Humming low, soft magic tainted it, caressing my skin. It offered me gentle comfort, much as Vidi’s presence did naturally.
Carved into the leather pouch was a heart and the words, ‘sorry’. I understood that all too well.
Strange, how the loss of the locket didn’t hit me nearly as hard as losing Vidi. For all of my supposed attachment—no, fascination—with the trinket, Vidi was the sister I’d thought I’d always wanted but could never have. I loved her like one.
Loosening the small token of affection and slipping it on my wrist, I twisted it this way and that. It immediately invoked thoughts of her, and I loved it. Warmth, low and slow, but unending, gently brushed over me. A protection, of sorts.
Once again, though, life was teaching me a lesson. I’m meant to be alone.
Slowly getting to my feet, I ran my hand over my stomach protectively, shaking my head at myself. How stupid could I have been? Vidi even noted, as we’d examined my tummy for any signs of impending motherhood the previous night, right before my bath, that it did look softly rounded, more so than it usually does, though not full with child, just a small bump.
“No,” I said slowly, humming softly to the babe that was surely growing inside of me, “not alone.” A small, patient smile tipped my lips as tears slowly tracked down my cheeks. “Not anymore.”
Small Beginnings
A whole month had passed. Traveling like this all alone just wasn’t for me, I realized the first day, and I yearned for more stable conditions before my time came.
The babe, and there definitely was a babe, was already bumping up and out, tucked safely away in my belly. Too nervous to talk to anyone, I’d kept my head down, hood up, purchased a rather sad looking mule and supplies, and promptly left.
They want my baby. Even now, so far away, no one the wiser who I am or my whereabouts, not a soul who could recognize me, my stomach dropped to my toes and bile rose in my throat. No one is taking my baby from me, I swore, hands already slowly circling the precious being growing inside of me.
A warm glow filled me and I smiled softly. “Like that, do you?” I chuckled, feeling a tiny but sharp kick I wasn’t sure I should be feeling so soon. It all seemed so sudden. Too afraid to go to a midwife and seek advice, I chose to dwell on it quietly and worry. Fear and a fierce protective streak were a powerful motivator.
What if someone comes through and says they recognized me? They know I’ve conceived—they might go there first.
My fingers knotted, clenching over my belly as they rested on it lightly. No. It’s too dangerous. I won’t risk it.
The fact that whoever fathered the little one would remain unknown until I gave birth weighed on me, as well, but not as much as the fear of what someone might do to my child, however things panned out.
An Ornthren baby wouldn’t be safe running about like any other child. To my way of thinking, he’d be a walking target. Who knows what someone might do. And if the child was Trystan’s... Eyes squeezed shut tight, I willed the little one to be the product of my bonding, not the machinations of a monster.
Either way, no matter the father, I already loved him or her with all my heart, and nothing would ever change that.
Still... in the back of my mind, I prayed fervently for a grey skinned, hairless child with glowing orange eyes.
Unsettled
Not sure if this would suit my needs, if it really was a good fit, I didn’t know about renting the small cottage I’d found, close enough to the local village yet far enough away, in the long term. This was the sixth village in so many days, weeks- Is it months now? Hmm... How many...?
Ah. I waved it off. Doesn’t matter. The horse I’d bought from a farmer along my journey, Aitziber, a beautiful stallion of pure ebony, with soulful grey eyes swirling with bits of yellow and blue, and a sweet temperament that belayed his strength and small stubborn streak.
He was fast—despite his hobbled leg—like the wind, so quick footed, never tiring easily, unlike myself lately.
Dreams eluded me lately, just a smooth, blank canvas that rippled from time to time, sometimes tumultuous, like a storm rushing in, but I was blanketed, protected, as I watched the waves rolling in. At others, the surface was serene, blurs of color, flashes of grey and orange, rippling blue, stroking, blurring and muted, as if through thick fog or glass, below the surface.
