Page 18 of This Midsummer Heart (Seasons of Legend #4)

Chapter seventeen

Fata di Morgana

Titaine

I

’m

sure

to

walk

well ahead of Auberon so he does not see the sheen of sweat glistening on my face. Not that it’s difficult. Without magic providing him his usual fluid grace and long, easy steps, he’s getting slow.

Any slower and I’ll have to leave him behind.

For while my reserves of magic are deep, they once felt endless. Now I feel the strain of this working, the steam from the sun-dried stream weighing down my wings. They feel oddly…cumbersome on my back.

I shouldn’t have even needed an incantation to bend this little stream to my will. But here we are, in this world the scholars now call Duskhold. This is what life is to be like.

I can only hope the City of Nox will be different. For I do not feel like myself at all. Instead, it’s like a piece of me is missing.

I think of the fetes I left behind in Avalonne, forced to fend for themselves while the magic leeches from their bodies. They do not have the same depths of magic that I do. If this is a taste of what is to come, I’m not even sure how I will send for them.

Which means I’ve all but abandoned them, for a journey that may not even change what has already begun.

The power of the fetes is waning. What will we be when it’s gone?

Will fetes and wild fae even still exist?

Or will we be like Auberon, dragging his weary body along somewhere behind me, becoming unremarkable?

Well. He needs to be knocked down a peg or twenty.

I may as well keep up this ruse that the end of magic isn’t affecting me for as long as possible. After all, it is

his turn to learn a little humility.

After thirty minutes of walking, the stream deposits me beside a small mill with a water wheel, which now creaks to life after being forced to halt by my magic. I haven’t entered the normal way by any stretch of the imagination, which means I’m somewhere in the middle of this village.

And while I doubt that a place surrounded by rose briars that are clearly

enchanted enjoys many visitors, here we are. Both exhausted and in need of supplies. At least the briars will likely keep the bandits away.

I can only hope the inn here is decent and cheap.

I leave Auberon to struggle out of the stream and knock on the door of what must be the miller’s house. It’s built with gray and pink stones, different from the brown rocks and septarian vein visible in the stream. Which means this village wasn’t always surrounded by this briar. Interesting.

I wipe my brow as discretely as I can while I wait for someone to answer.

The door swings open. Whomever the human woman—presumably the miller’s wife—is expecting, I am not her. In fact, as her eyes shoot toward the pointed tips of my ears and wings on my back, I instantly regret not thinking of a glamour. I’m so weary, I never even considered it.

Her eyes are still fixed on my ears and wings, bouncing between the two. I don’t think she’s ever seen a fete.

“Good afternoon,” I greet her, hoping the language makes sense to her, “or is it evening?”

I did not think it possible, but her eyes widen further, as if she didn’t expect I could talk.

After stammering a moment, she begins with a peculiar accent, the familiar sounds of our common language altered just a little in each word.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she manages, looking anguished. “I know the stories. You can’t come in. We want no trouble here!”

I sigh. Should’ve gone with the glamour.

Just as she shuts the door in my face, Auberon appears in my peripheral vision, soaked up to his waist. I’m not in the mood to smile, but it serves him right for being so slow and thinking I’d waste magic to accommodate him.

When I left the stream, my magic went with me and the waters came rushing back—as he should’ve guessed would happen.

Clearly, he’s too worn out to be observant. Nor has he learned an ounce of humility. He’s furious.

“Look at this!” he says, holding out the supply satchel. “You’ve soaked what’s left of our supplies.”

I narrow my eyes at his stupidity. I really do need to leave him behind.

“The steam alone would’ve soaked the bag. Why didn’t you enchant it to stay dry?” I ask, shrugging the shoulder bearing my own satchel. I cluck my tongue at him. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, but you couldn’t be bothered to ask me to do it for you.”

“How was I to know you had that much magic left?” he retorts, shaking the bag at me for emphasis. It clinks, as if he carries a secret stash of coin. “In case you haven’t noticed, magic is dying.

”

I toss my hair back over my shoulder. So that’s what this is about. He’s angry I still have magic enough for a major working.

“In case you

haven’t noticed, I’ve always had deep reserves. But you never did notice, did you? Too busy admiring your own reflection in the mirror!”

At that exact moment, the miller’s wife throws open her door, shouting at us in another language. It takes my mind a moment to filter the words so I can understand them. “What is all this racket for? Go argue someplace else!”

Only she never finishes the thought. She’s spotted Auberon, and the way she looks at him is nothing like how she gawked at my ears and wings.

Fury begins to simmer in my belly. Of course. Of course she has to prove my point!

I hate him for it, the way he beguiles women with his own version of a glamour.

And it’s so much more than preening—indeed, he looks a sight, his arms scratched up, his clothes dripping, sweat making the exposed v of his chest gleam.

In the few minutes I left him alone, he stripped off his mail, leaving nothing but the unlaced vest on. And it is opened just so.

As if that weren’t bad enough, he smiles

at her.

