3.2

“Impossible.”

She moved her hand from her thigh to the knot in her chest, pressing tightly. The ache was more memory than reality, but it felt better to touch it. “No, it isn’t. Not when there were people to do it for us.”

Some glimmering awareness settled over him, and she fought not to fidget. “Not a simple district girl, then, are you?”

She shook her head, just the once.

He tapped his fingers against the table. He did not frown, but he did not appear particularly pleased, either.

She would not apologise. She did not pick him—had even tried to spare him. They said nothing. He did not press her for more, and she did not dare begin. Not when it would mean blurting out far more than she cared to share.

Eventually, he pushed a plate toward her. There were meats, and a few cheeses. Fruits cut and glistening in sweet syrup.

He could not know how little she cared to eat when she was so anxious. When she felt a breath away from crying. When she felt so acutely aware she was in a stranger’s home.

She rubbed harder.

“Orma,” he murmured.

She should stop. Needed to stop.

“What would make you happy today?”

Her hand stilled.

“What?”

She blinked, trying to make sense of the query she had not expected. There was no ready answer, no easy way she could answer him and be done.

He continued to look at her, his eyes soft and... sad.

Everyone was always sad around her. “If you could have anything today. Do anything. What would make you happy?”

It did not work that way. She was not without resources. She could ask for anything to be brought to her room—books she had never read from authors she would never meet. Foods from any of the districts, with new and delightful flavours.

It would mean nothing, her interest in either have waned a long time before.

She felt caged and watched. Her every movement, her every feeling under his scrutiny.

“I don’t know.” Which felt another sort of failure, because what sort of person did not have a secret longing? To dip their toes in the salty sea, to fly above the forest. To find where the river met the sea.

To visit the market and its many stalls. To see all sorts of people she’d only ever encountered during her illicit visit to the fetes.

She did not much care for sand, and there was no possibility she was strong enough to venture outside the city to the great forests beyond.

A throng of people and their threads and colours felt impossibly daunting.

Was she supposed to explain all of that?

She skimmed her thumb over the lip of her mug, unable to look at him. “What about you?”

He hummed, settling back in his chair, his wings settling lazily. He was not a tangle of anxiety. Of conflicting feelings that never seemed to resolve. She envied him more than she could possibly say—wished she could absorb his tranquillity until it was a part of her. Why did bonds not work that way?

“Well, given how little I know you... so this will sound terribly one-sided, and likely make you cringe into your seat.”

She grimaced in anticipation.

“I should like to go to your home. Meet your family. Collect your belongings and bring them home. Watch you make yourself comfortable. Have a proper greeting with Brum.” He sighed, but only a little. “Of course, what I do know is that you have not agreed to live here. That you have kindly offered that I might keep Brum, regardless of the fear you seem to have of him.” He leaned forward, the movement catching at the edges of her vision, because she couldn’t—wouldn’t—look at him. “But none of that will happen today, will it? So maybe we can work out what will set you at ease enough to eat your breakfast.”

She glanced at the food again. Took a piece of cheese. A crust of bread. Could not bring herself to lift either to her lips, but it was more than she’d managed before.

“What you want is... perfectly reasonable,” she admitted, because she needed to acknowledge it. There was nothing wrong with him—he wanted his mate inside his home, and since she had no profession to dictate her dwelling place, it was reasonable to assume she would move to be with him.

“No, it isn’t. Not if it makes you look like that.”

She did not bother to wonder at her appearance. She felt the tension that settled through her entire being, stealing her appetite and making her wish she’d made a different choice about clothing.

She could fly away if she was in her own clothes.

“I don’t know what to do,” she amended. Better to get it all out. To let him see the problem so he wasn’t left hurt and wondering. “I do not know how to go home, but that’s what I want to do. I don’t know how to take you with me.”

He nodded, as if that was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Because of my profession.”

She blinked. Glanced up at him. “Why do you keep saying that?”

He smiled indulgently, and she did not care for it. “A lesson from my master when he took me in. Everyone admires a healer when they have need of one. Until it means odd hours and...” He tapped his finger against his mug before looking back at her. “We are a private people, aren’t we? We keep to our mates.”

Her stomach twisted strangely. “What are you saying?”

He leaned across the table, pushing another plate of food in her direction. Waited until she’d taken another selection, although she paid it no attention, simply added it to the other untouched articles on her plate. “Some feel strange at the prospect of their mate looking at others without their clothing. Of seeing, and touching, despite how professional the reasons.”

She would not think about how much of her the healers had seen. Had touched. Fingers, and tools, and eyes that narrowed, and they’d mates at home. Because it was proper, even if it hurt. Even if it left her feeling strange and dirty and she’d cry for ages after.

Athan would not have done that, would he?

“You are frightened,” he observed, and she did not like that. Didn’t like him plucking at her feelings and speaking of them aloud. They were hers—were meant to be hers.

She took a deep breath. Focused.

Forced herself to look at the cords between them. Willed them to dim. Quiet.

And they did. Wavering and protesting, but listening.

Athan blinked.

“What are you doing?”

The bond might be new to him, but it was not for her. She could not sever it, but she could make it less intolerable. Keep some things to herself.

