Chapter 11

Eleven

"Marion."

I started at the voice, turning to regard Lorik, who stood on the edge of the clearing. My sister's grave was a few stones' throw away from my cottage, beyond the protection spell's barrier but shielded by a circle of giant river trees with thick, velvety leaves. Through the thick boughs, I could spy the golden light pouring from my cottage windows and realized it was night already.

How long had I been standing here?

Veras had purchased the white, thick columns and the decorative headstone, etched in the finest of silver Allavari metals. I had refused initially, but like always, he never cared what I wanted. He'd done it anyway. Her shrine. There was even a little pedestal for an offering. I usually placed bright, fragrant sprigs of whatever forest flowers I found during my foraging or a few biscuits, mixed with currants and nuts, that I'd baked that day.

It was a beautiful grave, even I had to admit it. More than I'd ever be able to afford for her. Aysia had liked that about Veras. That he'd spoiled her because she'd grown up with nothing except stolen bracelets and lashings when she'd stayed outside too late. He had given her the world, laid it at her feet like he'd laid the wreath at mine.

"Such sad eyes, little witch," Lorik commented, his tone gentle.

He stepped toward me, his blue orbs even more vibrant in the darkness. It always seemed to me that he grew stronger in the dark. His footsteps were sure, his back straight, his wings flared. He looked normal. Healthy, even, despite the bandage on his shoulder, one I'd forgotten to check and poultice this afternoon.

"What can I do to make you feel better?"

"I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head. "I lost track of time."

"Don't apologize to me when you have nothing to be sorry for," he said firmly. His eyes strayed down to what I was holding in my hands. "Do you want me to destroy that? Bury it far away? Set it on fire, perhaps? Fly it up to the Massadian Mountains and drop it off the cliff?"

Confused, I looked down and saw I was still holding on to Veras's wreath. I choked out a small, disbelieving laugh, surprised by the suggestions though they helped cut through the daze I'd found myself in.

"No, no," I finally said, giving him a small, shy smile. "That won't be necessary. I'll make the offering, just as Veras wanted."

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

"He's right," I said quietly. My mind had been racing ever since he'd left. It had never stopped. I felt drained. I felt…strangely at peace. "She would have loved this wreath. She loved nature. She loved being in nature, being outside. She would collect lakelight leaves when they turned color this time of year and make a crown of them. She did that every single year and then hung them to dry so she'd be able to look at their color until the next season. I still have them somewhere—all these dried crowns she wove, likely crumbled to dust in a chest."

"It's all right to be angry at him, Marion," Lorik told me. "I don't know the specifics, but I heard about what happened in Rolara—villagers talk. He was careless. He didn't protect her when he should have."

"I've been angry for so long," I whispered. "I'm tired of it."

Lorik's hand came to the middle of my back, and I pressed myself into him without a moment's hesitation. He slid it down until it curled around my hip.

"Do you find it difficult to forgive those who have hurt you?" he asked. His tone was careful, evenly measured. The question struck me as earnest, almost solemn.

"Yes," I confessed. Lorik blew out a sharp breath. "I try so hard not to hurt other people. I'm careful with my words, I consider their feelings in everything I do, even at the cost to me sometimes. So when other people hurt me, nothing feels worse."

"Being hurt is a natural part of life, Marion," he informed me. "The Kylorr have a saying—from blood, you overcome. You need to be cut deeply in order to be strong."

"And that's where I'm weakest, I think," I told him. "I'm a healer because I didn't like to see Aysia cry at night when Correl would punish her. I'm a healer because my nature is not to harm but to heal. So why can't I heal myself?"

"Oh, my love," Lorik said, his tone gruff. And I realized I liked that term of endearment entirely too much coming off his lips. "There's a part of me that just wants to keep you shielded from every dark thing in this world. Even me."

Looking up at him in surprise, I saw something flicker over his face. A shimmering.

"But that would be a lie. That would be a disservice to you," he continued. "If you were mine, I'd want to protect you without keeping you caged to keep you safe. Perhaps Veras was trying to do the same with Aysia. Only he didn't protect her enough. Would you have rather he kept her tucked away in his estate? So not even a splinter could have pricked her?"

"No, of course not," I said quietly, sighing. "But it was much more than a splinter that killed her."

"Do you think you'll ever forgive him?" Lorik wondered, his eyes shifting to Aysia's grave. Moonlight speared the headstone, and the metal shimmered and gleamed. How could I have let so much time get away from me?

"I don't know," I said. "But I do know that I can't do this anymore. Every time I see him, every time I hear his name in the village, I get so angry. And it affects me. Like today—I've been standing here for hours, and I didn't even realize it. This hatred is taking away my life, and I don't want to let it anymore.

"So I don't know if I can forgive him, but I've decided I'm going to try to move on from the past. Because he's right…I know he did love her. Deeply. He made her very happy, even though the end was tumultuous between us. I can't just erase that. She chose him. I can accept that. And we have our love for her in common, and so he will always be part of my life, no matter how much I wish he wasn't."

