Vassal

by Sterling D'Este

  Behind her, Etienne protested good-naturedly. “My cooking is incredibly nutritional!”

  The warrior rolled her eyes. “Not to worry, Alphonse. I’ll make something for you.”

  Alphonse was wheezing as she suppressed her giggles, not wanting to hurt Etienne’s feelings but definitely knowing he was… a basic cook at most.

  Sometimes he burnt their meals.

  Sometimes he undercooked them.

  But to be fair, Etienne had never needed to learn how to cook or camp. He had grown up in the city, then immediately entered Moxous, where all chores were attended to by the staff of the school. This journey was like nothing he would have ever experienced before.

  “I would never say such things about my friend,” she defended him, choking on her laughter. “It is most definitely Enyo who doesn’t like the cooking. I love it. I think the bits of bone remaining are… ah… additional fiber.” She winced and then clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the giggles at bay.

  Etienne pretended to be offended. “Fine!” he said with mock severity. “I can see that my abilities are not appreciated by the present company. Why don’t you just have Delyth cook all your meals then?”

  The warrior quieted a bit at that but didn’t seem ready to give up the joke. “At least then, the meals would always be cooked!”

  ⥣ ⥣ ⥣

  * * *

  At camp that night, Delyth insisted on cooking dinner, just to prove that her version of their simple fair would be more edible than Etienne’s. She was rather proud of the result too. It certainly hadn’t been extravagant food, but it had been enjoyable.

  She was full and content. It had been a thoroughly pleasant day overall, with only the briefest appearance of Enyo, and the warrior was genuinely beginning to enjoy the company of her companions.

  Now, she waited patiently beneath softly whispering boughs for the water Alphonse was boiling for tea. It had only been a couple weeks since Delyth had first tried the strange blend of spices and herbs Alphonse had brought with her, and already she had decided it was one of her favorite times of day, especially when Enyo was not making an appearance.

  Delyth took a deep breath of cool night air. Etienne had already slipped into his tent, claiming that the evening was too cold for his tastes even with the steady roar of the fire in their camp’s center and the promise of a hot drink to chase away the chill.

  The warrior didn’t mind, for all she was starting to get accustomed to his company.

  “Is it ready yet?” she asked companionably, eyeing the pot in the center of the flames.

  “Is patience not a virtue the Temple of Enyo teaches?” Alphonse’s lips quirked upwards teasingly.

  Delyth cracked a smile at Alphonse’s light-hearted scolding and tugged her thoughts back to the healer’s question. “Would you believe it if I told you it was?”

  The priests at Glynfford believed that winter was an example of Enyo’s patience for spring, that the slow unfurling of every leaf and the long build-up of a thunderstorm showed that Enyo was patient in her dealings with the earth.

  Obviously, none of them had actually met her.

  Alphonse’s eyes twinkled in the firelight as she leaned forward to peer into the pot. The water was indeed boiling. She gathered up her skirts as a pad to protect her hand and reached for the pot handle, steadily transferring the contents into two mugs, which already had the herb blend waiting.

  Setting the pot back down, she scooted closer to Delyth.

  “There. Now we just wait until it steeps. Do you think you can manage that, mighty warrior?” She teased, leaning back into the shadow of warmth Delyth’s wings created, surprising the warrior—not for the first time— just how comfortable Alphonse seemed to be near her. It wasn’t that many days ago when she had woken up to find the healer pressed against the curve of one of her wings as Alphonse slept.

  “I can be patient,” Delyth teased. “It’s only that you make such good tea.”

  Carefully, as though Alphonse might startle or move away if she made any sudden motions, Delyth extended a wing so that it curled loosely around the space where Alphonse sat, a living tent of sorts to break the wind.

  Alphonse heaved a sigh in gratitude and glanced at the wing protecting her, arching a brow at Delyth.

  “Don’t you ever feel cold?” she asked, reaching up to readjust the veil over her hair modestly. “I wake up sometimes, in the night. Or maybe Enyo wakes me up. But it’s so terribly cold and I have all those blankets, and there you are. Snoozing. Not shivering. It’s amazing, really.” Her eyes on the teacups, Alphonse leaned forward, picked them up, and handed one to Delyth.

