Page 14

Chapter 14

Murdering Saplings

R aewyn

We rode for weeks, traveling by night and camping during the day in remote areas.

It had been at least a week since we’d seen another living soul, apart from the wildlife and a lone dragon we spotted flying high above.

My family and I slept in the tent while Pharis slept alone, out in the elements. At times it rained, and I worried for him, but he didn’t complain, insisting the weather didn’t bother Elves the way it bothered humans.

The tent wasn’t large enough for all of us anyway. The quarters were tight, more suitable for two than four.

Occasionally, I thought about the fact that Pharis had brought it along in the first place.

At my cottage door that morning, he’d said that he’d come to get me out of there, planning for the two of us to flee the approaching troops.

Apparently he’d intended this small tent to provide shelter for the two of us?

Each morning when we stopped, the girls and I foraged for food to supplement the Elven raff while Papa rested. Unfortunately, his condition had worsened with each passing day.

The pain was increasing, though he steadfastly denied it.

Pharis hunted, bringing back small game to roast over the Auspex fire.

The girls began to treat him like a big brother, climbing all over him when he’d sit down and begging him to play chase and tell them exciting stories about Fae Court life.

In spite of my fear that they were annoying him, Pharis always indulged them, running around with them the way our father couldn’t, telling a tale or two before sending them off to get some sleep.

They were going to miss him when we eventually parted ways.

When my sisters and father went to bed, I usually stayed up for a bit, tallying our foraged food and our remaining supplies and doing my best to clean our traveling clothes.

Today, Pharis, who was stretched out by the fire, watched me hanging laundry from a line and buzzing about the camp.

“Do you ever stop?” he asked.

“Not when there’s work to be done,” I said in a sensible tone.

He looked bemused. “There’s more to life than work, you know.”

I shot him a droll look. “Says the Fae prince who grew up being waited on hand and foot by servants.”

“Point taken,” he said with good humor. “But the world isn’t going to suddenly stop if you let yourself relax. Come sit with me by the fire.”

No thank you. Letting myself relax with Pharis was something I fought on a daily basis.

Getting too relaxed with him had led to the unnerving I can be gentle conversation.

Even now, my skin broke out in goosebumps when I thought of the way he’d said it. The deep, seductive purr had sent vibrations throughout my body, lingering in places he’d never even seen—and would never see.

“I’ll relax tonight when we’re riding,” I said.

Pharis simply smirked and shook his head.

Since I’d learned to ride, we’d been switching up horses and riders.

Tonight my father was riding Cimmerian with Pharis. We’d agreed it was getting dangerous to let Papa ride with the girls.

I had begun to fear the possibility of him passing out and falling off one night.

From my vantage point riding beside them, I looked over and took in Papa’s slumped body and grimacing face. He was obviously in horrible pain.

I threw a significant glance at Pharis. He nodded, understanding my unspoken message.

Though it was still about an hour before sunrise, he said, “Alright, crew. Let’s pull into this little glen here and call it a night.”

“Yay,” Tindra cheered in front of me. “I’m so tired of riding horses.”

She leaned forward and patted Ruby’s neck. “No offense to you, Ruby girl. It’s just, I don’t want to do it all night every night. Sometimes I want to walk on my own feet.”

“Me too,” Turi whined. “And I wish we could sleep in a real bed again. I miss our cottage.”

“So do I. I miss Daisy and all our friends,” Tindra said, adding to the pity party.

“Girls, let’s not complain,” I said. “We’re very lucky to be safe and all together—and to have these lovely horses to ride.”

Halting Ruby, I dismounted and helped the girls get down.

“Things could be much worse,” I told them. “And when we get to Sundaris, we’ll find a nice little cottage somewhere, and you’ll have brand new beds,” I said, though I really didn’t know what to expect when we eventually made it to our destination.

Or how long it would be before we got there. The journey was going much more slowly than Pharis had predicted, thanks to my father’s declining health.

Clearly the healing spell was wearing off. I worried about how much worse it would get.

Watching Pharis help my father down from the saddle, my heart ached at the agonized look on Papa’s face.

When Pharis set his feet on the ground, Papa collapsed.

Thankfully, Pharis’ hands were still beneath his armpits, supporting him. Pharis looked at me and shook his head in a shared moment of what are we going to do about this?

“I could hear him groaning as we were riding today,” he whispered in my ear. “He’s trying his best to hide it, but he’s getting worse.”

I whispered back, “I know.” I felt so helpless.

