He settled beside her finally, saying nothing, strong thighs straddled the fallen timber. When he pulled her against him, she sank into his heat with abandon, taking the strength and comfort he offered so freely.
“Alright, love. I won’t ask. Just...let me hold you while you rest.” His voice cracked once and was a husky rasp in her ear.
Yes, she’d like it if he held her.
Sleep came soon after and she embraced it, grateful for the oblivion that awaited.
She was still sleeping when Jaren returned to find them, the camp not even half ready for the night and Aryn staring at the fire with dull eyes.
The fae’s irritation fell away fast as he approached the human. Just beyond Aryn, the spectral figure of the enchanter bound to the mercenary paced. Jaren knew of Irian, though what he knew could barely fill a thimble. They were bonded and Irian’s powerful magic had left a stamp on the human, making him something far more than he’d once been. Be he didn’t truly…understand what Irian was. Vengeful spirit, an avatar, something else all together, he didn’t know.
There was power in the enchanter though, power that had transcended life, then death, and that power crackled in the air, potent with hot anger and raw anguish.
It was the enchanter who first took notice of Jaren and he turned on the fae with a fury that roused something in the elf he’d rarely felt in all his nine centuries.
Fear.
He schooled his voice not to reveal anything as Irian bore down on him, though, offering a faint smile as he asked, “Hello, enchanter. Here to join us for the evening repast?”
The spectral form blurred and reformed, right in front of Jaren, too fast for even an elf’s quick reflexes, and he had no time to deflect the attack before Irian grabbed him around the throat with a very solid hand and hefted him into the air.
“My brother tells me that Tyriel is dying. What madness is this?” Irian demanded, his voice a booming echo that carried off in the forest around them.
Jaren grabbed the enchanter’s wrist—or tried. His hands went right through. Before he could try anything else, his mind processed what Irian had said and shock him going lax.
Irian dropped him, disgust in the darkness of his eyes. “Are we to believe you didn’t know? You can tell her mount heals her body, yet you know nothing about her heart failing?”
“I know about her heart.” Jaren rubbed his throat, his anger already fading as he shifted his attention to Tyriel and Aryn. Grief flooded him, washing away the anger, his ire, everything, until the urge to weep overwhelmed him. “She went malnourished, bound by iron, for months. The iron poisoned her while the starvation drained her. And…” He stopped and sighed, looking at the leather pouch he still held, stuffed full with foraged roots and mushrooms to brew yet another tonic for her. One that might well be pointless. “And none of that did nowhere near as much damage as what she did to herself when she ripped her magic out.”
Now both Irian and Aryn pinned him with diamond-hard glares.
“Explain,” Irian demanded.
“We are magic, enchanter,” Jaren said, jabbing a thumb at his chest. “Magic is embedded in our very cells. The only reason Tyriel still lives is because she’s half-fae. But even the Wildling blood in her…the Wildling race has more magic-users than any other human race in this world. Tyriel’s mother was an earth witch. Her grandfather? A seer. Nearly everyone in her matriarchal line was gifted. We know. We looked. So even the Wildling blood that’s keeping her alive? She’s missing something crucial there. It’s why she’s so unique among us. Her magic works in ways the fae have never seen and it’s the Wildling blood that makes it so. You take away her magic…in essence, you take away her.”
Jaren staggered then, under a scream that somehow pierced the psychic plain.
He clamped his hands over his ears in reflex, although it did no good.
Irian gave him a skeptical look before turning to the human he’d bonded with and speaking.
Jaren could hear nothing, his entire body shuddering as that scream echoed on and on.
Then…nothing.
Head ringing from the backlash, he dragged in air. It didn’t do much to ease his vicious headache, but that would pass in time.
“Elf?”
Irian’s surly growl had him looking away from Aryn’s rigid back and he met the enchanter’s gaze, saw the plea there.