Page 26 of Hexes & Heartstrings (Shifters of Bastion Keep #2)

Lux stepped past her, not even giving her a glance as he helped Bruin up to his feet.

"Forgive me, my lady, but your presence would undermine our efforts, as I'm sure you understand.

Were I to give you advice on how to lead your own pack, you would take as much offense as you have just given me.

Bruin, I see you have your witch's bag with you already.

Good. Come along, we've been waiting for you. "

"…your training had better prove effective, Lux Manus. I will ask Arthur to report to me after."

"As is your right," Lux said. Still holding on to Bruin's hand, he gave it the same kind of rhythmic squeezing that he used to use whenever he was trying to calm him down before an exam. "And speaking of privileges, my Lady, if I might beg a moment more?"

On the stairs, she turned, tapping her fingers against the rail impatiently.

"Another piece of information to which you seem unaware, but our good lord Sergiy Usenko is not merely courting Bruin. He is, in fact, Sergiy's fehrthas leothas, his promised mate. Surely my lady recognizes that this means he has at least as much standing as a noble consort, yes?"

Bruin desperately wished he had his phone out to take a picture of the goldfish-like expression on her face, before the import of what Lux was saying registered. Stupefied, he barely heard their departing exchange as he was gently led by the hand into the library.

"Bruin, welcome back!" he faintly heard Rosemary say. "Oh, you're pale. Lux, put him in a chair, and let me get him some water. Did something happen to Sergiy?"

"No," Lux said, and Bruin felt himself set into one of the plush chairs of the library. "It's a combination of him almost casting a mild hex on Lady Yi to bind her with the weight of her own sins, and being told that he's one step shy of being a noble."

Bruin saw Arthur nearly choke on his bottled drink. "You almost hexed the Lady? How are you still in one piece?"

"I think she believed Bruin to be too timid or incompetent to defend himself, so she didn't register his incantation as a threat."

"Wait!" Bruin said, spinning in his chair, and leveling a finger at Lux. "You! What do you mean, lord consort?"

Lux gestured to Rosemary, who looked at Bruin like she could barely contain her mirth. Out from a bag beneath the table, she grabbed a reusable water bottle and passed it to him.

"Come on, Bruin. Why are you so surprised?

You know that Lady Galina's mates are lords by marriage.

And you're dating Sergiy, who is a lord of a recognized House of the Free Glades.

So unless you intend to break up with him, the only other option is to continue how you've been going, which means one day you'll get married and be a lord yourself.

" She put her hands to her cheek, pretending to swoon. "How romantic ."

"Yes, but that's, it's years in the future! We've only been dating for, for months, I haven't thought about…"

"Don't fib, Bruin." She leaned forward, taking his hands in hers. " Wedding bells . You've daydreamed about them, surely."

"Nope!" he lied, feeling his face heat. "Never imagined them at all. I'm just enjoying the time we have together. But even if—if!—that happens, it's still a long way away. So why did Lady Yi look like she just swallowed a bug?"

"If I may?" Arthur asked, and Rosemary passed the buck.

"You're all missing a cultural difference.

Shifters choose mates, not spouses, and the idea of fabulous weddings and official records is a recent thing from assimilating into other cultures.

Yes, modern shifters, including House Usenko, do tend to follow recent trends.

But Lady Yi is oldschool, as they say, so to her, being promised means that you two may as well as already be handfasted, if not outright married. "

Bruin wasn't sure what he should feel about that. It was something he'd need to think on, and maybe have a chat with Lady Galina herself to make sure he fully understood the culture he was stepping into.

But one burning question surfaced to the forefront of his mind.

"Does this mean I can just call her Yi?"

"Oh, that would piss her off so much!" Arthur laughed. "Technically, yes. But the kitty's got claws, so I wouldn't, unless you were prepared for a fight."

"Ahem. Speaking of fights, if you've recovered, Bruin, we've been discussing the best ways to defend ourselves and others from shadowlings."

"Ah. Sure!" Bruin took a breath to center himself, then put Lady Yi, Lord Sergiy, and weddings out of his mind. "What do we have?"

Lux slid over several papers with his neat notation on them. "Right now we're just going over generalized roles. I don't want us practicing singular hexes, which I know is what would happen if Lady Yi were in charge."