After instructing me to remove his cloak and spread it in the grass, Pharis laid my father’s crumpled body on top.

I went to him, sitting beside him, my stomach twisting in anguish at the sight of his drawn facial features and the way he curled in on himself as if trying to disappear. He looked ten years older than he had at the start of our journey.

“Papa,” I said, stroking his face. “I’m going to let you rest here while Pharis makes a fire and sets up the tent, but then I want you to try and eat something, okay? You’ve hardly eaten the past few days, and it’s not good for you. Your body needs sustenance.”

“My body is finished,” he said in halting words followed by a gasp.

“No,” I said automatically. “You’re going to be fine. You just need—”

“Listen to me, girl,” he interrupted, and I went quiet so I could hear his barely audible speech.

“You have to leave me.”

My heart stuttered to a stop. He couldn’t mean that.

“Papa,” I protested.

He reached out a hand and gripped my wrist weakly.

“Let me finish while I still have the breath,” he said. “I can’t let what happened to your mother happen to you. I’m putting the girls and all of you in danger because I’m slowing your travel. You’re going to be caught because of me. You have to leave me.”

The tears gathering in my eyes spilled over. I placed both hands on my father’s chest. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave you here, alone and helpless. You’ll die.”

“It’s going… to happen… anyway,” he rasped. “And soon. It’s better… for the girls not to see it.”

His eyelids closed, and his body went lax as he passed out.

Covering a sob with one hand, I looked up and around for the children.

They had run off to find a spot to relieve themselves as soon as I’d set their feet on the ground and were now floating leaves in the small stream running through the vale. They must not have seen Papa collapse.

I got to my feet and swiped my sleeve over my face to wipe away the tears. “Tindra, Turi, come here please,” I called.

They ran over to me, and I instructed them to sit on the cloak with our father.

“I will be right back,” I said, trying to control the sound of my voice. “Keep an eye on Papa, okay?”

“Are you crying, Raewyn?” Turi asked.

Neither of my sisters had ever seen me cry before—I rarely allowed myself the luxury.

Tindra’s little forehead crinkled. “Why are you sad? Is Papa sick again?”

“No,” I lied because I didn’t know what else to say. “He’s going to be fine. He just needs to rest and have a good meal. I’m not crying—I just… I’ll be back soon.”

Practically running to the other side of a small copse of trees, I leaned back against one and let the tears flow. I had no choice—they would not be stopped.

I held both hands over my mouth, trying to cover the sound, but I wasn’t sure how successful it was.

Apparently not very because after about a minute, Pharis appeared, his teeth bared and his eyes wide with alarm.

One of his daggers was in his hand, but when he spotted me alone—and not being stalked by a mountain lion—he sheathed it.

He reached me in two long strides. His brows were drawn together, forming a small line between them.

“Raewyn?”

Something akin to horror was on his face—at my disgusting human weakness, no doubt. I couldn’t picture Pharis Randalin ever crying.

Shaking my head violently, I waved him away.

There was no way I could create intelligible speech, much less explain, and it was mortifying to have him see me like this. I just wanted him to go away and leave me alone so I could fall apart in private.

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to his body.

For a moment the shock was so great, it stopped my crying. There was a pause, like the silent shoreline drawback just before a tidal wave.

And then it all came crashing in, rushing over me in an inescapable, violent surge. The sobs came out loud and fast, convulsing my body with their force.

Pharis held me close to him, tightening his arms around me like a life-saving tourniquet, palming the back of my head in his large hand and pressing my cheek to his hot chest.

I struggled to move backward—my tears were soaking his shirtfront—but he didn’t seem to notice or care, and I could not stop them.

They kept coming as he stroked my hair and back.

Beneath my ear pressed to his chest, his low voice rumbled with words of comfort, nonsense phrases we both knew weren’t true.

“It’s going to be alright, sweet girl. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Just let it out, yes, that’s it. You’ve been so strong for so long. It’s okay.”

I was suspended in an odd state between disbelief at his behavior and sheer bliss at the delicious sense of comfort he was providing.

The feel of his big body wrapped around mine, the now-familiar smell of him, the soothing sound of his voice.

This seductive and disorienting sense of pleasure was something brand new in my experience—and it made no sense in light of the terrible turn my life had taken a few minutes ago when my father had asked me to do the unthinkable.

Unable to make myself move and give it up just yet, I allowed my body to stay immersed in the incongruent sensation of well-being for another few minutes while my sobs dissipated and my breathing slowly settled.