  The priestess wrapped her hands around the cup gratefully and inhaled some of the fragrant steam. It had become familiar so quickly.

  “I do get cold,” she admitted. “I’ve flown through storms to reach the air above the clouds where it's so frigid that my breaths come in little puffs of steam. Down here, though, it is warm to me.” Delyth took an experimental sip from her cup to see if it had cooled enough to drink, then a larger mouthful when she found that it had.

  “You could have told me that you’ve been waking up cold,” she said, a touch self-conscious. “It is a small tent, and my wingspan is quite large. If—if you needed another cover.”

  Delyth felt her face grow a bit warm and hoped that the light from the fire was too poor to make it visible.

  ❀

  Alphonse took her time sipping her tea as well, both hands wrapped around the mug, sapping the warmth there. If it was this chilly in the lowlands, then surely the mountain ranges would be terrible. “I… I’m already such a burden. To you and Etienne, both,” she started finally. “I know it’s difficult, being near me.” She sighed and looked over at Delyth, the pain and guilt evident on her face. “I didn’t think it right to burden you further. You’ve already done so much for me.”

  The priestess brushed Alphonse’s arm with her own. “I’m here to protect you,” she said, holding Alphonse’s gaze steadily. “You aren’t a burden. Besides, it wouldn’t exactly be a sacrifice to stretch out a bit.”

  It was the last comment that finally convinced Alphonse, and she nodded slowly in agreement. “If it helps you,” she murmured, though she knew it was for her own wellbeing that Delyth had offered. Some sense of obligation to the vassal.

  Glancing at the wing near her, Alphonse let one finger brush along the edge. It was soft to the touch.

  Realizing she hadn’t asked for permission, Alphonse withdrew her finger and grimaced. “I apologize. I’m a healer, I should know better… I just… I’ve never met anyone with wings. And your wings are very, very beautiful. Interesting.” She’d been itching to examine them for a while now, truth be told.

  But it hadn’t ever seemed like the right time. Not with Enyo on the loose.

  Delyth closed her eyes and turned her face away. “I—it’s alright,” she said after a moment. “I don’t mind.”

  The warrior looked back towards Alphonse and opened the wing to its full length.

  Turning in her spot, Alphonse set her teacup down so that she might run her hands, soft and gentle (and thanks to the tea, warm) over the interior of Delyth’s wing. She ran her fingertips meticulously over the arch of bone that was the apex of the wing, then down each spine that created the individual sails. Alphonse drew the back of her hand across one leathery sail, noticing Delyth’s shiver. The wings must be incredibly sensitive too.

  She had already known those wings were strong, to be able to sustain flight, but now she felt the muscles there. The answer seemed to be that Delyth flew purely due to brute strength.

  An incredible feat.

  She traveled along the top of the wing to find where it met Delyth’s back, then back across to the very tip. Alphonse estimated the wings were easily five feet long when expanded. Each wing. That would make her wingspan ten feet. No wonder Delyth’s shoulders and back seemed so toned. Her core must have been too. And her legs, from carrying s
uch weight.

  Really, Alphonse must seem so very frail to Delyth, barely able to carry her heavy pack all day without tiring.

  “Marvelous,” she pronounced, done with the inspection. Smiling, Alphonse folded her hands in her lap, looking up at the sky with a sigh. These quiet times before bed were becoming her favorite time of the night. Just she and Delyth, the stars and tea. Simple. Easy.

  Perhaps the only things that were simple or easy anymore.

  ༄

  Gods, Alphonse’s hands were so small. So gentle.

  Alphonse was just a healer, curious at having found something new. Nothing more. Still, it was a strange sort of relief when Alphonse finished. Like some part of Delyth wanted her to keep going.

  She swallowed hard at Alphonse’s little conclusion and pulled her wing back in. People just didn’t call her beautiful or marvelous. “We should probably sleep. It's getting late, and tomorrow will be just as long.”

  Alphonse nodded in agreement, picking up her cup of tea and draining it. The cold night air had sucked the warmth out of it quickly.