Reminding me so much of Troll, I ached for days after the more pleasant ones, images of smirking smiles, gravelly, rusty chuckles, and thick but gentle stroking hands, lips touching mine tenderly. Those mornings, waking up sobbing into the bedclothes, were the worst.
“But he didn’t want me,” I tried to tell myself, time and again. I still wasn’t convinced. Too much to the contrary, despite his insistence otherwise, told me he did—does. He has to care at least a little.... right? I can’t be feeling this way, all by myself.
Then why isn’t he here? I always asked myself. And would he want this little one? Would he accept the child, Ornthren or otherwise, if he did ever come back? Dread creeping up my spine, my hands tightened on my belly.
Farther Along
“Oh, something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.” Waddling back and forth, my distended belly protruding out in front of me, I had this horrible feeling slamming at me, over and over. Granted, I was more prone to emotional fits as my time drew nearer, but this was moving along much faster than I’d anticipated.
A knock at the door signaled Adamina was here. Oh, good, I thought, with no small amount of relief. The young woman new herbs from her mother, and had been a boon as I reached my time.
“Any day now,” she kept saying softly in that sing song voice of hers.
“Come in!” I called, breathing in and out slowly, waiting until the pain passed to straighten slowly.
“Pain again?” Adamina murmured quietly, closing the door behind her to set her basket by the door. Her earrings dangled heavily from her ears, pulling her lobes down with the weight of them. They suited her, if not a bit out of place, but she’d said they were a gift on the day of her birth. I could tell by the way she fiddled with them, fingers stroking over them to make sure she hadn’t lost them, that she treasured them.
“Be fine,” I muttered, walking over to the small bed in the corner to lie down.
“Having a lot of them lately.” When I didn’t answer, she quirked up a small, slender dark brow.
“Off and on,” I admitted reluctantly.
Adamina’s thin but expressive face lit up. “Soon. Maybe tonight.”
“I hope not,” my voice was a low grumble, a tired yawn escaping me, “I’m too tired. And are you sure everything is alright? It seems so... soon.”
“Everything is as it should be, and you’re always tired.” Making herself right at home, Adamina busied herself warming water for a tincture.
“But it’s only been,” I counted backwards in my head. Has it really been long enough to pass a season, plus a little more?
“Here, this will help,” she promised, a small, secret smile twitching at the corners of her lips.
“Has Brevin been back yet?” I asked quietly, biting my lip when her back was turned.
“Strange, that you have that little urchin running around doing errands for you. Be careful when dealing with them,” she warned sternly, youthful face pinching tight, worry etching her dark brow, “they can’t be trusted.”
“Mm.” But I trusted him, and it was as simple as that.
Found the first day, huddled into a corner in what would soon be my new bedroom, he was shivering, despite the warming weather. Noting the terrified look on his face, all alone, much like myself, I’d quickly introduced myself, offered him a loaf of bread and the spare blanket I kept for Aitziber—who never seemed to need it—and invited him to stay as long as he pleased, but he had to promise to be helpful and honest.
Trust was of the utmost importance for me, but I hadn’t really counted on him staying past the first week. Trust, it turned out, was important to the litt
le boy too. He was loyal to a fault, and had proven himself beyond resourceful. Best decision I’d ever made. Brevin, after getting over the initial shock of it all, working for me in exchange for a roof over his head and food to warm his belly, was loyal to the bone.
I never did settle in the small cottage by that village, overhearing two men in town rambling about a band of large men, traveling only at night, roaming the country side, searching out young women.
What young women? Or was it a young woman? Too much of a coincidence to overlook, I’d left at dawn, saddling up Aitziber with as much as he could carry, riding for as long as I could at the snail’s pace I was comfortable with, going so far as to sleep in the dirt near the woods when we lost light, hiding under the cover of the trees until the sun had shown again.
Now, settled into a small house on an old rundown farm, nothing more than barren dirt, a dilapidated barn, and a few emaciated goats, the only thing standing was the house itself. It would do, and if I was careful, I could slowly fix it up after the babe was born. I’d have to make sure the purchases were small, not wanting to draw too much attention to the single ‘widow’, as I’d introduced myself, making up a name on the spot to go with it.
