Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1)

by Christina Quinn

  “I’ve known you for three days, during which you’ve spent most of your time unconscious. I’m flattered. Were I someone who had lived a different life than I have, I would probably have no reservations about entertaining the possibilities. But I don’t see you coming back here after you’re healed, and the idea of bedding a stranger isn’t appealing to me. If you just want to dip your wick in some pretty thing, there’s a nice girl at the inn. I could fetch her for you if that’s what you want.”

  “No. I… Forget it.” He sighed in defeat.

  * * * *

  By the end of the week, enough snow had melted that people started visiting again. Ynyr stopped by one night with a large bag slung over his shoulder. There was still an extraordinary amount of tension when I was alone with Aneurin, so the visit was a welcome distraction. The black-haired, hazel-eyed elf, with his delicately pointed ears, was always a welcome sight.

  “I thought our friend might appreciate a little wine and some dice,” Ynyr said as he pulled back his hood while I closed the door behind him.

  “I’m sure he’d welcome the company.” I grabbed a stool, took it into the bedroom, and set it beside the bed. Aneurin didn’t seem happy to see Ynyr and a terse exchange in elven tongue followed. At the end of the outburst, his gaze trailed me as I moved to check his leg.

  Once again, I tuned out the room as I checked the bone. Sliding my hand over his femur, I lightly grazed the tender flesh. The swelling had gone down for the most part, and the only warmth from the leg radiated from the area of the break. He’d be able to put pressure on it soon, maybe a week or two.

  “I wish I healed as fast as your kind,” I remarked as I stood.

  “Speaking of which. I brought some warmer clothes for you, Aneurin. I thought since you’re on the mend you might want to take a walk through the town with Valentina for exercise. See what we live like here.” Ynyr was full of mirth as always, but there was something about the tone of his voice that I wasn’t sure I liked.

  “It’ll be another week still before he can put pressure on the leg. It’s a more complex break than what happened to your daughter.”

  “Would you care to play with us?” Ynyr smiled up at me. Dice could be fun; any distraction was a good distraction at the moment.

  “Sure, I’ll fetch some cups,” I offered with a chuckle, after adjusting the table beside the bed. In the common room, I grabbed a chair from the dining table and three wooden cups from my shelf. I passed the cups out, and Ynyr poured the wine. Then I proceeded to lose every round we played.

  An hour later, Aneurin and Ynyr were fairly drunk, and though I wasn’t exactly sober, I was nowhere near as drunk as they were. Still, they beat me mercilessly at the game. The truth was I doubt I’d ever understand elvish dice. Each die had six sides, with each side holding the image of a chess piece: pawn, knight, priest, rook, queen, or king. I knew pairs and multiples won, but beyond that, I was confused, completely and utterly confused. Cupping my dice, I shook them before tossing them out and watching them roll across the table. I had one of each piece. Damnit. I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face.

  “Nothing again. I give up. I surrender.” Frowning, I gathered my dice and set them in a row.

  “That.” Aneurin gestured to my dice. “That is a winning hand.”

  “Is it?” I furrowed my brows and looked and up at Ynyr, who was smirking. “Oh, you’re a dirty cheat!” I flicked Ynyr’s forehead, and he chuckled.

  Our joy was cut short, my front door flung open. I quickly jumped up and shut the door to my chamber on my way out to the common room. A group of men in full armor had forced themselves inside. Blood dripped from their chain and plate onto the floor.

  “We need you to come wit’ us,” one of them said. “Now,” he barked, causing me to jump.

  “And if I refuse?” I furrowed my brows as I looked them over. I didn’t recognize any of them. These were not the city guards.

  “You won’t if you know wot’s good for you, bitch,” one growled at me.

