Page 20 of Fate

She stepped forward without giving it much thought, wanting to see more of it.

His arm came out, keeping her within the chamber even as he stepped out and peered in all directions. It was eerily quiet. Firen’s home had become quieter as each of her brothers found their mates and settled into their respective lives. But there were always the sounds of her father working. Of Mama fiddling in the kitchen. Eris humming as she dusted in the living quarters.

She poked her head over Lucian’s arm. It was an open chamber—not with candles and lamps to light it, but glowing stones cut mortared into the stone of the tower itself. The resulting cast was strangely white and almost cold compared to firelight. The doorway opened to a ledge—almost a balcony if it had been set to the outside of a building.

“A difficult home if one should break a wing.”

She whispered it, but her voice echoed through the tower, and she winced, already expecting Lucian’s glare. “Sorry.” It was more the movement of her lips rather than sound, but he sighed and nodded.

He kept careful hold of her hand and stepped off, pulling her upward until her wings did the rest of the work for him, taking her even higher. There were so many doors. All of them looked quite the same, although if she squinted as she passed, perhaps there were carvings about the mouldings that distinguished them slightly.

They should be labelled. In a flowing script. Washing room. Guest chamber. Lucian’s abode.

Or perhaps they were all book-rooms. Da had a small bookcase in the workshop. Plans and particulars for all sorts of craft. He rarely looked at any of them anymore, so far was he from apprenticeship.

But she did. Sitting at one of the worktables, looking at the diagrams and calculations, the pencil lines so faded that she doubted her children could read them. Certainly nottheirchildren.

Which was... sad. She’d always intended to do them all over. To make fresh markings with new ink and coal, but there had always been something else to do, hadn’t there? Even... even if that something else had been to sit in her window and wile away the afternoons with frivolous daydreaming.

Or so Mama said.

It wasn’t the very top, but near to it. The doors were larger; the ornamentations carved into the stone arches about them were more elaborate. Silly, since Lucian said no one had been there in an age.

Even the landing had decorative columns to accent the balcony—the tops and bottoms fashioned to look like crashing waves. She knelt so might better marvel at how the craftsmenhad recreated sea-foam from a solid cut of rock, only to feel Lucian tug at her hand. “What are you doing?”

His hand was on the latch of the door, and she stood as she was bid, although she’d liked to have lingered longer. Perhaps with a cloth or a very fine brush, as dust cluttered the edges. “It’s beautiful.” She gestured toward the column and Lucian spared it barely a glance.

“If you say so.”

Her mouth opened, but she remembered the way her voice had carried before and did not think it was worth another of his glares.

He pulled her into his room.

Which might have included an excited sort of thrill if he wasn’t so tense. If they’d greeted his parents first and she did not feel as if they were skulking rather than moving freely about a home they’d a right to.

He released her so he could see to the lamps. It was somehow even larger than the chamber they’d left before. A thick rug of dark green and grey covered most of the floor. Tapestries lined the walls, woven so fine and detailed that they depicted all sorts of stories she’d forgotten since her youngest days when Da would read them from the thickest tome on the modest shelf in the living room.

The hearth was large enough that she—could not stand upright—but could sit comfortably with no risk to her head.

And she thought he’d be willing to live in her modest room? With its slim bed and quilts made by her mother’s mother. With the only true ornament, the chain of delicate links her father had made to twinkle over her bed when they caught the lamplight when she was small.

The walls curved gently. The bed—larger even than her parents had in their room—was built onto a frame that had obviously been crafted with those unique specifications in mind.There was a table behind, with another lamp and... She moved a little nearer, trying to see which items held such attention he’d want them so close while sleeping.

Right. She mustn’t be nosey. She’d promised.

Hated that she’d promised.

But she’d done it. And she was here, and this was his room. Her mate’s room.

“Has this always been yours?” she asked, trying to keep her movements subtle rather than flit from one end to the other as she wanted to.

He grunted in a way that she supposed was a confirmation, before settling into a large chair before the hearth. What had been embers had been stoked into a cheerful blaze. The chair itself suited him well. It was large and heavily cushioned, and he looked quite at home seated in it.

There was not another. Which was to be expected. And left her free to... drift. Softly. Toward the window where she might see the view that was his. To wonder if he might see her district at such a height when it was daylight. If he’d looked out when she had and if that had been when the ache was hardest—staring but notseeing.

But it was dark and she could barely see anything at all, so she allowed herself to settle on the rest of it.

The trunk that was large—certainly larger than hers. Closed and sealed, although she doubted there was much of anything at all inside of it. A wardrobe. An entire bookcase that was taller than even her that curved about the inner wall, some so old that the bindings had turned split and papers were tied with stringed to keep them together. Others new and glinting with their golden lettering pressed into linen covers.