Granted, looking back, Petunia Peepots wasn’t the best of choices, but I’d panicked, and that’s what had come tumbling out. Now, every time some called out for Petty, as Adamina had come to calling me, or Ms. Peepots, I cringed.
“Everything good in town?” I asked carefully as I sat down at the small table for two. I’d scrounged up a chair, using the broken pieces from the ones left behind to piece one together. Brevin, the dear boy, was quite handy with tools. Unable to scrounge up anything more, I’d settled on stacked, salvaged wooden crates that acted as stools, just until we could find or make more suitable replacements. I still had plenty of coin left, though none of the other bags had ever popped up again, but it wasn’t about the money. Coveting safety above all else, if that meant living sparingly, I could handle that.
“You ask that a lot, you know that?” Addie poured a steaming mug of tea, stirring it with a fork as she blew on it carefully, giving me a sweet, gentle smile as she quickly sat the mug down in front of me.
Lips twisting as the smell wafted towards me, not unwelcome or noxious, but familiar in a way that had my back up, the hairs on my nape pricking. With a soft shake of my head, my lips clamped tight and I slowly slid it back.
Addie burst out laughing, her full lower lip twitching as she snorted. “You act as if it’s poison!” she chortled.
Eyeing it dubiously, I clucked my tongue playfully, swatting at her with the small kitchen rag I’d used the old flour sacks to cut up into as she made her way past. “Well, is it?”
“Is it what?” She blinked down at me as she settled her tall frame atop a stacked-wooden-crate stool.
When my meaning caught, she gasped and snatched the towel from my hands, tossing it at my face. “Oh! Ungrateful!”
I burst out laughing at the look on her face, allowing her to scoot the small mug back towards me, if only to escape her ire.
“You know... I’ve never used a mug like this before.” Lifting it up to examine it again, I tapped the beautifully done, thick ceramic with my fingertips, pleased with the hollow ‘thump’. “Mamma always preferred her dainty cup and saucer—the only one that had managed to survive throughout the years—over tin.” If it was for something hot, we’d had plenty of those wooden cups Papa had liked to carve.
“People use them all the time.” Her head tilted a little and her eyes blinked slowly, reminding me of a lazy cat Otvla once had. Long lashes batting thickly against her smooth, unblemished cheeks, she studied me curiously.
“Not us,” I said quietly, offering a small, polite smile.
They did, people used clay mugs all the time—true—but none quite like this, and definitely not anyone from Grenhull. A group of people more focused on crops and livestock, pretties like this wouldn’t have stood a chance in that place. It was artwork you could drink out of—rich, earthy browns speckled with black, curving up like a tornado, leaves of all different sizes, shapes and colors embellishing the piece beautifully.
“Where are you from, did you say?” Adamina’s expression lit up, and warning bells clanged like a siren in my skull.
A few fierce kicks in my belly let me know the babe was feeling restless enough too. Or maybe that was my own nerves instigating it.
“I don’t remember where, exactly, you said you hailed.”
“I didn’t.” Grinning cheekily, I popped up and walked to the small basin by the water bucket, pretending to wash up.
“Alright, duly noted. Changing the subject.” Lips pursed, I heard her mutter, “Such a secretive thing, you’d think the hounds of hell were nippin’ your heels.”
“Maybe they are.”
A peel of laughter escaped Addie’s lips, though they still turned down, and she rolled her eyes. “That’d be the day.”
More like the four corners were hounding me like a wild hog on the run, but that thought never made it past the tip of my tongue. My trust in others had diminished, and though I quite liked her, I knew better than to get attached.
Brevin, though, well, he and I, that was different. It was a bond of mutual respect and affection. That little man in the making needed me as much as I needed him, and he’d quickly wormed his way in.
