Mercy (Deridia Book 1)

by Catherine Miller

  His father had sighed, closing his eyes. “I agree. And do you believe that can be found here?”

  For the first time, he realised what his father was truly asking. A grip of fear went through his belly at the prospect, but he took a deep breath, just as Faeder has always taught him. There would be fear in the sickroom, always would be, when things were going wrong and his charge was growing weaker. But that fear would cloud his thinking and unsteady his hands, so he had to master it.

  He did so now. Rykkon knew well the threats that would come, of what it would mean to his people should their healer depart from their ranks. And yet, with firm conviction, he agreed.

  Even then, he grew all the more aware that his father’s optimism that they could all journey together, was misplaced.

  Yet, looking at his mother—with her drawn features and frequently vacant stare—there was no possibility that he could insist she remain.

  Even when that meant he would lose them both.

  Rykkon placed a kiss into Prim’s hair, wondering how the simple gesture could bring him such comfort. “The elders naturally did not agree. Faeder was... more respectful of their wishes than I ever have managed. He always believed that eventually they would see that he had done no wrong in mating with my mother. It was only when I assured them that I would remain, would continue in his place, that they relented.”

  Prim turned, perching her forearms lending her height as she looked down at him in a surprising amount of outrage. “Why could you not have left in secret?”

  He brought his good hand to smooth away the hair clinging to her cheek. Her outrage was appreciated, even as it was unnecessary. “Mamé would have to travel slowly—it would have made for a rather pathetic escape if we had tried to leave without their knowledge. And Faeder was not willing to provoke them into ending her life.”

  Prim’s indignation faded as understanding took hold. “They would have done that?”

  Rykkon had never known for certain. The mating rite should have made such an action impossible, but when the needs of the whole were threatened...

  “I believed that they would have done so, yes. Which is why I had to say goodbye.”

  Prim stared down at him. Her expression was rather odd, and he could not easily determine the direction of her thoughts. Did she think him cowardly for acquiescing to the will of the elders? For not fighting?

  Except then her arms were around him, her embrace a fearsome thing as she buried her face into his neck. “I’m sorry you had to make a choice like that. It isn’t right that you were made to.”

  He held her to him with his good arm, strangely moved by her vehemence. “It was not as difficult as you might think. Not when I knew that it was best for her.”

  Prim leaned back, shaking her head. “That doesn’t make it easier on you. It might have been the right thing to do, and you were brave for having done it, but you were left all alone because of it. They forced you to stay here and then punished you for it. Are still punishing you.” She looked pointedly at his bandaged arm.

  “I had angered Sakmet. I had contact with his wife when he had expressly forbidden it.” The excuse was feeble, though true in its way. He had bandaged more than one wound that had come from a squabble between males that had escalated to the use of both fists and blades.

  Prim snorted. “Don’t defend him. Not to me. He hurt my husband, and I’m allowed to hate him.”

  He did not particularly like the idea of her hating anyone—he saw frequently in his people what bitterness could do to a person. But as she had already reminded him, she was not his to command. Only to love, and encourage. “I have a protective wife, I see,” he remarked, not in displeasure.

  Prim gave a grunt in agreement, burrowing down to her previous position. “Someone needs to work on protecting you. You’re determined to take on all of the world’s burdens yourself. And,” she whispered, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I am not sure you’ve noticed, but you’re just one man.”

  He glared at her, though it lacked any true emotion behind it. “Is that so?”

  Prim rolled her eyes at his pretence. “Yes. So maybe you should start listening to your wife and stop worrying about everything all the time. I get jealous, you know, when you’re distracted.”

  Rykkon hummed. “These are some terrible flaws you are confessing. Jealousy, an irrational desire to protect a male full-grown... If only I had known such things before we were joined.”

  He did not expect the slap he felt upon his chest, and though it was not hard, it was enough to sting. “Don’t even joke about that!”

  He picked up the hand she had used and brought it to his lips, smothering his smile as he kissed her palm. “My apologies, Prim. I am very happy to be your mate, as you well know.”

  He tucked her hand in his, keeping it there lest she feel the need to physically retaliate against his foolishness once again.

  “I was being serious, you know,” she complained. “They ask you to make impossible choices and then you feel guilty no matter the outcome. It isn’t right.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But these are the circumstances I have been given. Perhaps I react poorly to them, but... I have been alone with my nature for a very long time. And I... miss them. Every day. I wonder if she is well, if they have found some measure of happiness together. Some days, when the people are rude, when one of them threatens you, I wish to do nothing more than disappear into the night—to leave this place and their prejudice behind. But I remember my promise. As long as I remain here, they will not seek out my parents. They will leave them be, so my mother may live.”

  He had often wondered if she did in fact still live, if the fever had proven too much and caused her death prematurely. But he comforted himself with the knowledge that if she had perished, his father would return to him.

  And yet he had not. He refused to consider the possibility that something had happened to him, and it was his mother who had been forced to care for herself, her mind making the task impossible.

