Page 7 of Flame and Starlight

She stopped halfway out the door and raised an eyebrow. Anxiety tended to give me word vomit.

“So many questions. You’ll get your answers later, but yes, this is real, as I’m sure you suspect. And there are guards out here, so don’t try and run.” At the mention of guards, my breakfast almost came back up.

“The guy that brought me here, Asher. Is he always such a prick?”

She laughed quietly under her breath. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.” And that was it. She was gone, and I was left on my own in this new and very strange place. A very strange place that my mind couldn’t begin to comprehend. Sifting through the many memories I had of my mother, I picked out all the ones where she spoke of the Fae: incredibly long lives, powers beyond my imagination, and skies the color of cotton candy. As a kid, I might have believed them, but as I got older, the novelty wore off. I just started to believe she was eccentric, a storyteller. Clearly, I was wrong.

I stood up out of bed so very slowly and walked over to one of the windows. It seemed like this place was placed right in the middle of dense forest. It was a steep, sharp fall from my window to the snowy ground below. All I could see were evergreens on all sides heavily blanketed in freshly powdered snow. It was morning, and the sun was shining in that pale, hesitant way it does in the winter. But in the light blue-and-pink cotton-candy sky, I could still see the faint shimmer of stars.

I turned around and surveyed the room. In front of the bed was a fireplace, still crackling and smelling of hickory, and a couple of deep chairs sat in front. To the left of the fireplace was the door that led to the bathing room, and to the right was a small vanity and mirror. I had no inclination to look at myself and see the state I must be in. I made my way to the bathing room and slowly opened the door. Tendrils of steam curled out around my feet. The biggest bathtub I had ever seen took up almost half the room and pressed up against a window that showed off the steep drop to the forest below. This bath would easily cover me up to my shoulders as I sat in it. I quickly closed the door, suddenly feeling sticky with sweat and the dirt from the river. I peeled off my dress from last night and practically jumped into the warm water.

My muscles almost instantly felt more relaxed. I found a bar of soap sitting on the side and lathered it up, breathing in the fresh scent of eucalyptus and lavender. When I began to rub the soap up my arms, I saw the bruises. Kisses of blue and purple, fading into black, and the size of fingertips, marking where he had grabbed me. Asher. I craned my head back, sinking my hair into the water, and hissed as it came into contact with the cut on my temple. As gently as I could, I massaged and cleaned my hair. Once I was done, I laid my head on the corner of the bath and closed my eyes, sinking into the water as deep as I could.

I lay there and waited for the tears to come, for the panic attack to creep its way into my chest. But it didn’t. A very small part of me, I realized, felt like this place connected me with my mother once more. I closed my eyes and thought of all my friends, probably wondering where the hell I got off to last night. Would they be texting me? What would happen when I didn’t show up to classes or work? What would happen with my student visa? There was no one to miss me back in the States. But my friends were my family now. And what would they think when I just stopped showing up and their messages weren’t returned?

He had told Ashley to give them an excuse. Had Ashley been in on this whole thing? Would she give them an excuse that would keep them from worrying for a day? Two? A week? Months? What had made Ashley do this? She was one of my best friends. She was part of my family. Had he threatened her?

A soft knock on the door brought me out of my spiraling thoughts. The bathwater was suddenly cold, and I shivered against the gooseflesh on my arms. “Yes?” My heart kicked against my chest.

“Just me, dearie.” Mavka’s lilting accent came softly through the door. “The healer is here if you can go ahead and get dressed and pop on out for us.”

“Um, okay,” I answered back and slowly climbed out of the bath, taking a towel off the radiator on the wall. I quickly dried myself off, wringing my hair into the towel, and hung it back up on the radiator to dry. The oil inside clicked and popped, and that soft noise made me think of my cozy flat back in England. The radiator on the wall next to my bed was constantly cracking and groaning when the heat was turned on.

There was a pair of dark leggings, a very large cream sweater, some underthings, and fuzzy socks sitting on a stool. I put them all on, relishing in the clean laundered scent. I opened the door and peered out into the bedroom.

“If you’ll just come over here and sit next to the fire, he can look at that head of yours.” Mavka was suddenly upon me and leading me over to the fireplace. I breathed a sigh of relief as she motioned but didn’t touch me. I didn’t know if it was a Faery thing, me feeling what seemed like her emotions, or if it was just her, but I did not want to experience that again.

