Page 10 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
“Are you sure you want me to do it again?” I asked.
I dared a peek up at Zev when he didn’t answer. His face was a mask of confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
I tipped the back end of the needle so that it brushed that last patch of his skin. “This bond between us, we don’t have to keep it up.”
Zev stilled and straightened, slightly. It was his turn to be looking at me differently, his face searching for something, too.
“Do you…want to break the bond?”
“No!”
My own answer surprised me, almost as much as the fact that I knew it without any hesitation. Once more, I felt myself unable to meet Zev’s gaze.
“I just don’t want to be a burden,” I said.
Zev reached for me then, his face revealing he was about to tell me something, when we were interrupted by the shift of movement from Shiel’s bed. He let out a soft groan and shuddered a moment before his eyes slowly began to flutter open.
In an instant, we were at his side, all else forgotten. A second later, Finch’s thundering footsteps preceded his bursting back into the room, just in time to see the moment Shiel’s vision cleared enough for him to sit up and take us all in.
He’d slept so heavily ever since the healer’s intervention that this was the first time he’d so much as stirred, let alone awakened. I knew from the look in his eyes that he was already doing far better. He was lucid in a way I hadn’t seen since we parted in Icarus’ forest. The brightness in his eyes was enough to let me know he was, as he’d promised, already through the worst of it.
A weight lifted from me in that moment that I hadn’t known I was carrying.
In my conscious mind, I hadn’t even begun to consider the possibility that Shiel might not make it through.
My subconscious, however, seemed to have other ideas.
Relief flooded through me like a hearty draught of faerie wine.
At first, when he looked at me, I thought there was something he was going to say. His hand reached out for me, but just as so many similar gesture’s had ended in the last days, he fell short before actually touching me.
My stomach twisted when he turned to Zev, instead of me, his face hardening as he demanded, “I will need many pieces of parchment, a quill, and some ink jars. I’ve been away from my court too long. If my advisors don’t hear from me soon, it won’t be Aurra here who sparks the next war.”
In the time it took me to turn and offer to accompany Zev when he left, Shiel was one more lost to the world—but not before that hand that had almost reached for me finally found me, if only in his sleep. His fingers wrapped around my arm where it rested on my thigh, tightening ever so gently when I tried to pull away.
I didn’t want to wake him, not when I could look down at him now and still see remnants of that ever-shrinking fox I’d held for days along the jolting carriage roads. I sat with him while the others went out to fetch what he needed, my muscles crampingby the time they returned, laden high with scrolls and boxes of quills.
Still, it was only disappointment I felt when Shiel’s hand finally pulled away from mine before he regained consciousness again. He didn’t spare a second glance at me, just groaned aloud again as his men helped him up into a sitting position and spread the papers out in front of him. The moment his head bowed over the first page, one hand starting to scribble with a vigor that promised not to end any time soon, I finally let myself out.
I wished I didn’t understand the greater feeling that had begun to grow in me.
What had I been thinking, that Shiel would suddenly be all sweet and sensitive? He was an asshole, through and through. The only reason he wasn’t barking more orders—to myself, as well as his men—was because he was too injured. Still, the way he’s reached for me in the silence, it stuck with me, haunting me through another silent dinner spent listening to the sounds of two things now—the music drifting in from the courtyard, and the scratching of Shiel’s pen.
By the next morning, Shiel produced for us a large stack of letters to be sent out. Every last scrap of paper had been used up, and then on some, the message continued in shaking letters across the outside of the folded paper, as if there was too much to be said than could be contained just within.
Shiel collapsed into the pillows as we left, but only because there was no paper left to write. He demanded more, his voice gone horse from muttering to himself through the night as he read aloud the thoughts he was trying to write down.
Finch promised him more, but the moment the door shut behind him, he glanced straight at Zev and shook his head. “I’ll come up with some excuse about the paper, some sort of court-wide shortage or something. I’ll make sure he rests.”
I doubted Shiel would like that answer, especially in his current state. His brief clarity from the night before had quickly drained into something closer to madness without more sleep. Finch was right, he had to rest, but I didn’t care to witness the moment he told the fae lord his request had this time been denied—because it was all too obvious that’s exactly what it was.
Besides, I needed to get out and see the court, and since Vestele had yet to return and give me another excuse, I followed along with Zev to help deliver the massive stack of papers.
It was refreshing to leave the little house we’d been assigned. Calling itlittlewasn’t quite fair, it was grand in its own way, but nothing compared to the soaring towers of the rest of the Southern Court.
Zev took me straight to the messenger bird station, the first one I’d ever been to. It was crowded with birds of all shapes and sizes and colors like I’d spotted my first day here, in this court, all ready to fly the pieces of parchment to their destinations. Soon, Shiel’s letters were headed off in a flurry of feathers, the once rustling, crowded coop now nearly empty with most of the flock departed. Zev and I had slowly begun the walk back to the house when Zev stops me, his hand on mine drawing me back to the memory of earlier.
