Page 17 of Bound By Roses

I feel their eyes on me as I move to the centre of the room where the man—what did Aurelia say his name was? Byrn? No, whereBrinis already slicing open the fish given to him by Erwyn as if no fight had just taken place here. I grab one of the unbroken plates of a table and stop when I’m directly in front of him.

He ignores me, because of course he does, so I clear my throat. When his eyes finally flick upward, there’s no effort to hide the annoyance. “You have been here a day and already you are trouble.”

“I don’t recall starting any fights.” The one with Erwyn, Imelda, or any of the confrontations I’ve had with these people.

His only response is a huff, and still my plate remains empty.

“Can I get some of that?”

“We can hardly feed our own.” It seems that wasn’t a refusal because he cuts of sliver of the greyish meat and balances it on the side of his sizeable knife before plopping it onto the plate between us.

I don’t bother to thank him because I know he doesn’t want to hear it. Instead, I cross the room again to where the child is now standing with his mother and hold the plate out to him. “I’ll trade you. My fish for yours.”

The kid seems to know he’s getting the better end of the deal because he happily takes the plate from me and dumps the cold, soggy bits of fish he’d picked up off the floor into my other outstretched hand.

Lovely.

I take a seat at the nearest table and examine the morsels as best I can. There doesn’t appear to be any shards of glass, but if there were, I wonder if anyone here would rush to my aid. Aside from the dragons, of course, but even with them, I wonder. Rhett is still on bed rest. Merrick seems more cold than hot despite his assistance with the sword, and the others seem indifferent to me; if not altogether angry about the decision I’d made to keep Jade alive. They may be the closest thing he has to family, but we could all see that letting him go was the merciful thing.

Only I had been selfish.

I force that thought away by shoving a piece of the mushy grey meat in my mouth. There are times when things taste a lot better than they look, but this is not one of them.

The meat looks, tastes, and smells equally unpleasant, but my stomach grumbles all the same, welcoming any form of sustenance I can provide. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve last eaten and considering the level of rationing happening here, it’s unlikely I’ll eat again until tomorrow. Quinn will no doubt want to share his portion, but I have no plans to tell him about this. He needs a full meal just as much as I do.

Perhaps he can hunt—once he’s recovered enough, of course. Surely the dragons can join him and together they can kill enough game from the forest to feed these people. I have nothing close to a good guess of how many people live beneath the ruins of Marein, but it’s less than Lunae. Of that, I’m certain.

The sound of a plate skidding across the table catches my attention. On it is a fresh serving of fish. Brin takes a seat across from me and gestures to the plate as if confirming that it is, in fact, for me, and he’s not taunting me with a meal of his own.

“I thought it was one plate per person,” I say, bracing myself for the less-than-appetizing texture as I bring the fish to my lips. He could have poisoned it, but something tells me that isn’t his style. He’s more likely to hope that I choke on a missed bone. Giving me another portion would increase my chances.

“I believe kindness should be rewarded.”

“I’ve never known kindness to fill a belly.” In Lunae, all kindness ever got me was a minimum of ten lashes.

“We are all hungry. I would tell you to get used to it, but something tells me you already are.”

“Nothing grows in Lunae.” I don’t bother to tell him why. “Each month during the full moon, there’s a hunt and hundreds of animals are driven to where dead earth meets forest. Whatever we killed is all the food we had until the next hunt. We lost many to starvation.”

His eyes soften a moment but then crinkle in confusion, making him look at least ten years older. “You are Terranous’ Chosen, are you not? Could you not feed your people?”

“It’s complicated,” I say after swallowing the last mouthful of fish. “I only recently discovered what I am and I’m still learning what I can do. Which is apparently nothing down here.”

The anxiety that comes with being powerless creeps up on me like snakes slithering out of shadow, only to be hidden by the darkness of night. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there.I feel them running smooth bodies over me, curling around my legs, climbing me as if I were just another tree.

“You do not belong beneath the waves.”

“Beneath the waves or in Marein?”

He stands, taking my plate with him. “That is something only you can answer.”

After a few minutes of sitting alone—well, as alone as I can be in a room filled with people who keep looking my way—I decide its time to leave. Not Marein entirely, at least not yet. I wander the halls, not even bothering to learn the layout. Brin was right. I don’t belong down here, so what’s the point?

We should leave. Quinn and I should return to Rosewood. We’ve done what we came to do and even if there was more we could do, these people have made it very clear that they don’t want our help.

“You may go in.”

The voice startles me into awareness, and I realize only then that I’ve stopped walking. Somehow, I’ve found myself not only in the healer’s quadrant, but outside the very door where Jade sleeps. I turn towards the young healer and something about my appearance must puzzle her.

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