“He told you all that, and you became a healer, anyway.” She wasn’t ignoring him, but... maybe she was. Because there were things she did not want to answer, and others she had no answers for at all.

“I did,” Athan affirmed, his eyes narrowed. She could feel him working at the bond, tugging and pressing and trying to determine what she’d done. It felt strange—to be so aware of another person. Of the tether that had been so one-sided, feeling full and alive . “And hoped my mate might forgive me. Might see that the work was necessary. That people need help. My help.”

He stopped his inspection and stood, and she did not like it.

Liked it even less when he knelt beside her chair, pulling it slightly so she might look at him without the ability to hide. “I think you need my help.”

Orma’s mouth twisted. “No more healers,” she informed him. “My parents promised me.”

Athan huffed out a breath, but he did not allow even a trickle of irritation to pass through the bond. “You could choose for yourself. I would never hurt you, Orma.” He reached for her hand, and for reasons she could not explain even to herself, she let him take it. It felt good to have his hand surrounding hers. He was warm, his skin was soft, but she waited for the panicky feeling to overtake the pleasant sensations. “You’ve been hurt, yes? By healers?”

Her throat tightened, and she could not breathe, let alone talk.

But she could nod.

Just the once.

“I am so very sorry.”

He had no business looking as he did. As if he knew all of what had happened to her and he was so deeply sorry for it. If he could look at her with all that sorrow for just a few scars and a mysterious elixir, she did not know what he might do if he heard the rest of it.

She did not know what she was supposed to do. Comfort him in some way? Remind him she was sorry, that she did not want him to be tied to someone like her. But the words stuck in her throat, true as they were, and she just sniffled and her feathers shivered as she tried to hold herself together.

There was no need to cry. She’d done plenty of that ages ago.

They were just trying to help.

Just like he wanted to do.

Which is why she couldn’t let him.

He squeezed her hand, and she allowed it. Watched his throat bob, watched him struggle with his own words, and she should offer him something. A promise. An explanation.

Anything.

But she did not have those. But she reached out with her free hand and took a piece of something off her plate. She did not taste it, but she chewed it thoroughly before she swallowed, just to show him she was fine.

He was fine.

He did not have to look so heart sore.

Athan smiled at her gesture, but it was dim and preoccupied. But it was enough to get him off the floor and back to his own seat, although he ignored his own meal in order to stare at her and watch her pick up another piece of her own.

“That should not have happened to you,” he added as she chewed, as if it needed saying.

“The bond should not have woken so early either, but it did,” she reminded him gently. “They wanted to help me. Because it hurt. Every day. In more ways than I knew possible.”

His hands curled, and she was aware of the tendrils of anger flittering through him. At her? Or them? She could not tell. “I should have been sent for,” he insisted. “I should have been there.”

She had to be gentle with him. “They did not know you. Did not know your age. What might happen to me if you came, and you felt the bond, too? You’d take me away, and they’d have no cause to stop you. Can’t interfere with mates, yes? Regardless of the circumstances.”

He looked sickened, and she could not blame him. She hadn’t understood before. What they were truly worried about. She thought mating meant friendship and hugs. Everything else came out in stilted conversations as she grew older and finally asked why she could not go find him.

She wasn’t too young for a friend.

She was vastly too young for the rest that would naturally follow.

Or so her mother had explained with tears in her eyes as she held her close and told her how sorry she was, for everything that had happened. That would happen.

“I would have never, ” Athan bit out, full of the indignation she’d expected.

“They did not know that,” Orma soothed. “Could not have known that. I did not talk much of you, even when they asked. I thought... it would help. If I just kept you to myself. Maybe it did, I don’t know. If they’d known you were not the grown man they feared.” She shook her head. She’d been so young, and she’d learned not to begrudge herself for choices she’d made steeped in fear and confusion.

Athan might.

She glanced at him, waiting.

For him to grow cruel?

For his frustration to turn to shouts and blame?

But, if anything, he appeared sickened.

She took a breath and allowed her fingers to stroke over the tendrils of the bond. His eyes were closed tightly so he could not see the action, which allowed her to work in peace. It warmed beneath her touch, and she pushed what reassurance she could toward him. She was here. She was alive. What did the rest of it really matter?

Athan scowled, which was not her intent.

“It matters,” he stated firmly. She had not meant to push so hard that he would feel her thoughts so completely, and she sat back in her chair, chastened.

“Sorry,” she murmured, taking another bite to appease him. Bread that time. She was sure of it.

He sighed, shaking his head as he wrestled with his own thoughts. “I don’t... I am...” Lucian would be pacing by now. Athan was tugging at his hair and taking deep breaths before he looked at her. He’d wanted to make her happy. That was all. And now he was miserable, and she did not know how to change that. “I am trying to understand you,” he finally finished, his eyes earnest and still so terribly sad. “So I might be a better mate to you.”

