Page 41 of A Brat's Tale
I nod. “Thank you, Corrik.”
He grips my hand and helps me up to a seated position. “I’ll have a tent set up for us tonight, you need a few nights of good rest and some food.” He leans closer. “And I imagine time to yourself wouldn’t go amiss.”
I squint at him. “Who are you?”
He looks at his hands then back to my eyes. “Tristan, there’s much to tell you. I want to say it all at once, but I also don’t want to overwhelm you. Give me time?”
“As much as you need, and I can have the same?”
“Of course.”
I smile, a bit of warmth settling into me, maybe things will be okay.
Corrik has two beds set up, which is weird for me even with the year between us. I assumed things would kind of just slip back into some version of what we had, considering how we started. We went from chatting in a book to sex on our wedding night.
Things surely have changed.
Sleep does sound good, and maybe alone is for the best. I’ve had no chance to grieve Bayaden—Papa taught me the importance of grieving—and my body is feeling the effects of being slashed open by an Elemental Death Wolf. I get into bed and I cry myself to sleep.
If Corrik hears me, he doesn’t say.
Morning comes too soon and yet not soon enough. The first thing I notice is hair. Lots of it. Mine. Bayaden. I inhale the scent. It doesn’t smell like him, but I still have remnants of him left, all of which will fade too soon, but I will always have this, and I can feel him like he’s here surrounding me. I roll around in the feelings, my hair silky against my bare skin.
Two violet eyes watch me from across the room. “Your hair is back.”
“Yes,” I say reaching for my tunic and pulling it over my bare torso. I’m not going to cut my hair anymore. It does seem to draw attention, but I’m sure there’s something to tie it back with for riding.
“May I … May I brush it out for you? My brother will have kittens—as I believe the Markaytian saying goes—if you walk out of here like that.”
He’s so hesitant and he needn’t be, but I suppose it’s going to be like that until we find our footing again. I decide to make a start to that end. “I’d like that, Cor.”
He frowns. “Cor?”
“Your name, shortened. It’s what we Markaytians do with people we are familiar with—shorten their names.”
He considers that. “I hope you don’t expect me to call you Tris in return.”
I laugh. “No. I mean, Lucca did at times, but that was Lucca.”
Corrik relaxes, moving off the cot he’s on. He retrieves a brush from one of the bags and heads to my side. Gently he takes the hair in one hand, pauses briefly—can he sense Bayaden as I can?—but carries on, running the brush through, de-knotting it, taming it some. “It’s beautiful hair, Tristan. Please don’t cut it again?”
“I won’t.”
Imake the conscious decision not to rile Alrik and to stay out of his way, neither of which is easy since he’s been on Corrik’s case about me. After a week and full recovery, I’m still not permitted to ride on my horse, who rides lonely, beside us. Poor girl.
Things are awkward between me and Corrik, but not in a bad way. It’s that shy,does he still like me,kind of way I used to feel about boys in my teens. I look forward to when I get to wrap my arms around him, when we’re on the horse together, and sometimes, he rests a hand on mine as we ride. I come to the conclusion it might be for the best I ride with him. Even with the added weight of one human, Corrik’s horse can gallop faster than I can ride my horse on my own; I would slow them down.
Just over two weeks after we leave the place where I came out of the veil, we reach the barrier dividing the seven Elven realms from the rest of humanity. A whole other world lies beyond, one I’ve never seen, one humans rarely get to see.
The barrier is a golden sheen, reaching far as I can see into the sky and across the Earth. It shimmers and from afar it’s beautiful, but as we get closer, it resonates with energy that feels like a threat. “Keep hold around me like you are, Tristan and you’ll be all right,” Corriksays. “You will feel it a bit until you are Elf, and we can key you to the wards, but you will be okay.”
Our entourage rides through and the golden light is uncomfortable for me. I don’t like it, it’s a “walking over graves” kind of sensation. “Ugh. That was unpleasant.”
“Better than being disintegrated I wager,” he says chuckling.
Disintegrated? Guess I’m not leaving this place until I’m Elf; I won’t be able to get out without Corrik or another Elf. It doesn’t matter—where would I go?
“This is the seventh realm,” Corrik announces. “We must head North to reach the first. Mortouge.”