  But there was no purpose in fretting, even now when such thoughts caused his pulse to quicken, his worries ones he knew well.

  “So you’ll stay?” Prim asked. “No matter what? Just because you promised?”

  Rykkon stared at the ceiling, considering his words carefully. “A promise means something. Honour dictates that a vow be fulfilled.”

  “Even when you’re so unhappy? When you’re separated from your parents? If... if someone did do something to me, you would stay here and help them? Even then?”

  Rykkon closed his eyes, trying not to imagine it—trying not to picture his dwelling so cold and lonesome without her presence.

  “Perhaps,” he relented, speaking slowly as he considered her words, “there are some things more important than a promise. The mating rite does say that her needs are to come first, above all things.”

  Prim gave an odd sort of harrumph. “One thing that your people have right, then. I find the rest of it rather dubious.”

  He smiled, allowing his fingers to drift through her hair. “As do I, with ever growing frequency.”

  “Rykkon,” she murmured, after a time, his name sending a strange thrill through him. Perhaps if she spoke it with greater regularity it might cease to do so, but she was sparing with its use, and it never ceased to draw his full attention. “You had asked me if... if I would follow you if you asked it.”

  Rykkon stilled. “Yes. I remember.”

  Prim took a bracing breath. “Would you do the same? If I thought something was truly important?”

  He closed his eyes, preparing himself for what she might say. She could well ask him to forsake his promise, the reality of his people’s intolerance finally proving too much for her. And he could blame her for none of it. He intended to give her a good life here, but if that should prove impossible...

  The needs of his mate must come first. Above all else.

  “I would follow you.” And he meant it. There was no need
for her to extract a vow, not as the elders had done. No need for her to threaten or cajole.

  Simply to ask.

  And he would do all that he could.

  “I want to meet them. Your parents, I mean. I want you to be able to see them again. We don’t have to stay there forever, not when that would be... dishonourable for you, and dangerous for them, but...” She turned, looking at him fully, her eyes so very serious. “It’s time. Time for you to know for sure how your mother is doing, and how your father is coping. And if you need a nudge from your wife, permission to renege on your promise, if only for a little while, then you have it.”

  She leaned down and kissed him, lending him strength and a sense of purpose, excitement spreading through him at the prospect.

  “It’s time for you to see them again.”

  20. Journey

  “Not much further, Prim,” Rykkon encouraged her, amusement bleeding into his tone, though he carefully schooled his features so that her glare would not be met with even a hint of a smile.

  She had been grumbling for half the morning, and it took great determination not to remind her that she had been the one to insist upon this journey—much to his gratitude. He had been given a map the day of his parents’ departure, a general idea of their direction and where his faeder hoped to build them a home. It had remained untouched, shoved away at the bottom of one of his herb jars, a temptation that would have caused rashness in his darker moments.

  It was now stained green and was quite fragrant, but the inks had held well. Of course, much could have changed in the cycles since his parents had left, and they could have been forced to decide on another location entirely—without ability to leave him any word as to where they had truly settled.

  But he chose not to dwell upon such contingencies, simply enjoying the walk with his wife...

  Who apparently was not finding it so pleasant.

  “Trouble?” he asked, moving a step closer to her.

  She fiddled with her wrap, tugging at it with some measure of impatience, before huffing at him. “I don’t know what I was thinking. When you said that it would take days, I forgot what that meant in terms of blisters and sore muscles.”

  Rykkon did not know exactly what to tell her. He had never experienced the blisters, but when they made camp at night, he could well see the sores that were on her feet from the new shoes he had constructed for her. He would have suggested she remove them entirely and attempt the journey barefooted, but the days were growing shorter, the suns providing less warmth when they chose to break through the clouds that were becoming as much their companions as were the never ending trees.

  Rykkon stopped for a moment, debating, before swinging his pack of provisions to his front. Prim eyed him dubiously, but did not comment, using the halt to drink more water. “Are we really close or are you just placating me?”

  “We are closer than we were yesterday,” he answered distractedly, his thoughts on if he could truly travel with the pack positioned so. His arms were free to draw his blade should anything choose to attack, and he could drop it quickly enough. Or, if he could not, he supposed it would be like fighting as one of the portly colonists he had seen on occasion.

  He turned his back to Prim, kneeling. “You may ride upon my back for a time, if you would like.”

  He glanced behind him when she did not immediately do so, wondering if there was something inappropriate about it. It was true, most youngling were strapped there when they were particularly new, but he did not mean to suggest she was as weak as they—merely that she was tired and hurt and should be allowed to rest.

  “Won’t that be too heavy for you?”

  That did not mean she had to insult him instead.

  “My wife thinks her husband weak?”

  Prim rolled her eyes. “Your wife feels bad already for not carrying more of the supplies. She’d feel worse if you had to carry her as well.”

  That was ridiculous. It was for his sake that they were travelling, and it was the shoes he had provided that proved too rough on her apparently delicate feet.