“You really should have some,” Addie pouted, going back to her usual henny-pecky self—nagging. No one could nag like Adamina. Long, slender fingers, tipped with strong, feminine fingernails I envied, slowly encircled the rim of my cup as she griped.
“Why is that?” I teased, stalling. A small tap at the tiny window in front of me had me glancing up. Brevin motioned for me to come outside, pressing a finger to his lips as he gestured to Addie. Nodding once, I motioned that he should go ‘round to the barn.
“Like I said, it will help.”
“Oh? Help ease the pains, or bring them on?”
The startled look on her face, falling by a quick attempt to mask it, didn’t hide what I’d already guessed.
But why? I didn’t need my Other sense to tell me something funny was going on here, suspicion creeping up on me, my own built in natural born instincts, my gut as it dropped, guiding me on this one
“Speaking of milk, I’m fresh out. The goat Brevin traded for the other day was full of milk,” a wistful sigh left my lips, “and you know I’ve always wanted to try my hand at it.” Excuses really. I needed a minute to slip off and talk to Brevin, who’d always been wary of the tall, commanding Addie, and mull over the knots forming in my stomach, the more she spoke.
“You’ve milked a cow,” Addie grumbled sourly, “could it really be all that different?”
Shrugging, I forced a smile I wasn’t really feeling, hoping she bought it. “Only one way to find out.”
“Did you think about my offer?”
I had, and maybe that’s really when my skepticism, as of late, had kicked in. Adamina had wanted me to go with her to her Aunts for a spell—a woman, me, of which she knows all of but a few months—thinking it would lift the dark cloud that’s been hovering over me heavily, slowly sucking all the joy out of everything until some days I went to bed crying, not even sure why.
The haze of the blues washing over me so thickly had smothered everything else for a time as I’d slipped into it, muffling my worry over my friend, in favor of my thanks as I’d tried to keep my head up and she’d been one to help.
I’d shucked off the idea of it relating to Troll, my morose state, though I did wonder about him, almost constantly. It was as if he’d vanished, not a trace, not even a faint hum of a connection thrumming through me. Had he died? Was he near? Far? What became of my bonded? Did what he’d planned work?
Of course, in a sense, it surely had. I felt nothing but my own stirrings for him, the bonding stunted somehow, but my heart was still heavy at the loss. Would I ever heal? I wondered. Did I want to? Sometimes I think mysel
f crazy, thankful for the sadness that could often times consume me, more often most recently than not, a sharp reminder to appreciate the good days.
I hadn’t realized, up until now, how much it truly had taken me over. Now, as I stared at Addie, I felt nothing but suspicion, a heaping helping of doubt. Why? Why? A thousand why’s. Why did she offer to help me, a veritable stranger? Why did I let her, and so quickly? Why is she offering to put me up with her relations? Really, though I’ll admit we’ve grown close, I had to cast my doubts. In all of this, what was in it for her?
Nothing is ever free... There’s always a price to pay. What’s her price? How steep the toll?
“When do you leave?” I forced the words past dry lips. My little one rolled around, giving a good jab to my insides that had me grunting.
“Two days hence. I thought to leave at dawn, then we could make it there by night fall, as long as we travel straight through.”
She chattered on a little more, but I was having a hard time following. An odd pain wrapping around my middle, shooting down my back, I grunted again, wincing, though I tried so hard not to, as all the air rushed out of me.
“Petty... are you alright.”
“Fine,” I gritted out, laughing to cover up the groan ready to slip out.
“You sure?” There was a shrewdness in her gaze that told me she sensed the lie, though she didn’t voice it aloud. Something in her pricked, ticking at me, and that’s when my Other sense kicked in.
“Look. Quit asking me about my rumbling intestines and let me rush out so I don’t embarrass us both so hard you pass out from the stench alone, huh? I ate too much bean soup last night. Is that a crime?” Voice rising as I put on a show, senses clawing at me to get away, I upped my huffy tirade, muttering and grumbling as I stormed past her.
The Toll Page 37