  Delyth sat and finished her tea too, taking her time in front of the fire’s flickering coals while Alphonse entered the tent and changed. When she stood, she stretched and turned her face up to the clear, star-smattered sky above until her breathing was low and deep and calm had seeped through all of the muscles in her back and shoulders.

  As always, she pricked a finger at the entrance to the tent she shared with Alphonse and carefully traced the same simple rune into the fabric. The spell was an inefficient one. Tonight’s blood would be spent by the time they packed up camp the next morning, but Delyth did not think she would be able to sleep without the assurance that Enyo could not slip away without her waking.

  The ward finished, she stepped through the flap of the tent.

  Alphonse was not laying down on her pallet as she normally would have been. Instead, she was standing right by the entrance, and the moment Delyth slipped through the tent flap, she was on the warrior.

  Or rather, Enyo was.

  Her hand clamped around Delyth’s wrist harshly, forbidding her from yanking away. Her eyes, more catlike than Alphonse ever looked, peered up into Delyth’s face and then down to that pricked finger.

  “What do you want?” Delyth growled. Not exactly the response of a dedicated priestess. She needed to get Alphonse back as soon as possible so that she could sleep. Otherwise, this had the potential to escalate quickly.

  “Why is it, Ba’oto, that you have not offered me proper tribute?” She asked, voice low, something between a whisper and a growl. “Do you not wish your Taouk to be satisfied?” Those ember eyes tore away from the blood just once, to see Delyth’s face, before returning to the cut.

  “You want blood,” Delyth said, her voice flat. It wasn’t a question. Enyo was esurient, after all.

  In her mind’s eye, she could see countless morning offering ceremonies in the temple in which she had been raised. Priests dripping beads of blood into a thirsty flame… It wasn’t as though she had not been warned that Enyo demanded offerings.

  “Take it, then,” the priestess said.

  Enyo chuckled. “Such devotion…” Still, she didn’t drink. She sniffed the blood, clearly excited by it, but she paused.

  Those luminous eyes moved up to Delyth’s face again. “Unlessing you’re offering something better?”

  Delyth ground her teeth together.

  “Will you turn down the blood of a priestess, Taouk?” she asked, her eyes dark and glinting. “I didn’t think it like you to refuse a tribute.”

  Enyo was hardly one to argue, and quickly she brought Delyth’s pricked finger into her mouth. Sucking on the wound as one might suck the nectar out of a honeysuckle flower.

  With a popping sound, she withdrew the finger and sighed gratefully. “Moaz’s bloodline always did have such virile life force,” she murmured, running her thumb over the wound. It appeared Enyo was learning some of Alphonse’s magic because when she removed her touch, the little cut was healed.

  Delyth swallowed hard. Gods damn her to the depths of hell. Alphonse’s mouth was soft and warm.

  “I am interested, Ba’oto, in how the Hunter’s bastard ended up in my service. He’d be furious to know this. It pleases me, though…” Slowly she let go of Delyth’s hand, stepping away.

  The halfbreed shook her head, angry, though at herself or Enyo, she wasn’t sure. The Hunter’s bastard? How was that even possible? Delyth was only twenty-five, and the Gods had been banished for three hundred years. Unless she was just a descendant, a part of some bloodline sowed by a God’s careless lust.

  Did that mean there were more like her?

  Delyth didn’t want to show Enyo how little she knew. The Goddess was already far too crafty at putting Delyth on edge. Instead, she answered her as simply as possible. “The temple at Glynfford is the only life I have known.” She shifted in the small space, crossing her arms over her chest. “Was the offering suitable, Taouk? Will you let Alphonse sleep?”

  Something like ire flared in Enyo’s eyes. “You care for the vassal, but not Enyo,” she murmured. It should have been a question, but it seemed more like a statement.

  “I do not see why… this body…” She slid her hands, Alphonse’s delicate healing hands, up her throat, down her chest, over her arms. “It’s weak. This neck could snap so easily,” Enyo sighed as if belabored by the frailties of her dreadful human form.

  Delyth kept her face impassive and her eyes on Enyo’s rather than on Alphonse’s hands moving across their shared body. There was a draw there that she did not quite want to admit to herself, much less to Enyo.

