Page 16 of The Gargoyle's Gift
“GeneralMagnus Aurichal will not take kindly to his brilliant healer child being matched with a man such as me. A man he’s held a century-long grudge with. Someone unforgivable for reasons a person as kindhearted as you cannot begin to comprehend.”
I knew my father well enough to believe Gaius was not only wrong about him, but that they could work things out between themselves. Of course, that meant they had to actually try.
“Shouldn’t you be more concerned with whether or notI’mhappy with the situation?” I argued, but my tone lacked the venom I’d expected. Doubt about how upset my father might be and how I could convince him that the match was reasonable, crept along my skin like icy fingers. Indignation settled deeper, however. I’d never cared to be told what I could and couldn’t do, and here we were again, debating what I could or couldn’t understand. “Your gentlemanly—and I’m using that phraseveryloosely—disagreement has nothing to do with me. You’re just two stubborn men who can’t figure out how to mend the rift in your friendship. Neither of you is willing to admit you’ve been wrong, made mistakes. That things happen as they are meant to, even if that’s painful.” I pinned him with a stare. “Do you even remember why you started fighting in the first place?”
Gaius chuffed another rough laugh and shook his head. “The covenants battle… it changed all of us. I lost my brother?—”
“And I lost mymother.” My words were fiery, but I choked on the last bit, an unexpected swell of emotions caught in my throat. I rubbed my fist against my chest, trying to quell the ache that sprang up with the memory of her. “And my father lost his wife. Hismate, Gaius.”
He sighed, deflating. “I know that, Lovette. And how wonderful for him that fate saw fit to provide him another.” His tone grew sharp at the mention of Grace, who, while human, was my father’s soulmate and had in so many ways brought him back to life. “It’s just?—”
My anger rose up again, hot and unrestrained. This argument had kept my father and Gaius from recovering what had, before that battle, been a lifelong friendship. It was what kept any of us from moving past all the tragedy and pain. A silly fight, based in ages-old prejudice that solved nothing and ended up hurting everyone involved. Everyone, of course, except the bureaucrats that had picked the fight in the first place. The spoiled men who got paid to just sit back and watch the actual soldiers fight and die from a distance.
“It’sjustnothing. Loss is loss. I can’t understand why neither of you has figured out that one is not greater than the other! What happened there was nobody’s fault. Or, say it was. What if you could shoulder the blame? What if he could? Then what? You can point fingers at each other, at anyone else who was there, all day long.Everyone. Still. Lost. And there’s no changing any of it. But continuing on the way you have been just leaves you stuck there. And for what? What good does that do? Are you such a fool you can’t see past your ego? Here you are, angry that my father has found two mates in this lifetime, and still, you’re willing to disregard yours altogether? When she's literally standing right in front of you? To ignore the bond because of some imaginary obstacleswithout even trying?”
His mouth pressed into a tight line, and he shifted his body away from me so that he was facing the window instead of the center of the room. Whatever budding friendliness that had been there for a brief moment was gone. Everything felt cold, from the blood moving sluggishly through my veins to the room around me.
My heart hurt, like a hand was squeezing all the blood out of it, when he said, “I think it’s best if you leave, Lovette.”
I stared at him for a moment but did as he asked, my only response the slamming of the door behind me. It might have been childish, but my frustration was boiling over. Fingernails digging into my palms, I turned my face skyward and screamed to relieve a bit more of the pressure inside me once I got a distance from his door.
Silence pressed densely on me as my thoughts raced. I needed to not be in my body for just a little while, to clear my head. When I was younger, flying fixed everything, and right now, I needed everything fixed. I needed space, air.
The cool evening breeze whipped through my hair as I let my wings out and took to the sky, my frustrated tears drying on my cheeks before I even had time to feel them.
Chapter 9
Lovette
Flying hadn’t calmed me as much as I’d hoped.
As I circled above the conclave, watching the trees sway and the world peacefully exist below me, a few thoughts kept coming back around. It was silly and absolutely not what I should have been focused on, but what my mind wanted to revisit nonetheless.
First of all, I’dneverbeen kissed like that before. The way Gaius's lips had felt against mine had set every nerve in my body on fire. Not that I had all that much experience with kissing, but it had never been like that. And he’d called me brilliant. Kindhearted.Lovely. He had a nickname for me. Which meant that even if he saw the mate bond as a problem, it wasn’t necessarily because of me. Despite the dark shroud of frustration, a spark of hope burned bright in my chest, under my ribs.
Right where my freshly sparked mate bond lived.
After forcing myself to stone sleep that night so I could get some rest, then nearly melting my fingertips off by scrubbing every inch of the infirmary by hand the following day, I’d stalked off to the forge, needing Imogen’s advice on things.
When I arrived, I found no trace of my sister. The fire wasn’t even lit in the furnace. There was, however, a man hanging up a new selection of leather sheaths and belts.
“Brom?” He spun, surprise widening his mossy-green eyes. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Have you seen my sister?”
Brom was somewhere between Imogen’s age and mine, tall and broad through the shoulders. He’d been in the same training class as Lionel, my twin, and had been the most talented of their year in field-dressing wounds. He had dark brown hair nearly to his waist, some sections near his face adorned with leather strips braided through. Brom was a bit of a loner, but we’d had a lovely time chatting over dinner with some of his friends not very long ago. He’d had me check a scar on his shoulder that I could have helped heal a bit nicer if he’d come to the infirmary for some stitches.
A subtle smile crossed his face. “Not in a while. I was just delivering these.”
I stared at him, wondering if my sister had also been keeping secrets or if he was harboring a little crush on her that I’d never noticed. “I see. Well, it’s not like her to be away. Maybe she’s off on an errand. If she comes back before you go, can you tell her I’m looking for her? Your work is very good, by the way.” I patted the sheath that hung along my thigh, the one he’d made that held my new citrine-handled dagger.
The one I’d killed those guards with.
Brom’s chest puffed at my compliment, but the prideful gesture was balanced by the blush in his cheeks. “Thank you.”
I raised my hand and turned to go, gut soured at the thought of the rooftop fight. “See you around.”
He waved, and I walked as quickly as I could away from there, following an impulse to take to the air once again, only this time I headed beyond the bounds of Revalia.
Knockingon the door of Ophelia’s hut brought a levity that mixed strangely with the sinking, panicky feeling the heavy magical wards around her forest gave. I’d dearly loved the time spent learning my craft under the sorceress, short though it had been.
