Page 102 of Fate

As if he was a fledgling in her care.

And not the man he was. The one with a mate. With responsibilities to the Hall and to his new master.

Firen could fling it at her. Could call her selfish and as thoughtless as her mate with her words and her expectations.

But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

She tried to settle on what she could say. Something that was firm, yet kind. That was truthful, but did not give a false hope that her wish might someday be fulfilled.

It might have. Before. She would have lived in that tower with those people if they’d given just a bit of welcome, a hint that they might come to appreciate her. But they hadn’t, and she needn’t feel guilty for it now.

“We need a home of our own,” Firen settled on at last. “To learn how to be together. Can you understand that?”

Ellena’s answering smile was thin, filled with a pain that felt like an old wound, suddenly weeping open. A weariness shivered through her, and she wiped at her eyes and drew herself up to her full height. Not Firen’s, but close enough. “I should like to visit. To see how he is living.” She paused, her eyes drifting up toward Firen. “Where you both are living.”

It was direct acknowledgement than Firen had received before, but there was no denying how begrudgingly it was given.

Gracious. Kind.

“And if I tell you of our lodging,” Firen posed, the threats too real despite what Ellena now said about them. “Will I find myself put upon while Lucian is at work? Dragged off and experimented upon while you work to free him from me?” She leaned in close, calm and utterly serious. The voice was hers, but the sentiment was not. It was as if a bit of her mate’s caution had seeped inside of her, like those lists he’d made of the workers in the Hall.

Civil to all, trusting of few. Isn’t that what he’d told to her?

Ellena fussed with her hands, taking a step backward. “Itoldyou there is no such ability! Such talk was never meant for your ears, and I am sorry it reached you. But I should not be punished because my mate cannot keep hold of his tongue!”

Truth and untruth all at once.

“I do not fear it breaking,” Firen answered, drawing back and walking placidly onward. “But I am rather wretched about pain, and it is your attempts that concern me more than your success.” She turned her head and watched Ellena take three hurried steps to keep up with her. “Your son would choose me. I want you to know this. Even if you somehow managed it, although you claim you cannot. He would spend the rest of his days with me, regardless.”

Ellena’s mouth dropped open. Firen expected her to make a new plea. But her eyes hardened. And she drew dreadfully calm even as she brought a fist to her own chest and held Firen’s gaze. “If there was a way,” she began, her voice steady and low. “Do you not think I would have used it on myself? Plucked thisthingfrom my body and freed myself and my son so we might live how we pleased?”

It was a terrible confession to make. One that sent a loathsome ache through Firen’s very bones.

She meant it.

There was no mistaking that.

Whatever had driven Ellena to take her own life had never healed. Of that, Firen was certain.

Whoever the girl might have been before Oberon, before their families had grown heady from their own power and importance...

A lump settled in Firen’s throat, and she moved without thought, only feeling.

She took Ellena into her embrace and held her there. Held her until the woman stopped shaking, until her fists uncurled and they rose to come about Firen in return.

Much like her son, Firen thought with a fond sort of ache. “I am sorry,” Firen murmured, and found that she meant it. Perhaps she did not think particularly well of the woman she’d become along the way, but she could mourn for what she might have been.

Try, for Lucian’s sake. To love her as she was.

“For what?” Ellena mumbled, and it was such a motherly sort of reply that Firen had to fight down a chuckle. It would not do to laugh now, not with such a confession still hanging between them. To hate one’s mate...

To want to expunge the very bond that was meant as a precious gift...

It was an insult to the Maker.

And yet...

Firen pulled back, keeping her hands on Ellena’s shoulders. “Lucian is so dear to me. He is kind and thoughtful, and he works hard for me. For the both of us. And I do not think...” she stumbled over her words, and shook her head. “That came from you, didn’t it? And I should have realised, and I should have thanked you for it, and I didn’t.”

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