Standing next to the fire was a tall, rail-thin male in an old brown cloak. I walked over to him, and he motioned for me to sit on the chair next to him. He peered down at my temple, not touching it but studying it for a long moment with his unnaturally green eyes before he stood straight again and walked over to the vanity where a bag sat on the chair.

“It’s not too deep of a cut, so you shouldn’t have a scar. The lump is going to be the most painful thing,” he said, rummaging through his leather satchel. “Gently rub this cream on the cut a couple of times a day, and it will be healed in a few days.” He handed me a tin jar. I opened the lid and gave it a small sniff. It didn’t really smell of anything and looked like lotion. With a quick bow, he slung his satchel over his shoulder and left the room.

“Here,” Mavka said, taking the tin. “Let me put some on for you.”

“Oh, that’s okay, Mav. Thank you. But I’d prefer to do it.” She shrugged and handed it back to me. “Put that on right away. I’ve sat a cup of chamomile tea on your nightstand. Drink that and try to get some more sleep.”

I knitted my brows and looked up at her. “Was I brought here to just sleep?”

“Rest first, answers later. Traveling between the realms really takes it out of you the first time. You’ll be able to sleep, trust me.” She smiled and made the creases of her deep blue eyes crinkle. “I’ll be back later.”

I walked over to the vanity and took a breath to steady myself before taking in my face. There was a nasty cut from the mirror that started at my hairline above my temple and slashed crookedly down to my eyebrow. God, it could’ve blinded me. The bruise around it was a sickly mixture of blues and greens that reached across my forehead and even down past my cheekbone. Other than that, I still looked like myself, just a bit tired. And then a glimmer on my neck caught my eye. I pushed my stillwet hair back off my shoulders, and there was a bluish dust, just like Asher’s, that settled itself over my neck and down onto my right shoulder. I wiped at it roughly, but it wouldn’t move, like it was tattooed there. What the—

“Okay, I am going to worry about that later,” I said aloud and opened the small tin of cream. As gently as I could, I dabbed some of the cream onto my cut. There was a brief moment of stinging before it settled in, and then a lot of the pain in my head subsided. I hadn’t even realized I was clenching my jaw until I could finally relax it.

Mavka wasn’t wrong. After that bath and with the pounding in my head easing, I was feeling sluggish. I made my way back over to the bed that had been made and looked to have fresh sheets on it. I peeled them back and threw myself in. The smell of clean laundry and lavender cocooned me, and I didn’t even have time to drink the tea before I drifted off to sleep. Strangely, for the first time in a long time, my anxious thoughts didn’t talk me into a stupor. It was finally quiet.

Mavka softly woke me up much, much later in the day. The pain in my head was back but definitely not as bad as before. I stretched and slowly sat up in bed. Looking out the window, I could tell that the sun was on its way down.

“I’ve slept all day?” I asked her while she poked the fire around and added some logs. “Takes it out of you.” She disappeared into the bathing chamber, and I heard her digging through the chest in there. I leaned over to try and see what she was doing, but she quickly returned and laid out a dress on the foot of the bed. She looked at me, and I raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to dine with him, and before you ask, yes, he is going to explain.”

“This dinner requires a dress? Can’t I just wear what I’m wearing?”

“You’ve been sleeping in that all day. And yes, you’ll dress appropriately for a dinner with the High Lord.” My stomach fell through my butt. High Lord? Like a King? “Up you get,” she said as she started to fold back the sheets.

“I’m twenty-two, Mav. I can dress myself.” She ignored me and told me to undress while she grabbed the dress off the bed. I sighed and resigned, realizing she wasn’t going to leave it. She unzipped the heavy-looking dress and gently bunched it at my feet for me to step into. The fabric was cool against my sleepy skin as she pulled it up and over my hips. How they knew what size I was, I had no idea.

It was strapless with a low sweetheart neckline and so blue it almost looked black. It shimmered in the firelight. After she had it hooked and zipped it, it was actually quite light. I didn’t think I would have the problem of needing to constantly tug on it like other strapless dresses I had owned. She pulled out flat silver slippers from under the bed and gestured for me to put them on. When I pulled the dress up to slip them on, I caught sight of the bruises on my arm again, five little blue-black cherries. A sliver of anger skirted up my spine.

“Here, it’ll be a bit colder out through the corridors. Put this on.”

---