Taking one more deep breath, I wiggled my fingertips between our bodies and pressed against Pharis’ chest.

Very slowly, he loosened his hold and allowed me to step back.

His expression was shell-shocked.

I must have looked disastrous. Quickly, I swiped my fingertips under my leaky eyes and pulled a handkerchief from my pocket for my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked. “I… don’t know what happened. I never cry.”

“Please,” he started, then stopped, then started again. “Please don’t apologize. I… do you feel better now?”

His tone was so soft, so sincere. Very un-Pharis-like.

Taking in a deep breath, I did a quick internal inventory and found that yes, I did feel a bit better.

“I think I do,” I said. “I guess it was just all too much, and it just hit me… that I’m about to lose him. And the thought of those little girls…”

Unbelievably, more tears lined up to replace the spent ones. I blinked rapidly to clear them.

Pharis just looked at me, his brow furrowed as he nodded. “I know.”

“His body is almost worn out, his pain grows each day,” I said, my throat thick. “My fear is that the Earthwife is dead and that her spell must have linked her life to my father’s, which means there’s no hope.”

Pharis’ expression was careful, almost cagey.

A long moment passed before he finally said, “She’s not dead.”

He sounded so certain.

“How do you know?” I shook my head in confusion.

Did he have some Elven power that allowed him to detect such things?

“When I returned to Seaspire after taking you home, I went to the dungeon to… take care of her for good,” he said. “She was gone. I don’t know how she escaped or where she is now, but chances are she’s alive and well.”

Shock stole my ability to speak for a moment. When I recovered it, my tone made my displeasure clear.

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“What would it have helped to tell you?” Pharis asked. “What would you have done differently? Even if we could find one, you’re not going to go to another Earthwife for another cure. Those women are all connected, like a spiderweb of twisted magic.”

He stepped closer, his hands raised in supplication, but I took a step backward to avoid his touch.

“Telling you would only have added to your worries, and you have enough already.”

His sensible tone only heightened my indignation.

“Don’t treat me like a child, Pharis—you’re not my father,” I snapped.

“No, I’m not. But your father will be dead soon, and then I’ll be all you have left. You need to consider that.”

“You’re a monster!” I screamed, hating his words with my whole self. “I’d rather fend for myself than spend another minute with you. Just… leave.”

I spun to face away from his shocked expression.

“Well there’s gratitude for you,” Pharis said behind my back.

I heard a bitter laugh. “I give up literally everything for you, and you throw it back in my face. Nice.”

Twisting at the waist, I saw him storming off, jerking his sword from its scabbard on his back.

After a minute I heard loud, repetitive noises. It sounded like he was whacking small trees with the heavy blade. Letting off steam, I guessed.

At least he hadn’t jumped on his horse and left us altogether as I’d irrationally invited him to do.

Regret over my emotional outburst swamped me. His explanation made sense—I wasn’t mad at him, just the situation.

I was afraid now that I knew Sorcha was out there somewhere. And what he’d bluntly said about my father was true.

That scared me too—what we were facing in the next few days.

Taking several deep breaths, I prepared myself to endure whatever well-deserved angry comebacks Pharis might have for me.

Then I went to find him.

He was indeed murdering saplings when I discovered him in a small clearing. He’d removed his shirt and thrown it to the ground along with his jacket.

Instead of immediately announcing my presence, I stood and watched him.

His back was to me, and the show of muscles moving beneath its smooth, tanned surface was mesmerizing to watch.

Pharis was sweating already, and the morning sun glistened on his skin.

It was probably imagination or a phantom memory, but I felt like I could smell him from here, and the scent pouring from his pores was even more alluring than ever.

A bizarre thought popped into my head—I wondered what that gleaming skin would taste like.

What was wrong with me? Who even wondered about tasting another person?

The simple truth was, Pharis was a beautiful man. I wasn’t crazy—everyone thought so.

But not everyone had seen him the way I had just a short time ago.

Not everyone had experienced the tenderness he’d displayed, comforting me in my distress, corralling my runaway emotions when I’d lost all ability to do it for myself.

His consoling touch had felt so good, my skin had literally drunk it in like saol water. That deep voice crooning softly in my ears had been even more delicious.

And the stricken look on his face when he’d first realized I was crying…

I blew out a breath, attempting to settle my rampaging heart.

Pharis must have heard it somehow because he stopped in mid-swing and spun around to face me.