  “Fine. What will I be doing when I get wherever you need me to be?” I asked as I walked to the shelf piled high with herbs and retrieved an empty basket. “Burns, wounds, breaks… I need to know.” I turned back to them and scanned their armor. I caught the emblem on one of their bloodied tabards and my eyes closed for a moment. It was a white lily at the center of a golden sun on crimson; they were Knights of the Morning Lily, supposed holy knights of the Dawn, tasked with ridding the forests and towns of those deemed impure by the church—nonhumans and witches (or anything that resembled the vocation). They had to have been desperate to come to my door, or they planned to kill me when I finished helping them. I wouldn’t put it past them—though they did tend to make lavish spectacles of burning Cunning Women and herbalists. Every village loved a good burning…until someone got sick or hurt and they realized they had no one to treat the injured party properly—aside from the Barber Surgeon and his hoard of leeches.

  “Few broken bones. Lots o’ arrows. We ran into a band o’ those stag-plowing elves. Set them straight, we did. Chopped those cowards up nice-like.”

  Repressing my growing need to throw things at them and toss them out of my home, I started putting bandages and pots of ointment into the basket. The Dawn was the worst thing to come out of the new king’s ascension to the Ersland throne. He put the high priest in charge of everything, and the first thing the vile man did was put together the Knights of the Morning Lily. The Dawn claimed that everything negative—every flood, plague, famine, crop failure, wayward child—was the result of witchcraft and some far-reaching nonhuman conspiracy. Their turning on elves was inevitable; elves were immune to plague and—according to what I’d heard—couldn’t die of old age. They had long been looked at with mistrust, and their small isolated numbers made them easy scapegoats. It was only now, with this new king, that persecution had become systematic. Elves had always made forests dangerous, but that danger seemed to increase with the ferocity with which their extinction was pursued.

  The Knights being in my village terrified me, and it was that terror that made me grab the small pouch of nightshade root. Nightshade was the most deadly plant I had available in the area. The only reason to keep the roots around was to make poison. When I clipped my nightshade plant before the frost I had kept the roots for some reason unknown to me—I never had before. The Knights all had wounds. It would be easy enough to put it in a tea to relieve pain or mix it in with ointment. If they were killing elves in this part of the kingdom, it wouldn’t be long before they tied me to a pyre.

  “Let me grab my cloak.” I sighed as I closed the lid of my basket.

  “Hurry up!”

  Once I had my cloak on, the Knight roughly shoved me out my door. Slipping in the snow, I fell, and he kicked me with his plated boot. I yowled, and a sob broke from my lips.

  “On your feet, bitch!”

  Pulling myself to standing, I held my stomach. I didn’t need to look under my dress to know I would have a massive bruise come morning.

  I grinned at them. “Lead on, my lord.” My vision sparkled with unshed tears of joy and agony. I was looking forward to poisoning every last one of them. They didn’t seem to notice my sudden cheerful compliance. It was clear the thought that I might poison them never crossed their minds. They thought their swords would keep them safe.

  It didn’t take long for us to reach their camp; it was only two hours’ ride from town. Oh, they were certainly too close. Their camp was roughly forty men, and all seemed wounded in some way or another. It was almost too easy. The first thing I did was brew a massive cauldron of tea, adding enough nightshade root to kill with only a few drops. Then, I went to work bandaging the seriously wounded, only mentioning that the tea aided sleep and relieved pain. The sun was cresting when the camp finally fell still and silent. It was eerie. And if not for the pain in my side I might have felt something for the men I killed. I made my way to their commander’s tent, stepping over bodies.

/>   Some had caught on. They had their drawn their swords, but they never made it to me. Most looked like they had simply fallen asleep. The ones who had tea from the bottom lived longer, but not long enough. My very soul was numb as I pushed the commander’s slumped-over, corpulent body out of his chair. I gathered all the correspondence I could find. Then, slowly and methodically, I set the camp on fire with a torch from the commander’s tent. I set all the horses free except for one and after watching the camp burn for a few minutes, mounted the large bay and rode back toward my village at a leisurely canter with my basket on my arm.

  It was noon when I returned. I dismounted when the walls of Laeth were in sight and walked the rest of the way. By the time I reached home, the ache in my side was strong enough to cause tears to form, blurring my vision. Every breath sent a sharp pain through my chest. My ribs were bruised. Ynyr and his daughter were seated at my dining table with an exceptionally pretty elf with loose blond curls and blue eyes.

