4.3

He was making little patterns with his forefinger over the arm of the sofa. He was listening—she knew that. But his eyes drifted to the door with greater frequency, and she was certain his thoughts were with his parents. With his future.

Their future.

“There’s a room above the smithy,” Firen offered. “I would play there when I was little. Da made me a cupboard and called it my kitchen. A bed so I could put my dollies to sleep. But it’s a full room.” Used for storage, now that she was grown. But it was proper, and could be outfitted all the better if they needed it.

“You wish me to live in your playhouse?” Lucian asked, brow furrowed and lips curling.

Firen tapped at her leg, rolling her shoulders slightly in answer. “I want to be with you,” she clarified. “Whether it’s a tower or a room above my father’s forge. We’ll not starve, and there will be a home for us. So maybe... maybe you don’t have to be so nervous about what he’ll say.”

They were going to argue. She could see it in every line of his features, the coiling of his muscles. And if he said one word about her home, if he called it a hovel and reminded her of the finery he’d known and was not at all willing to sacrifice...

She was liable to fly out that large window behind them.

“Do you need all this?” she asked as gently as she could manage with her heart racing. “To be happy?”

He turned to look at her, not with the glare she expected, but with absolute confusion. “What has happiness to do with anything?”

Firen deflated almost instantly. And before she could formulate her reply, the door opened. Lucian’s mother entered with her mouth twisted into obvious displeasure, although it smoothed as she saw the both of them seated together. Assuming, however wrongfully, that they were pleased with one another.

She was a beauty. Fragile, with delicate features. The lines about her eyes and mouth suggested more of frowns than at smiles. She shared her son’s fair hair, but her wings were a mottled white and fawn. She said nothing, at first. Pressed her back against the door and closed her eyes.

Firen wished she could ask if she would like her to fetch something. Water, or a cup of tea to settle her. But that would be a ridiculous offer when she did not know the kitchen’s location.

Firen stood.

If she had been denied one proper introduction, she would at least attempt a good one if possible. “A fair morning,” she began. “I am Firen. You are Lucian’s mother?” A hand over her chest, a bowed head. She even spread her wings ever so slightly to complete the posture, just as her mother had taught her.

She raised her eyes and was met with a small smile. “Ellena, mate of Oberon.” Not a typical addition, the words given with little pleasure. Habit, rather than thought. She scowled, catching herself, before she pressed away from the door and moved toward them. She paid little mind to the easels, the movements so natural and done so often that she did not fear clipping against corners or edges.

“I’ve negotiated for a supper. With the family. But it... might be best for you to be gone for a little while. Let him adjust.”

Lucian’s eyes darted about, and Firen could tell he wanted to pace away his frustration. But the room did not allow for such movement, so he had to settle for placing his head in his hands, his elbows perched against his knees. “I am not certain I could imagine anything worse.”

Ellena gave him a hopeless sort of smile. “She might surprise you.” As if she was not standing there, able to hear all. “She is quite pretty. If she keeps quiet and smiles at the right moments. Beauty can cover much.”

Firen pushed a lock of hair behind her shoulder. She should have bound it better before they’d come down. It would prove a nuisance on the flight home. “I thank you,” she cut in, trying to keep her tone sweet even if she prickled. She did not care if Ellena found her pretty—she cared if Lucian did. And it was one thing if she was nervous and shy and wanted to allow others to lead in conversation, but to be told?

Ellena blinked once, slowly, and turned her head. “Was that insulting? I did not intend for it to be.”

The insult was that she would not have manners enough to conduct herself without a pretty face to cover her uncouth behaviour. The insult was in talking to her mate rather than to her.

She took a breath. Felt entirely too closed in. “I’m sorry,” Firen offered. She wanted Ellena for an ally. For someone to react encouragingly, for Lucian’s sake. “None of this is... quite what I expected.”

“Of course it isn’t. It might be, if you’d been born to it.” Like a proper mate. She did not say it. She did not have to. It hung between them, unspoken, but felt by all.

Firen swallowed, feeling a pull of tension through her. Some of it Lucian’s. Some of it a grasping, horrid part that was all her own.

“If you will excuse me,” Firen murmured. She was no prisoner here. She had opened the door before Lucian rose to his feet and called after her. The door was hard as she gripped it. She wasn’t what they expected. What they wanted. She’d known that. Lucian had made it clear from the start. But she’d had enough of this smothering, horrible awareness. She needed fresh air and a home and a family that loved her.