"You're correct, there," Arthur said. He tapped his dagger implement that he kept with him as regularly as Bruin did his own crystals and herbs. "She attempted to train me in a similar fashion, working on aim and lethality, before I plead duties to my actual lord."

Lux shook his head, frowning. "I'm sorry you went through that, Arthur. And for any of the rest of you, if it happens? Tell her no. It sounds like she doesn't understand witches, or intents."

Bruin nodded his agreement. Every charm and working that a witch performed left behind an imprint.

Working with white light, keeping to blessings and protective charms, it made it easier to keep walking that higher road.

If he began rehearsing how to conjure blades of metal and stone…

how did the saying go? Something about how if you're holding a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail?

Bruin didn't want his first reflex to be thinking about how to harm someone.

Even someone like Yi, who was ten times more insufferable than Lux had even been, even during his worst study benders. Lux was right—if Bruin had finished casting the Sinner's Tithe hex, he'd have regretted not thinking of another way.

"The three of us have been discussing how we can best perform our roles," Lux was saying.

"Bruin, your instincts in the last two conflicts were sound.

When the keep was attacked, you rushed to the infirmary to apply healing, and also used area binding hexes to support the guardians in holding a defensive position.

Then last weekend, you focused upon shielding charms, saving most of your light for recovery. "

"And a bit of environmental rescue," Rosemary added.

"Yes, and that. You should work along those lines. Be a force multiplier. Why bother crushing a single foe with stone, when that same energy could instead bless an entire pack with the strength to defeat ten?"

Bruin nodded sagely. "So you're saying it would be inefficient to, for example, summon a giant sword of flame and charge headlong against a giant tentacle?"

He laughed, seeing Lux's composure crack, and he smiled to make sure the other man knew he wasn't serious.

"Yes, exactly," Lux said, then leaned back in his chair, facing the ceilings. "Gods and goddesses, I still don't know what I was thinking."

Rosemary patted his arm. "Probably that saving the staff was important enough to risk burning through your white light."

"Oh, I'm not complaining about my goal. For all I knew, that staff would have been our only way out of the Umbral. But there were a dozen more efficient charms I could have cast! Well. Live and learn."

The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent amassing a list of charms, and then winnowing it down to just a few choice magicks apiece that they could practice.

For Bruin, his goals were fairly clear-cut.

He should reserve as much energy as he could for healing purposes, but in the case of being directly attacked or if he found himself up against the wild spirits in the Umbral, Lux advised him to find ways to strengthen whatever pack he was with.

"It's something that Lord Sergiy would appreciate as well, I'm sure," Lux told him as they were gathering their respective books and witches' bags.

Bruin nodded, shoving a few scrap pieces of paper he'd been given into a pocket. "Looks like I have some homework for the next few days. Thanks a bunch for this, by the way. You're doing a great job as coven head."

Lux looked surprised at the admission, and Bruin felt a bit surprised himself for saying it.

It was true, though. Lux had always been great at gathering large amounts of information and then plucking out the most salient points—in this case, from thousands of charms either already known or available online, and into a mere half-dozen or so for each witch.

And right now, aglow with the easy confidence of being within his element, Bruin felt a pang as he recognized what had once drawn him to ask Lux out on a date.

They might not have been right for each other in the end—and from the privileged position of someone in a new relationship, Bruin could maybe admit that he hadn't been the best fit for Lux either, with his mud-tracking into their dorms and laissez-faire attitude towards schooling—but he was glad for the continued friendship.

Rosemary said that she was going to spend her evening outlining a poem for a letter, and Lux had a standing engagement with several of the new recruits, so Bruin waved his farewells to them.

"What about yourself, Arthur?" Bruin asked, walking alongside the Hedge witch back to their rooms. "Going to get chummy with your pack, discuss matters esoteric and fuzzy?"

"Oh, dearie me, no," he lamented, tugging on his sweater vest. "I'm afraid that such sage matters go right over their heads.

Or at least they don't care for it. They're an alright bunch, if a bit single-minded in their role of mercenaries turned footmen, but hardly a wine and cheese aficionado among them.

My carefully bought stores are just going to waste! "