  “Thank Arwn!” Ynyr exclaimed as I stepped in. “We feared the worst…” I walked stiffly to my shelf and grabbed a small linen bag of herbs and tossed it into my kettle.

  “I’m fine,” I managed through gritted teeth as I collapsed in a chair at the table. I set my basket down and opened it, removing the piles of letters I had taken from the commander’s tent.

  “How did you…?” Ynyr’s brows furrowed.

  “That black smoke was you, wasn’t it?” the blond elf asked. I know that voice. It was Islwyn. I didn’t respond.

  “They were two hours away by horse… They—” I stopped when I noticed the blood on Islwyn’s dark, heavy cloak. It wasn’t his blood. “I dealt with them. Let us leave it at that.” I slowly stood and poured myself a mug of tea. I stared at the steaming dark brown liquid for a handful of moments before taking a slow sip. I poured another glass and stepped past the gathered elves. I opened the door to my room; Aneurin was sleeping, and I hadn’t the heart to wake him. I left the cup and closed the door.

  “Ynyr, I don’t mean to be a bother, but can I borrow your bathing tub?” I asked as I held my side.

  “Of course. Come on, Rhosyn, let’s fetch the tub.” Ynyr grabbed the young girl’s hand, and they both departed, leaving me with Islwyn.

  “You’re hurt.”

  No shit. “I’ll be fine.” I returned to the table and the letters strewn across it. I fingered the gold and white sealing wax.

  “Why take the letters?”

  “They came to my door last night. I want to know if I need to move.”

  “You’re safe for at least a year.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Those men were there for Aneurin—they were elf hunters. Witch hunters are usually accompanied by an archpriest and a wagon full of kindling.”

  “And you’re the reason they were wounded.”

  “And you’re the reason they’re dead.” We eyed each other dubiously for a moment, and then Ynyr and Rhosyn returned with the round bathing tub. They set it in front of the fire. I had borrowed it before a handful of times. Usually, I went to the inn if I wanted a bath, but if the inn was full or I was ill I borrowed Ynyr’s.

  “I just got a work order, so I’ll send Rhosyn back to fetch it later tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me. You’ve done a lot for my family.” Ynyr offered me a smile before he called to Rhosyn and the two disappeared out the door.

  “The river water is okay to drink again,” Islwyn commented idly as he kicked his feet up on the table.

  “Thank you. Aneurin will be well enough to walk with a cane in a few days.” I stood and filled two kettles with water and set them on the hearth. I then dumped the remaining buckets into the tub.

  “Good. Here, let me get you some water.” He didn’t allow me to protest. He grabbed the three empty buckets and left.

  Before that moment, I hadn’t missed my bed too much, but the pain and ache in my ribs would make sleeping in a chair or cot impossible. I needed an actual bed, but my bed was occupied. The kettles were boiling by the time Islwyn returned. I grabbed a large linen pouch of herbs off my shelf and tossed it into the water.

  “I’ll be back in a few days. Here… For Aneurin’s food.” Islwyn dropped a coin pouch on the table.

  “All right.” The pain in my side and chest was distracting. Islwyn left, and I locked the door behind him.

  Once he was gone, I added the boiling water to the freezing and went back into my room and retrieved another dress and a large linen sheet from my chest. I then stripped out of my dress and slipped into the floral-scented water. The heat instantly dulled the ache of the massive bruise. Next to my navel was the clear outline of a boot. It looked worse than it was. Nothing had ruptured, but the deep purple bruise was stark against my skin. Still, in spite of the ache in my body, the warmth of the water lulled me to sleep.

  * * * *

  Before I knew it, I was helping Aneurin take his first shaky steps without the brace. He leaned heavily against me, but still he towered over me. Elves are taller than humans on average. I was used to Ynyr’s towering height, but there was something about being close to someone so tall. It gave me a false sense of safety. The clothes Ynyr had lent him seemed to hang off his body though they were of similar build. The rough wool scraped my cheek as he shifted with every step. But there was something about being close to him that made me forget myself, made me forget what I had convinced myself only the week before.

