Page 121 of Faeling
She had to sense him; he came to a halt only a breath away. Yet, her eyes remained fixed on the dark horizon, her black hair rippling around her in soft waves. Her arms were clutched round her torso, but far tighter than just for warmth; it was as though she needed to hold onto herself, to wrap herself up to keep steady.
Vallek considered his words carefully, tossing severalplatitudes aside. Finally, he settled on asking so, so gently, “Why are you out here, love?”
It took her a while to answer, so long, he wasn’t sure she would.
Eventually, she murmured, “Bad dreams.”
“Visions?” The idea that she’d had a vision worrying enough to send her fleeing out into the cold had dread coiling in his gut.
“Some of them.”
The vague answer came through stiff lips. She was determined to be a mystic it seemed, her attention still far away.
Easing a little closer, Vallek chanced setting his hand to the small of her back. She was cool to the touch, the slippery material of her dressing gown like cold water on his palm.
His beast gnashed its teeth, anxious to comfort her, to make it all better. He didn’t even know what was wrong, but his overwhelming instinct was to fix whatever it was that troubled her so.
If he could crush whatever brought that haunted look to her eye with his fists, eviscerate it with Hormhím, or squash it beneath his boot, he would. However, as with many things about his often enigmatic faeling mate, he feared her troubles weren’t something to be smashed or pummeled or pulverized.
Politics had taught him that problems that could be solved with brute force were far easier to handle. The strength of his arm hadn’t been in question since he was a youngling. Matters of the mind and heart, though—those took far more finesse and fortitude.
He counted himself a decent politician—nothing to Eydis, of course—but as he stood on that curtain wall, a cold wind at his back, Vallek doubted himself. It wasn’t something he’d had theluxury of doing in years. Yet in a moment so critical, when he sensed his next steps would be paramount, the ground he stood upon seemed shaky.
There was a brittleness to her, fragile as glass. He feared the wrong words, the wrong move, would cause a break.
He couldn’t do nothing, though.
He saw her suffering and had to make it go away, however much he could.
“Tell me how to help you, love,” he begged.
A tear slid down her pale cheek, but she didn’t move to wipe it away. Everything inside him told Vallek to gather her close, to hide her with his bigger body from the evils of the world. He could protect her, keep her safe. His hand itched to wipe the tears for her, but he dared not move.
“I see their faces, and I—I know I’ve failed them,” she whispered.
Suddenly, she turned her head to look at him, the movement so unexpected, his stomach dropped. Moonlight glittered in her glassy eyes, and the breath hissed out of his lungs to see how close to the brink she stood. Not just on that wall with him, but within her own mind.
“Ravenna,” he groaned her name, “please.” He didn’t know what he asked for exactly, only that he begged for her.
Those haunting eyes of hers were strangely cold as she told him, “My parents died for me. To keep me safe. I saw them in my dream.”
Vallek nodded slowly. He’d guessed something tragic in her past; she never spoke of living family. The few things she’d said were of a childhood spent hidden away with her human mother—she hardly ever spoke of her fae father.
It was a morsel of information that left Vallek hungry for more. That was just like her, to reveal a little but keep back the most. He sensed far more to the story, but again, he dared not push.
“Such a sacrifice would leave its mark on anyone,” he told her gently. His own parents had died fairly young, his father in battle, in service to Mordis in one of his petty feuds, and his mother just a year after. Already weakened from the loss of her mate, his mother was easy prey for the sweating sickness that swept across Balmirra. Were it not for Eydis holding the remains of their family together, fate would have been far less kind to Vallek.
His parents’ deaths had felt senseless, useless. As an angry youth, he’d often lashed out in his pain. How could he swallow his grief and loss when it was so meaningless. His father had been sent to his death for nothing, eventually taking his mate with him and leaving his younglings orphans.
That had left its own kind of scar, although he knew it to be different from the one his mate clearly bore. From just her few words, her parents seemed to have died for completely the opposite. Their deaths meant something.Sacrifice.
As the cold wind stung his cheek, Vallek realized what a burden such deaths would be.
Lips drawn thin, Ravenna shook her head. “They died for me. Fornothing.”
“No,” he breathed. “They died protecting what they loved most. It is an honorable death.”
More tears spilled from eyes in earnest now, alarming Vallek. Gods, he was making a mess of this.