  He reached behind him and grabbed her hand, tugging her forward. “You worry too much, Prim. But if it should appease you, if I tire I shall drop you.”

  He sensed more than saw that she rolled her eyes once more.

  Her limbs tentatively wrapped about him, and he almost told her to tighten her hold but decided instinct would prove more effective. So he stood, and suddenly she clutched and very nearly cried out in his ear, and he could not contain his chuckle. “Are you new to this?”

  He was fairly certain she would have given him a swat if she was not more interested in keeping her hold about his torso. “Nobody offered,” she murmured against the back of his neck, apparently where she was choosing to hide for the moment.

  It was just as well, the view about them unchanging for the past two days. The forest was vast—he had known that from his actual journeys for ingredients, precisely what the village believed him to be doing now. He had not truly approached them on the matter, deciding that to draw undue attention to what was meant to be an innocuous trip for more grenut—which he had lied a little and said had disappeared from its typical valley. He comforted himself with the knowledge that the valley was indeed empty, for he had picked it all and carefully stored it, as it perished during the cold season.

  Kondorr appeared doubtful, more particularly on why he was being told at all, except when Rykkon mentioned that the journey would last a matter of days.

  His eyes had narrowed suspiciously, a frown deepening his features. “And what if you are needed during that time?”

  Rykkon had looked perfectly contrite, which was not difficult to do as he had often held the same thought during their two days of preparation. “It is my responsibility to gather for the medicines they will undoubtedly require. I have no apprentice to send in my stead.”

  Kondarr grunted. “Perhaps you should be given one.”

  Rykkon held in his grimace. “I merely wished for Mincel to be informed of my departure lest her arm prove any more troublesome.”

  The excuse sounded weak to his ears, as he had never taken the time to inform anyone of his movements before when he would disappear for a day or two in search of either herbs or foodstuffs. But this would have him away longer, and he would not frighten them into sending out a search prematurely.

  Kondarr made no immediately reply, continuing to stare at Rykkon searchingly. “And you will return from this... venture?”

  Rykkon looked directly into his eyes, hoping to imbue all of his sincerity. “Of course.”

  Kondarr eventually gave a nod, though he did not seem exactly approving in his manner either. “Something for you to consider—incentive, perhaps, should you grow tempted to simply leave us all behind. The elders have met, and are in talks about whether or not to give Mercy over to the Arterians. Perhaps you should like to be here to petition them against doing so.”

  Rykkon had been unprepared to hear of their decision—in his lifetime, there had never been talks of revealing their position, of using the colonists there as a currency for trade. The safety of his people in exchange for Prim’s.

  It was a terrible barter, one that filled him with dread regardless of how little respect he held for the people there.

  He hoped that Kondarr was merely using that as an excuse to hurry his steps, to bring him back to the village as quickly as possible without any true danger of his words being carried out. He could not believe that Lorrak would agree—not when that would mean giving something of apparent value to the creatures that killed Okmar—and he trusted in his obstinacy to allow Rykkon enough time to do what he truly wished.

  To speak to his father about what his actions should be in the matter.

  He shifted Prim slightly, causing her to hold onto him all the tighter, and he chuckled at her frightened manner. “I am not going to drop you,” he assured her, though he was tempted to make her believe so, simply to tease.


  It amazed him how free he felt, out here in the Wilds. This forest was no one’s territory, inhabited by beasts and critters perhaps, but no being that meant harm beyond the possible desire for a meal.

  But he had his weapons for that, and would not use them unless provoked.

  “Better?” he asked after a time, when her hold relaxed somewhat and she seemed more amiable to the arrangement.

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly, and he smiled as he felt her lips brush against his neck in a kiss. “Thank you. I don’t mean to complain all the time. I just... I’m not used to much travel.”

  Rykkon hummed, his good mood making him daring in his teases. “I do not recall you offering much complaint during the trek from Mercy. Perhaps life with me has made you too soft.”

  “Or,” Prim retorted, her tone dry. “Life with you has proven that you are soft, and therefore I don’t have to be afraid of you and keep quiet all the time.”

  Rykkon gave a grunt of mock annoyance. “You wound your mate with your talk of weakness.”

  “I’m sure,” Prim replied, peering as best she could to see his expression, though he kept it carefully neutral. But he was certain his eyes would betray his excitement, the freedom he felt being so far from the village. It was a wholly new experience, and never had he imagined he could feel so... light.

  Even as now he held both their provisions and his mate upon his person.

  Yet his steps were quicker, as he navigated through the forest, musseroms of vibrant reds and oranges punctuating the rich brown earth, the trunks of the trees covered in moss of green and the occasional stripe of blue.

  “How close are we actually?” Prim asked him, resting her head on his shoulder. Thankfully she kept her voice low, mindful that her mouth was so close to his ear.

  “We shall reach there before first dusk, I believe.” Unless the map was completely in error and they would spend days searching for any sign of where they might be. Or if the elders grew suspicious of his absence and sent a party of warriors to return their wayward healer to the village.