“You know where to find me,” she said over her shoulder. He might come. He might not.

At the moment, with her heart racing and her temper flaring, she did not much care.

“Firen!”

She shut the door behind her.

The main door was trickier to navigate. There were the large double doors that were nearly twice her height. Then a smaller one, its latches and bolts not nearly so thick. A door within a door. Well oiled, which made her retreat an easier feat. As if even the tower thought it best for her to leave.

She went upward. Didn’t bother with running through the streets first, getting lost in the tangle of towers and shops and little homes that weren’t worthy of being as tall or as grand as the one she was leaving behind.

Lucian was tugging at the bond. She could feel it, just as surely as she could if he was reaching out to grasp her wrist. But he wasn’t there. He’d let her go, the better to talk with his mother. About this supper. About a family she did not know and people she did not much care to meet.

Which was a lie.

She wanted to meet them, and badly. Wanted there to be smiles and welcome, and there wouldn’t be. Not with all their drivel about birth and heritage.

She was born of the bond. With all the rights and protections that came along with it.

Her dress caught about her legs as she flew. And she was so frustrated. It did not help that Lucian’s own emotions were flooding into her own. Mingling and overpowering in turn, causing them to turn to anger, as she did not know how to tune them out. To allow herself to simply be, to feel as she felt and nothing more.

She followed the sea. Saw the fishing boats out on the horizon.

Without conscious thought, she was drawn out further. Past the shore. Past where waves broke. Where water smoothed and the water shone brightly in the light of the suns.

And she plummeted.

Head first. Uncaring of fabric or hair or any of the rest of it. The warmth of the first layer gave way to the shock of cold as she went further down. And there, for a few blissful seconds.

It was only her.

The world was muffled. Her thoughts were dim.

The bond...

It was quiet.

And it couldn’t last. Because already her body was moving her upward, bringing her back to the surface for a full breath.

And she was sorry for it.

Mama would chastise her thoroughly for such morbid thoughts. She had wanted a mate. Now she had him. She could be disappointed all she liked, but this was her bond and her family, and it had grown in ways she might have preferred, but she would have to adjust.

Childish, begrudging thoughts came next. That a man sacrificed for his mate in equal measure. That he should have rebuked his parents for their rudeness to his mate. That she came first. Not the law. Not his apprenticeship. And certainly not his father.

It was not impossible to fly with wet wings, but she would not pretend it was the easiest either. But it did not make her regret her dip into the sea. Even if her dress clung and her hair was tangled, and she couldn’t fly quickly enough to dry either of them.

The suns helped. Helped her spirits, just as the dive had.

She was still... her.

She did not need permission to leave a tower. Did not have to ask and beg to go home.

Walking helped, as well. There were the rueful smiles as she passed neighbours in the streets, their eyes a little wide as they took in her appearance. And perhaps it should embarrass her, and perhaps, it did. But it felt strangely removed from her. As if there was so much more to hold her attention and her thoughts, and most importantly, her worries.

She did not knock on the door when she reached home. Because... it still was. Lucian and the bond did not change that. Everything was so much the same, even if she was different.

“I am home!” she called, uncertain if anyone was there. She’d go to her room if Mama was out visiting. Wash and change before going out to Da in the workshop.

“Kitchen,” Mama called back, and she ignored the stairs in favour of greeting her mother first.

She took her shoes off. They were delicate and ornamented with flowers stitched into the leather slippers. The dyes ran slightly from wetting them, and she was sorry for it.

She left them on the steps to carry up to her room and tend to them before she opened the kitchen door, ready for hugs and a cup of something hot, and maybe even a good cry as her mother listened to all that occurred.

Firen did not expect to find the kitchen occupied by more than her mother. Did not expect to see her seated at the table instead of preparing a midday meal for herself and Da.

Did not expect to be met with Lucian’s scowl as his eyes drifted over every inch of her. “Why are you wet?”

She glanced down at herself. She wasn’t dripping. Damp, yes. Wet in the thickest parts of her hair, certainly.

Mama stood, coming to give her a proper assessment as she inspected her front and back. “A dip,” she observed, eyes meeting Firen’s.

Firen rolled her shoulders, her mouth drawn tightly as she spoke a great deal without any words at all.

She’d done it before. When she’d felt overwhelmed, or just... sad.

Lonely.

