Chapter 40

We were all sitting by the fire over a meal I'd just cooked. I'd been winging it sometimes because I didn't have access to our farms out here. I was limited to what I could forage for the recipes that would fit her preferred diet. Some of those recipes needed certain grains that I'd been leaving out, but some of the Farkhi were more prepared than I'd been and had some with them. They let me borrow some and I invited them to eat with us.

There was also an interesting new development. Esylle and Leodos couldn't keep their hands off of each other. I wasn't going to comment because good for them. She couldn't take another Tempris for a husband and Leodos was probably the only human close to her we had any reason to like because she was mostly around the Barons.

Esylle got to marry someone she loved once, and I didn't have a problem with her doing it again, even if the rest of the tribes didn't really have that choice. Joron also looked pleased with the arrangement, even if Leodos was older than Esylle and Joron kind of took him in and asked him to look after his daughter.

Sorcha finally stepped out to join us and looked immensely pleased at this. I finally got why Leodos called her Imp sometimes.

"I told you," she shot at Esylle, tapping her nose.

"If you weren't so important to them, I'd strangle you. You're always doing what you're not supposed to. I didn't want her to know! What if she hadn't felt the same way, and I got my heart broken?"

"I'm figuring out what different smells mean. You were never in any danger of getting your heart broken and neither was she unless you decided to be a fucking idiot and let those rank-ass Barons tell you what to do."

"No one is going to know what to do with a princess that talks like a Guttertown brat with an Idric accent," Leodos said, ruffling her hair. "You're going to shake those Barons up."

"My only qualification for being a princess is my mother. I'm pretty sure there are lessons involved so you can manage people without sounding like a Guttertown brat and actually know what the laws on Nestran are. If all of you want me ruling a country anyway, you're going to have to deal with all the curse words I learned from a cranky old man who pissed me off sometimes."

She wouldn't have hurt Belisarus no matter how pissed off she got. That just wasn't who she was. Leodos was right. Sorcha had a bit of a devious streak. I don't know how she lifted Oris and me when we were fighting, but it involved heat. She blew steam right up our robes on the way up and nearly cooked my balls. We were both cursing. Belisarus probably got similar treatment.

"Bastan and the other three men wanted to ask you something. Now that you've talked to Gritt, maybe they can ask you and you not run off again," Esylle said.

The humans had mostly stayed away from us, even though we didn't view them as our enemies. This was the first time they'd eaten with us again since everyone arrived. I had no idea what the humans could possibly want from her. Did they want her blessing to go back to the other humans to fight against the tribes?

I hoped not. She thought they were her friends. I knew not all humans were bad because I'd met a few looking for food outside their territory. I also grew up on Nestran. Sorcha didn't. Belisarus told her they were all bad, and she'd only met six of them so far. One tried to hurt her. One was probably going to be her new stepfather. I didn't want the other four to betray her. Sorcha would be devastated, and I knew she didn't want to hurt anyone. She might even find a way to bring peace to Nestran without another war.

Her smile faltered when the man with black hair and dark eyes that they called Bastan asked her to change him like she had changed Tollam. It went to a complete frown when the other three men chimed in that they also wanted the same thing.

"I haven't really figured out how to do it without getting pissed off. Tollam ended up Theran because I accidentally turned him into a goat first. Do you know what form you would take? I'm not really sure how to do it so you end up in the tribe you want."

I was surprised when the dark-eyed man admitted he wanted to fly like the Farkhi and would accept whatever form Volaris chose for him. I didn't have to talk to my father. This man might have been born human, but he'd earned the right to fly with us. The Farkhi would take him in and teach him.

Sorcha refused to even try until my father called Fluvis and Terros over to our fire to discuss the form the other two men would take and if they would be accepted into the tribes they chose. She seemed surprised when Mafir wanted to join the Tarks and Kibal wanted to run like she did and there was no objection from Fluvis nor Terros. Alarik wanted to be Tempris because his father was a blacksmith. The only reason he'd joined the military instead of following in his footsteps was because the Barons had taxed his father to near poverty. The men noticed she seemed unsure and tried to say something to convince her this was best.

Terros seemed less pissed with her than this morning. I had a feeling that had something to do with the Therans painting her face like them. Rather than yell at her like he always did, he told her gently that she had done well with Gritt, and he was sure she would do the same with these men. Fluvis always gave both Volaris and Terros looks like he thought they were too hard on her, and he reassured her that they would accept and teach Mafir their ways.

"I know you all want this, but I still don't know how without getting upset again. What if I hurt everyone instead?"

"As much as I dislike it when you use your Tempris abilities against us, you're getting better at controlling it," Terros told her.

"Your daughter said you'd be nicer to me with this paint on my face and I didn't believe her because that's idiotic and fucking stupid. It didn't change a thing about me or make me magically know how to do any of this shit."

It wasn't just the connection I was feeling. I was slowly falling in love with this girl. Terros had a temper and was a bit of a bully, but he was actually a fair king. I loved watching Sorcha manage Terros because no one had ever talked to him like that before.

"You look more like a Theran queen and less like a child now. I thought your mother explained this to you."

"I look like me with eyeliner and lipstick, you knob."

Terros let out a little growl while Oris, Neptis, and I tried not to laugh. I don't think anyone had ever called Terros a knob to his face before.

"You need to learn to change these men. They killed enough of us for this."

She sighed and inched over to Bastan. She seemed unsure and didn't seem to know what she was supposed to do. Sorcha reached out and placed both of her hands on his shoulders and he could see her squint her eyes in concentration. She was concentrating so hard I thought she may go up in flames again, but she released Bastan and blew out a sigh.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how I did it the other times."

"Think. What were you thinking and feeling when you did it before?" Terros said. He wasn't getting angry with her this time; he was trying to help her instead of getting in our way and running her off again.

"I was upset or angry when I did it before. Tollam was going to kill me when I changed him. If I'm supposed to do this, why do I have to be in danger or upset to do it? Are you going to make me angry every time you want me to change something?"

Esylle finally stepped in to help. I hoped this was the answer over constantly pissing her off. I didn't like seeing her upset.

"You have a Tempris temper and human emotions. Those came from me and I understand them. I don't like that you have to be the Spirus and can't just be my daughter, but maybe the gifts I gave you are how you need to change them."

"How, without someone getting me angry?"

"Did Belisarus not teach you the heart flower? He taught me from a young age because it took so long to learn. He said it was the most important thing I could learn."

The girl looked at her mother sadly. "Then why didn't he teach me? If that's how I'm supposed to do this, why did he only teach me to hide?"

"Maybe I'm supposed to teach you now. He taught me things he didn't teach you and he taught you a few things he didn't teach me. Before they continue with these lessons with you on changing things, maybe we need to have lessons, you and me?"

"If you are starting over and teaching me things from scratch, we need to move again. We've stayed here too long and there's not enough time today," Sorcha said, standing and motioning for everyone to leave.

I didn't know how Belisarus learned ancient Tempris secrets to teach Eyslle. I also didn't know why he didn't teach them to his granddaughter.

But, hopefully this was a solution.