  The kiss just happened. It was like we were drawn to other’s mouths, like he was a bee and I was a flower in full bloom. He nibbled at my lips and probed my mouth almost forcibly with his tongue. Sliding his hand down my side, he found the tender bruised flesh. I yelped as pain shot through my side, ruining the blissful moment of forgetfulness.

  “You’re hurt?” He furrowed his brows, his gaze sweeping over me.

  “I’m still bruised from that sheepfucker’s boot.”

  “From a week ago?” He raised a brow.

  “Yes, it was a deep bruise. I’ll not heal for another week, maybe two. Humans are fragile.” That last little statement lingered on my lips as I thought about the lives I ended in that field two hours from town.

  “I think you’re far from fragile. Most wouldn’t have the balls to poison forty men. Let alone do it while sitting in the midst of them.”

  “Yes, and in doing so, I lived up to all of the hate speech they spew about us Cunning Women. And when they finally come for me—and they will come—I’ll have no defense. I commune with nonhumans, and I’m a poisoner… At least when they come for me, I’ll know why.” Laughing bitterly, I shook my head, before pulling my long dark tresses over my shoulder. I nervously combed my hair with my fingers.

  “What you did was brave. Did you really think they would have let you leave? Think about how they treated you once you stepped out of your home. Ynyr told me they shoved you to the ground and started kicking you before you had taken two steps. I know what the Knights do, Valentina. Make no mistake. If you hadn’t killed them, you wouldn’t have returned. After all, to them, you too are deemed unclean and unfit to live. Because some delusional monk wrote a book to be popular.” I turned and stared at him for a time. Those odd bicolored irises held an incredible amount of sorrow. “I’m glad you did what you did. Not just because you wouldn’t be able to keep tending to me if you were dead. But because you’re a good person. One of the last truly good people, I think.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’ve lived with you for almost three weeks now, plow-all I don’t know you.” He chuckled and swept his hair out of his eyes and behind one delicately pointed ear. I studied him for a while; he was rubbing his knee where the break had been. The bone still wasn’t fully healed.

  “You should lie back down.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s nice to feel my feet touch the floor again.”

  “Fine. A little longer and then you have to lie back down.”

 
“You’re just eager to have me back in your bed.” He smirked at me; it was boyish and charming and everything a smirk should be. I turned from him and walked toward the bedroom, my gaze turning to the ceiling, unamused.

  “I’m going to change the bedding and air out the furs while you’re up,” I called from the room as I started gathering the furs off the bed.

  “You don’t have to sleep on the cots, you know.”

  “You’re almost well enough to head home.” I walked back into the main room with the heavy furs over my arm. “Where is home?” I inquired as I shook out the large fur-lined blanket.

  “That’s an exceptionally expensive blanket. How did you come by it?” He continued to smirk at me, and I sighed slowly.

  “I suppose we’ve reached an impasse.” I couldn’t help but giggle.

  “Mhm, it would appear so.” After a moment, that smirk turned into a genuine smile. “I live relatively close by, actually.”

  “You’re one of those elven bandits that camp near the edge of the trees, aren’t you?” I tilted my head to the side. It would make sense. Usually, when guards have problems with elves they tend to use their fists long before they use weapons. He had to have been dangerous for them to skip their fists.

  “Does that upset you?”

  “No, not particularly.” I shrugged.

  “And now that you know I’m close?” His question made my mouth dry. Swallowing, I walked into the bedroom and busied myself with changing the rough linen sheets. It was nice to have someone to talk to and pleasant to have someone around.

  “If I were to allow you to…attempt to seduce me, it would have to be done secretly.”

  “That doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I want you.”

  “You only want me because I’m here,” I retorted as I finished changing the sheets, stuffing the dirty ones in a lidded basket in the corner.

  “No, but admittedly proximity has made me bold.” He tapped his fingertips on the table. “It wouldn’t go too well for either of us if people found out. But I’m not easily scared.”