And it would mean something to Mama that she’d done it even with her mate settled at the kitchen table. That he’d come to their home—alone—without an adoring Firen at his arm to make the introductions.

But... he’d come.

He hadn’t turned around and left when she wasn’t there to meet him. He’d... stayed. Perhaps because Mama could press anyone into her kitchen for a cup of something hot. Or maybe because he realised Firen had been treated rather poorly and was owed some sort of consideration.

He looked wrong, sitting there. Too stiff and his clothes too fine. He did not look happy about it, either, his eyes darting about the space and settling on her with greater frequency, expression turning stonier each time he did so.

She glanced down at herself, feeling a few tendrils of self-consciousness take hold as she felt a flood of tangling emotions come through the bond. Perhaps the fabric had grown rather thin now that it was wet. Perhaps it clung a bit more than it had and revealed more than was strictly proper.

But there were far greater concerns than that, surely.

“Sweetling, go up and get changed,” Mama urged. “We’ll still be here when you get back.”

Firen gave Lucian a dubious glance, not believing that in the least.

He stood. “Actually,” he began, and she braced herself for him to leave. He’d seen her home, seen her family, and found it as wanting as he’d feared. “I should like a moment with my mate.”

If her parents found it odd for a stranger to be heading up the stairs with their daughter, they said nothing. If they thought it inappropriate when Firen had clearly been desolate enough for one of her sojourns into the sea, they still allowed them both to retreat.

Lucian first.

Firen...

Da grabbed her hand as she made to follow. He was going to say something. Perhaps in censure of the mate, that was not at all what they’d expected. Or maybe about the state of her and that Lucian was right to be offended on her behalf that she’d flown and walked through the streets in all her dishevelment.

But he turned her wrist and there was the circlet, still wound about her wrist. “Did it bring you luck?” he asked, his tone as gentle as his fingers as he undid the tiny clasp and laid it out across the table. Just as beautiful as it had been the night before, unmarred by her night or the salt from the sea.

Her eyes welled, if only briefly. “I don’t know yet,” she answered honestly.

He nodded, wrapping his arm briefly about her middle before gesturing for her to follow her mate. “Run along, then. I doubt that mate of yours is much used to waiting.”

She was so certain of that. Not with a room that was much lived in and yet went without visitors.

But she said nothing. Just smiled as best she could toward her parents and saw Lucian on the stairs, looking at the ornaments upon the wall. Most were thin sheets of metal, impressed and shaped to represent each member of the family. It had grown when mates were found. When children were added.

She felt terribly seen by him perusing her family’s history so openly, and she brushed past him as quickly as she could. Better for him to join her upstairs, even if it would lead to another argument.

Her door stood open, waiting for her. Her bedding was as smooth as she had left it. Everything perfectly ordinary. Except that a man followed her in, closing the door behind him. She hadn’t invited him in, and that rankled ever so slightly, but he was her mate. He’d come after her. Sat at her mother’s kitchen table and—hopefully—been polite during their introduction.

“Explain a dip to me.”

She tried not to roll her eyes. Truly, she did. But she was tired and heart-sore, and nothing in his attitude suggested a penitent mate come to apologise and set things right. Instead, he’d fixated on her dress and her moisture levels, and thought that of the most relevance.

“In the sea,” Firen clarified, since it was apparently so far beyond his comprehension. She pulled out fresh clothing. Maybe she would eject him from the room and withhold such an intimacy.

Did mates do such things?

The bond was quiet. Demanded nothing. Not their reconciliation. Not to make use of the bed that seemed laughably narrow compared to the one in his chamber. Not even for her to go over and take his hand so they might be friends again.

She closed the trunk with more force than was necessary, her frustration mounting. He’d stolen even the peace she had found during her dip, and she wanted it back.

“That is a location, not an explanation.” He stood in front of her bedroom door, his arms crossed, the very picture of severe disapproval.

“Stop looking at me like that.” She went to her basin, and the water was cold from the night before. No magic pull and tanks hidden in hearth-walls to heat. Just a washbasin and a pitcher, and a cloth that worked plenty well enough to smooth salt away from her skin.

“Like what?” he urged, moving away from the door and taking a step nearer to her.

“Like I’m a fledgling you’re here to censure!” She closed her eyes and prayed for calm. That her hands would stop shaking.

If he rolled his eyes, she couldn’t see it. But she could feel it. Her frustration echoed and multiplied until she was ready to pull at her hair and pace as he was so often wont to do.