered for a while longer, as if uncertain whether or not he should leave. Aislinn didn’t understand his reluctance, or his indecision, as if he both hated to leave and longed to go. His fingers twitched against his beads again.
He left the room without another word, stalking back to his bed in the main room to finish dressing. He plucked a stray feather from the sole of his boot—a deep, black, raven’s one.
Ravens.
She knew that meant something, that birds were important, that someone had said…
It was no good. Her thoughts wouldn’t come.
She downed the potion, and started to dress.
It was still just before dawn when she exited her room, the cottage swamped with that bluish, ethereal light that came just before the sun. Caerwyn was nowhere to be found, but the sun called to her.
She stepped outside. Light broke through across the sky, yolk-gold, ribbons of rose and orange. It cracked across the rocks that hid the cottage from the world, sweeping across the dewy grass.
Without wasting another second, Aislinn sat down and shimmied off her boots, only half-mindful of her stitches, and sunk her feet into the ground.
Aislinn felt the rays and the damp soil in a way she imagined humans didn’t—like butter against the soul. It spread deep inside her, a warm echo of magic. She had barely felt it since she felt Faerie, but she felt it now.
A thin rain danced through the faintest of breeze, making the sky blaze with a rainbow of colour. Her gaze turned to a silhouette high on rocks. Someone was standing there, their arms outstretched towards the sun.
Caerwyn.
He’d taken off his shirt, his tanned skin lit by tiny beads of gold light. She could not see his face, but there was a relaxed slope to his shoulders, an ease to him that she’d never seen before. Despite his broad, muscular form, he could almost have been one of the fae, living for the sun and moon, for the blessing of nature.
“He comes out here most mornings,” said a voice behind her.
Aislinn turned, finding herself face-to-face with Fort, the cinnamon-haired dwarf with the pistols and quicksilver smile.
“You’re up early,” Aislinn remarked.
Fort shrugged. “It feels like a lucky morning.”