"I think that's a good start," Lorik murmured.

"It's the only thing I can think to do anymore," I said. Sighing, I dusted off dirt and shriveled, wrinkled leaves from the pedestal and lay the wreath on top. It must have cost Veras more than I made at the market in three months.

Lorik's warm hand never left my waist. I shivered when a breeze wound through my hair and turned into him. My emotions were a little raw tonight, but it was nice to have someone near. To be able to lean on someone else, allow them to be my pillar, when I'd never had anyone like that before.

"You have a pure soul, Marion," Lorik told me gently as he led me from the clearing. "I told you earlier—kind and gentle. There are not many like you in the world, especially here on Allavar. You're as rare as the creatures you so lovingly keep."

"But?" I asked, hearing that unspoken word in his voice.

His smile was a half one, not quite reaching his eyes as they scanned the darkness of the Black Veil.

"I'm worried that someone like me isn't good for someone like you," he confessed. "I worry for the day when you look at me like you look at Veras."

I stilled. I hadn't expected the vulnerability I heard in his gruff tone.

I wasn't a fool. I knew there was a lot lurking beneath the surface of Lorik Ravael. Unspoken, dangerous truths. Even Veras's guard had been afraid of him. The barbed words edged in warning from Veras told me that even he knew something I didn't.

There was a suspicion nagging in my mind, but it was too ridiculous to even voice. That Lorik had dealings with the Severs, which was forbidden. Anyone who came across Severs were never seen or heard from again.

Like Merec?I wondered, remembering what Lorik had told me about the old shopkeeper.

"What did Veras mean?" I asked quietly. Lorik's hand tightened on my waist. "When he said he wasn't surprised to see you in the Black Veil?"

"I hunt in the forest sometimes," Lorik replied.

"You two know one another?"

"Not in the way you suspect, little witch," he replied, cutting me a sharp glance out of the corner of his eye. "We've encountered one another in the village at times, nothing more. I didn't lie to you about my dealings with him. I truly have none."

"He seems to hold a strong opinion about you," I commented.

"Most do."

"And why is that?"

Lorik stilled on the path before turning to face me. We lingered inside the line of trees that wound around my cottage, just outside the protection barrier spell.

"Because most Allavari don't trust what they don't understand," Lorik told me. "And most of them do not understand me. They don't understand why I don't kiss the ass of every noble I encounter, why I don't involve myself with their celebrations and affairs, why I don't live in Rolara, why they never see me with a lover, a friend, or family. To them, I am other. I always have been and I always will be. It's not my duty to make them understand me. I simply couldn't care less."

My gaze dropped to his lips as he spoke. He must've washed while I'd been visiting Aysia's grave. The ends of his hair were damp, and he smelled of my soap, infused with whitedrop oil.

"But you…" Lorik said. "I care about what you think of me, Marion."

"You do?"

He nodded. "You're the only one I can say that about in Rolara."

"We know so little about one another. How can you say that?"

"Sometimes you just know, little witch. Attraction is fairly easy to ascertain," Lorik said, his hand sliding up my back, making me shiver. When his hand trailed up my neck and his shorn claws scraped pleasurably against my scalp, I nearly gasped. My throat seemed to tingle with that sweet touch. "And I'm certainly attracted to you. But connection? A true connection? That's rare. But I have it with you. Do you feel it too?"

My heart was thumping in my chest.

"Yes," I whispered.

The sound he made was a cross between a purr and a growl. "Mmm, I'm glad."

The smile that crossed my face was perhaps the first genuine smile since Veras had arrived, and it felt goofy and too wide, stretching my features until I thought they might crack.

"You're a beautiful woman," Lorik told me, watching me quietly. I got the strangest sense that he was soaking in my smile, enjoying it, savoring it. There was patience lining the sharp bones of his face, as if we had all the time in the world, lingering on the edge of my cottage's land. "I hope you know that."

"Thank you," I said quietly. "You are too."

Lorik's brow raised, and my face flamed.

"Not a woman, obviously. Beautiful, yes," I said hurriedly. I laughed through my mortification. "Gods, I'm terrible at this."

"You think I'm beautiful?" Lorik teased.

"You know you are," I said, still recovering from my blunder. "You know the effect you have on people. I've seen it."

Lorik took pity on me. He leaned down, and I held my breath, wondering if he would try to steal a kiss, as he'd already threatened.

I was both disappointed and immensely caught off guard when he brushed his lips across my temple. His lips were soft and warm. He let them linger there before kissing my forehead, holding me in place with the hand still tangled in my hair.

Then I felt him tense, his muscles going tight against me.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pulling back with my flushed cheeks on display, frowning.

Lorik was looking at something in the forest. When I turned, the breath in my lungs turned to ice.

Glowing blue eyes were watching us from the darkness. A hulking creature with a hunched back stepped forward, its tattered cloak billowing out from behind it.

A Sever.