How was she to respond to that? “I appreciate that,” Orma began, struggling with her own self. With the guilt that threatened to crush her. With the fatigue that settled so quickly into her bones and threatened to rob of her days. Her nights. “I think... I think you are a good man. Better than I deserve.” He looked up sharply at her, and she finished before he might interject. “I don’t think I can be a suitable mate to you. I don’t... I don’t know how to do anything. I can’t help you with your work. I can barely function most of my days. I cannot offer you...” she stumbled, and she gestured vaguely over his person, then hers. “The bond will want to be consummated, but honestly, that just sounds... exhausting.”

She rubbed at her eyes, laughing humourlessly to herself. “And I’m already so tired.”

He softened, a tension leaving him she hadn’t realised was there. “Then you should go back to bed. A tray after all.”

He stood, ready to make good on his previous offer, but she reached out and stayed his hand. “It’s all the time, Athan,” she corrected as gently as she could. “I’m in bed more than I am out of it. I could easily sleep this day away, and I would wake no better in the morning.”

He sat back down as if a thread had been cut. “And no one has been able to offer you relief? Of any sort?”

She pinched her fingers to the relative size of her bottles. “My elixirs. For a little while. And I pay for it after. But for that moment...” she took a breath. Then another. “I get to feel like a person. Can you understand that? Where I could do things, or learn things, or... be anything at all.”

She sat back in her seat while Athan appeared thoughtful for a moment. “I should like their names,” he declared. Not with the bits of ire that had seeped out earlier. Just a statement of fact. “I should like to consult with them,” he clarified. “Not as your healer, but as your mate. To understand what you are taking, and the effects it has on you.”

A fervent refusal was on her lips. But he looked back at her, grim-faced and as if already prepared for her arguments, and she hesitated. “I don’t want you conspiring,” she admitted. “I don’t want...” she huffed out a breath and she could not force herself to take another bite, not even to appease him. “I just want to be left alone.”

His nose crinkled. “It is terrible to be alone.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it, and he gave a rueful smile in answer. “No, it isn’t. It means you get to sleep. Don’t have to answer a bunch of questions you don’t want to answer. You get to be yourself for a little while. Just as you are. No pretending.”

He let that settle between them, leaving her to fidget and squirm and push a crumb of cheese around on her plate. She should not have said that. It was too honest, too unflattering a description of her true feelings. She wanted him to like her, and that was the wretched part. There was so little for him to admire, so little for him to find appealing, and she was hardly helping her case.

She shouldn’t lie, but she could start anew. She could claim interests from the books she’d read. Knowledge was there, even if experience was not. Speak of her willingness to be a fine mate, even if her abilities would be lacking.

She rubbed at her chest, and Athan sighed, her hand stilling when she caught him looking.

“Explain conspiring,” Athan urged, ignoring the rest of what she’d said. Or perhaps putting it aside for later scrutiny. “A discussion is a betrayal?”

Her throat hurt.

“You’ll want to see the tests for yourself,” she explained slowly. “They all did. Every time there was someone new. Can’t go off the notes of anyone else, yes? They might be faulty. The conclusions wrong. And hear me, Athan,” she leaned in close, making sure she held his eye. “There will be no more tests.”

She could not remember being so firm with another person, and she waited for his eyes to narrow, his mouth to thin.

Waited for him to look like her father did when she’d attempted even a small amount of defiance.

She steeled herself against his protests. Or perhaps the attack would come with sweet words and coaxing reminders that this was his profession, that it would be a reasonable demand for a mate of his background to try his own hand at improving her person.

She belonged to him, didn’t she?

Discussion was a courtesy. He could insist on anything. Demand anything of her, and the bond would make it seem all right. Even if the rest of her wilted even further.

But instead, he held her attention and met her posture, leaning in close over the small table. “I find it disturbing you would find such declarations necessary.”

Her shoulders hunched, and she dropped his gaze. “Are you used to being overruled? Most particularly when it comes to your care?”

It was her lips that thinned. Her eyes that narrowed. “I was a child,” she reminded him. “They knew what was best.”

If he thought differently, he made no argument. “But you aren’t any longer. Should things not have changed?”

She glared at him. She didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, but the feelings came faster than she could reason with them. “ Nothing changes,” she insisted. “Over and over. Pain and fatigue, and I have only to wonder which part of me will scream the loudest and hurt the most. My head? My hip? Or perhaps here.” She pressed her hand to her chest and did not care if he saw her rub slowly. If his shirt had dropped low on her shoulder so he could see some of the scars tangled there. “Every day. Until suddenly I was old enough, and I was told I should go out and find you. Never mind that I knew you would not be to their standard. It mattered to my cousins. My siblings. To be mated well. But not me. Better I was anywhere else. Someone else’s burden.”

The words were bitter. An outpouring of hateful doubts that had plagued her for longer than she’d cared to remember.

They knew he would not be suitable, yet they sent her anyway to the fete where the other unmated gathered. Away from their towers, all the families of the oldest blood. Without tarnish.

A history long forgotten by everyone else.

Clung to and flaunted, with high towers and overflowing coiffeurs.

He sat, too stunned to offer any sort of reply, and she was too horrified at herself to continue. She should attempt an apology, but she was afraid to open her mouth once more, uncertain what else might come pouring out.

He did that to her. Or the bond did. Something.

Coaxed out subtle poisons she had not known were there.