I picked up the vial of dried up and pulverised plants, again. It had to be some sort of ground-up flower with blue blossoms, because mixed with the green were bits of sky-blue. I opened the cork and brought the vial to my nose. A mild scent, nothing particularly noteworthy. A flower, yes. I didn’t recognize it. Perhaps a medicine.
The most obvious item — to me — was a tiny silver dagger, only half a palm’s length, in a metal sheath that was likely silver plated with gold. Pulling out the dagger, I examined the blade. It was properly sharpened, polished, well taken care of, as a feisty warrior queen’s discreet last-resort weapon should be. The handle was shaped like a horse’s head, exquisitely beautifully crafted.
Then I heard her fumble with the door of our makeshift blanket tent, and she crawled in, hair swaying. The minute she saw me, her face went positively ghostly pale. Her eyes darted between me and the scattered items of her purse. Not delaying further, she dove in like a pouncing animal and began gathering her things back into the bag.
“What do you think you’re doing, Milla! These are my things! How could you…?”
I stammered, not knowing what to say. Baffled, I reached for the dagger and helped put it back in the bag.
“I thought you meant for me to look at it? You put it on the ground looking at me like that…How was I supposed to know? You literally put it on the floor for me to look at. After we talked about that. Why did you do that, then?”
“I only put it down!…How could you, Milla! You don’t look at other people’s things, you don’t open their bags and sprinkle everything out! What is wrong with you?” She was shaking with anger, worrisomely pale and getting blushed cheeks at the same time, her eyes wild. I had had no idea she’d get like this.
Noticing the vial of plant powder, she grabbed it into her fist and gave me the most vehement look. “Don’t you ever, ever touch this again, all right? Is that clear?”
“That? No…I don’t even know what that is. Why should I care?” Why would she have to yell at me like that? So unwarranted. Hurtful. She could have at least asked me why I’d done it and let me explain.
“Yeah, that’s right! Why should you care? Why should you care about anything important in my life? Why should you even bother, you know everything about me from all the rumors you hear, anyway? Why not just throw everything on the floor like it’s nothing!”
“Lyria…Calm down. What’s the matter? Nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong. I didn’t break anything—”
“Well, thank god for that, because if I didn’t have this, we could get killed one beautiful day in a moment shorter than an eye-blink, in one glorious gust and explosion of dark magic, and that would be that, end of story, end of us…I could kill you and me and everyone around, within, I don’t even know, maybe a hundred feet, maybe several, maybe a mile, I have no idea, because luckily I’ve never had to witness it! Because I have my herbs and potions. And they help keep the powers down. Lovely, isn’t it?”
“What…?”
“You don’t have a clue! Of course you don’t! You’ve lived your whole life without having to worry about things like these. You don’t have vicious monster powers eating you up inside, crawling out of you at the worst moments…”
“What? Lyria…Explain that to me. I don’t understand.”
“You know what this is? This is a mix of herbs made by one of the best wizards I’ve ever known, one of the most famous in all the lands, actually. So you can believe this is potent stuff, and it has to be, because I have real, honest-to-god genuine fae powers running in my veins. They’re mostly dormant. Always. In my everyday life, I keep them as much dormant as I can. I can control it somewhat, by taking these herbs. How much it’s held back depends on how much medicines I take. Out here, on the run, as we are, I’ve let my powers strengthen even frighteningly much, because we might need them some moment that we can’t even prepare for. You can’t imagine how stressful it is to hold onto these medicines at all times, Milla, listening to my instincts, listening to my body, trying to figure out if I’ve gone too far and if I should dampen my powers back a little more. Something could happen. Anything could happen. I don’t have them under control…as in, what I could do with them. All I can do is dampen them down with my medicines.” Her lip was quivering. I struggled with mixed urges to pull her close to console her, and the lingering anger of being shunned out, kept in the dark like this, as if we weren’t close, or friends at all.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this? It could be useful for me to know, if I need to help you out in some difficult situation. Maybe I could save your life, even, if things got really bad? Who knows what kind of situations it might be useful to know that?”
“And useful information to those who hate me, to diminish my powers and make me weak. Think of that?”
I didn’t know what to say. Her kind face was full of mixed emotions, as well. Her eyes gleamed with welling up tears.
“Don’t you trust me?” I had to ask. “Why would you think you couldn’t tell me?”
“I trust you, Milla!…Who I don’t trust is Cantillion. While he may be thinking about my offer, and we might have nothing to fear, I still don’t trust he will be on our side. He and his friends could be right around the corner outside somewhere. And with them around, they could come by any time, take you hostage, take us prisoner, whatever, depending on their mood…They could torture you, or us, and without question, they’d get their answers. If you don’t know, you can’t…I thought I had to make a call one way or the other, so I decided not to even tell you in the first place. It might save you from something, at least.”
And this was the fae rebel leader she was willing to go to war with, against King Taramon? She would knowingly be putting her life at risk, if she knew she couldn’t trust Cantillion.
“Cantillion is supposed to be your friend and ally.”
“And he is. But he’s a dark fae. A beast of the underworld, from under the earth’s layers, where most human souls couldn’t survive a single day.” Lyria sighed. “Yes, he is as much an ally as a fae can be, but fae have their limits. You should know that already.”
Chapter 15
I watched Lyria from my blanket, as she took small steps back and forth, reciting an incantation and performing elegant moves with her arms, like a dance in the quiet twilight. I closed my eyes and let her whispers and murmurs come through to my half-asleep thoughts. Something feathery light landed on my hand, a butterfly. I had to smile over the ludicrous perfection of this morning. I blew gently on the butterfly, and it took off again.
“Oh,” her soft voice made me turn to look. “You’re up.”
“Yes, I’ve been awake for a minute or two. Just listening to you, watching your dance.”
She smiled in a way I didn’t expect. Even as I’d said it, I’d thought, what an irresponsible, tactless thing to say. But she didn’t look like it had been.
She came to kneel in front of me, crossing her arms in her lap. “Milla, I need to talk to you about something. I went out earlier this morning and talked to Rayern.”