My traitorous belly flips, then burns all the hotter. I remember the days when he’d use that smile on me. I remember when I fell for it.

The memories return to haunt me as I view that sly smile from the outside. How his lips curve in a way just shy of suggestion, how his dark eyes seem to behold the object of his attention more clearly than anyone ever has.

It’s a smile that’s as beguiling as a midsummer night, and as bright as the full moon over torchlit gardens.

It carries with it all the giddiness of spotting an unexpected firefly, and the sweet seduction of ripe, savory fruits that dribble down the chin, so cold and inviting in the midst of unbearable heat.

What I fool I was for this man.

“Good evening,” Auberon says, his voice pitched extra low. “I was just stopping in this town for the night with my travel companion, seeking lodging and supplies.”

“Oh, of course,” the woman says, reverting to her dialect of Laufeean. “But the market is closed for the day. Why don’t you come in? I can offer you refreshments.”

Auberon raises a brow. “If your husband won’t mind, of course.”

“Not at all, he’s still at the mill,” she answers, sparing the building a quick glance. The water wheel has begun to turn normally again. “Do come in.”

But when I move to follow him, her demeanor changes completely.

“Not you,” she snaps.

The last thing I see, before she slams the door shut in my face once again, is Auberon’s irritating swagger. And the last thing I hear?

“Well, Titaine, it appears all those hours in front of the mirror have paid off. Ta-ta.”

There is no way

he’s coming with me to Nox now. Absolutely none.

My steps are closer to stomps as I turn towards the center of the village, hunting for its central street in the hopes of finding an inn.

But my thoughts are elsewhere. Why must Auberon always be so infuriating?

Why does he go out of his way to irritate me?

Even now, when he is losing energy by the hour, he wastes it on whatever will anger me!

But it isn’t just anger. The ache in my chest isn’t from pent up rage.

I remember how it felt when I learned of his affair—when I realized that no matter how much I tried to prepare myself for him to choose a consort, or how much I tried to protect my heart, nothing would make that pain go away.

He didn’t even stay with that wood elf for long, according to Robin.

Just long enough to destroy everything I’d ever felt for Auberon.

And I’d felt foolish, too. A feeling that is echoed when I find the true central street of this village and see just how far it stretches and how many businesses line its streets, and then realize Auberon was right.

Of course he just had to be right.

This is a town. Probably Adellor, if I’m remembering the map of this region correctly. Which means that briar we crossed through is absolutely not supposed to be there.

For a moment, I think of all those scratches on Auberon’s arm and wonder if I should be worried. Who am I fooling? I am

worried. Worried minor cuts will turn into an infection—or a curse—from the enchanted thorns. Worried our journey will be even further delayed. Worried I won’t have enough magic left to make it to Nox.

Worried Auberon will leave me before I have the chance to leave him.

And, yes, I am worried about what he’s doing with the miller’s wife right now.

Which is ridiculous. I have far bigger concerns.

Just because we’re still married under elven law doesn’t mean I have to think of him as my husband.

As a fete, a magical bonding will always be the mark of a true pairing, and I dissolved ours years ago.

So why can’t I stop my jaw from clenching, or my wings from agitated flutters? If they keep this up, I’ll end up flying down Adellor’s main street.

I don’t have feelings for Auberon. I don’t. I can’t.

How foolish would that make me, falling for him again after mere weeks in his company? Except that, in reality, it only took days for me to fall for him the first time.

No matter how quick and clever my mind is, it seems my heart is determined to make my decisions for me. I try to slam a mental door shut on my feelings for him, and still there is a sliver of warm light invading my peace.

I return my focus to finding an inn—only to receive a similar reception as the one I got by the mill. No one has rooms to spare for a fete. And despite my attempts to pull together a human-looking glamour, they all seem to know I’m hiding wings and pointed ears beneath it.

Not that it’s a very good glamour. My thoughts are scattered, robbing me of focus, and I feel the cost of wielding unruly magic more acutely as my hunger grows. Exhausted in every way possible, I enter a taverna instead, hoping a warm meal and cool beverage will restore me.

The interior of this taverna is warm but cozy, with a bar on the side that is so thoroughly polished it reflects the bright sunlight from the windows and brightens the dark timbers of the vaulted room.

Only a few of the tables are occupied, mostly by elders enjoying an early supper.

I get the feeling, from its size, that Adellor is used to far more foot traffic than this.

The briar is strangling this town.

No sooner have I thought it than a harried-looking woman in a half apron appears, not to take my order but to slide into the seat next to me. “You’re a fata,

aren’t you?“ she says, using this region’s name for the fetes.

Warily, I nod. But instead of asking me to leave, she slumps back in her chair with relief. “I’m the mayor of this town. Name’s Arquina. Do you have much experience with curses?” she asks. There is hope and not a little desperation on her face.

Silently, I thank Morgana, revered ancestor of the fetes, because for once, I’ve stumbled into exactly the right place.