  “There is more to strength than physical power,” she said, her jaw set stubbornly.

  “Certainly. Cunning mind… that she does not have. She can barely lie. Raw magical power?” Enyo sneered. “She will not use the magic you and I know that is superior. Afraid of blood. Afraid of sacrifice. Her only redeeming trait would be the pure will of gold. It never ceases to bother me… Constantly it is vying for attention. Demanding I—we—” Enyo cut herself off.

  “Goodnight, Ba’oto,” she breathed, settling onto the pallet, eyes wide as she stared up at the top of the tent.

  Delyth smiled into the darkness. Perhaps she ought to have been on Enyo’s side, but something about Alphonse’s gentle courage warmed her from within.

  The priestess lay atop the pallet next to Alphonse’s, her shoulders tense while the Goddess had control of the healer’s body, but she went ahead and draped a wing over her anyway. It would keep Alphonse warm and wake her should Enyo stir.

  “Goodnight,” Delyth returned belatedly and without her usual warmth.

  Chapter IX

  Fifth Moon, Waning Crescent: Thloegr

  In the cool of the evening, Delyth sat with her back against a tree and her feet to the fire, the regular rasps of her whetstone filling the clearing. Etienne sat nearby, scratching lines of ink into an ever-more tattered notebook, and Alphonse set about making dinner. The tents were already pitched, the gear stowed. It was pleasant, the routines of the campfire mimicking something like home.

  There was a flower behind her ear, just one of the common valley variety, but she reached up to brush it with her fingertips in between strokes with the knife. Alphonse had gone wandering off into a field of flowers earlier that day, but as it turned out, it was her choice to do so. She had explained to a baffled Etienne that the stems of these flowers were good for tinctures to stave off infection, then tucked a flower behind her own ear, his ear, and insisted Delyth wear one as well.

  They had walked the rest of the afternoon to the sound of Alphonse humming an Ingolan song about daisies.

  Delyth smiled to herself at the thought, though the smile dropped when Alphonse’s gentle voice took on Enyo’s demanding intonation. It had been three peaceful days since they had last seen the Goddess.

  “Taouk don’t cook,” Enyo pronounced, her tone that of a queen. She the
n sauntered to the edge of the clearing and peered up into a tree. Supposedly, for the pure pleasure of listening to it murmur as the wind blew through it.

  Delyth shared a glance with Etienne across the fire. “I’ll finish dinner. Will you keep an eye on her?”

  He nodded. He’d been a bit self-conscious about dinner ever since the girls had teased him for it, though with Alphonse doing most of the cooking, it hadn’t come up much.

  Delyth scooped up the spoon Enyo had dropped and set about her tasks. Etienne put away his book and followed the Goddess, his voice only dimly registering in the halfbreed’s mind: “What’s so interesting about the tree?”

  ✶

  “Must there be something specific?” Enyo asked, her voice a lazy drawl rather than the sharp, harsh notes it carried when she was annoyed. She seemed downright content. “This tree has stood here for years and years. No wind has knocked it down; no human tampered with it.” She patted the spruce’s trunk is something close to affection. “It is a very fine tree,” she announced as if giving a blessing.

  Perhaps she was. Etienne supposed it’d be like her.

  Curling one arm loosely about the trunk, hugging it almost, she swung around to look at Etienne more closely. Inspecting his limbs, his torso, his hair. Her long-lashed eyes, narrowed in the manner only Enyo could do, hovered on his face in particular.

  The quiet stretched on between them as Delyth worked.

  Etienne’s immediate instinct was to flinch away, to look anywhere but the hard, alien gaze. Only, he was tired of being the weak one.

  Every time Enyo appeared and Alphonse jumped into a waterfall or went charging into the underbrush, Delyth was steps behind, as though she feared neither Enyo herself or any obstacle the land might present. All while he remained. Left to help only after Delyth had done most of the dangerous parts.

  Etienne knew he wasn't a warrior, but still. It irked him to have to rely so much on another for the safety of his oldest and dearest friend. Besides, he was going to be a high sorcerer, after all. Already, he knew of magics that few others had delved into. Delyth was not the only one who could stand up to the nature Goddess.