Page 55 of Fate
Orma didn’t look at her. Just stared at the garden wall, a little frown upon her face. “I like to see the bonds. They’re real for me. Tendrils between people. In all sorts of different colours. And yours was so bright, so strong. And it seemed a shame to watch you wasting your time.”
She sighed and turned her head so she could look at Firen properly. “And maybe I was selfish. And when I saw your colour, and it resembled Lucian’s...” She glanced down at her lap. “Maybe I wanted someone kind within our family.”
The tension in Firen’s shoulders left her, and she felt suddenly... wilted. “A fellow prisoner,” Firen offered—a jest that was too near to being not a jape at all.
Orma did not agree, but she did not correct her either. “I like Lucian,” Orma murmured after a time. “He just wants his father to be proud of him. And I don’t think he’s ready to admit that it will never happen.”
Orma glanced at Firen. Then, with a hand that shook just a little, she placed it on Firen’s arm. A whisper more than a touch. “Forgive me. Please. I don’t... I can’t bear to think that I...” She swallowed, her hand pulling away, back to sit miserably in a tangle with her other. “He needs you. And you were sovivid.”
She said this as if it meant something. As if it was natural to see the bonds that were so deeply ingrained, so personal that the mere thought of that was near a violation.
But Orma spoke of it with a wistful sort of reverence. Something beautiful that only she could see.
“I haven’t heard of that sort of ability,” Firen admitted. “If you set up a stall at the market, you could amass quite the fortune, directing people to their pairing.”
Orma laughed. A soft, gentle sound that lightened the lines on her face, the weight she carried. “Wouldn’t that horrify them?” Nothing in her tone suggested that might be a bad thing. “I’d even have totalkto people.”
There was quiet between them for a moment. Each lost in their own thoughts. Firen to her troubles, Orma perhaps as mistress of her own stall, with coins to call her own and a home besides.
“Orma,” Firen asked, not wanting the answer, but needing it. “You can’t actually sever a bond, can you?”
Orma turned her head, eyes grim. “They can try. And that should frighten you more than if they actually succeeded.”
Firen’s throat grew tight. “How?”
“Potions, to begin. Herbs from books so old they’re hardly books at all. Horrible tinctures that sting at your nostrils, that burn and curdle. And when that does not work, then they’ll try to burn. And when that does not work, they will try to cut. Because it’s physical, isn’t it?” She reached out, two fingers tapping at Firen’s chest where the bond settled. “And if they can find it, pluck it out, then you’re just a person. Broken, to be sure, but you could go back home, and they could settle their son with a widow of their choosing, and pretend like you had never happened at all.”
Firen tried to keep the horror from her face, but she doubted she was the least bit successful. “Did they do that to you?” Surely not. Not when they were kin. But... her mate...
Orma sighed, her hand dropping away. “You asked, and I answered,” she chided softly. “Do not let them.”
Firen took a breath, her heart racing. She was certain that Lucian would feel fear trickling through the bond if he was paying the least bit of attention, and she tried to stifle it as best she could. She did not want to see him. To see any of them.
“Would Lucian?” she asked, voice hoarse and heart numb. “Let them?”
Because somehow that mattered more. She’d never had to consider if there were evil people in the world. So wrapped up in their own selfishness that they’d hurt others and be glad of the outcome.
But Lucian was meant to be more than that. He was supposed to love her. Keep her safe. Keeptheirfamily safe.
Orma reached for her again. Just the brushing of their hands, but a touch all the same.
“You’ve little faith in him,” Orma answered, and if it was supposed to be a chastisement, it was so gently given that Firen did not hear it as one. “I thought he knew better than to modelafter Oberon. Was I wrong?” She turned her head, looking Firen over more carefully. “Does he hurt you?”
That it was even a question soured her stomach.
Her feelings? Most certainly. But his hands were careful of her, his manners were dour, but he tried, when she asked it of him. He’d put her on his lap and stroke her hair. He’d hold her close and treat her gently.
If only in private.
The bond flared, hot and biting, and Firen had to stifle her gasp as she rubbed at her chest, trying to soothe the spot that seared and twisted.
Orma’s hand withdrew, and Firen tried to smile, but something was wrong, and she did not know what to do about it. Stay calm. That was important. Don’t let fear mingle with anger. They would only fuel each other. Coiling tighter and tighter until Firen could not breathe, and it wasn’t supposed tobelike this.
And then he was there.
Scowling and glaring, his form taking up too much of the courtyard’s archway as he stared at them both just briefly enough to confirm their presence.
Then he was stalking forward.