Page 32 of Bound By Blood
"I've intruded upon you enough for one night, I think." He put his hand to his hat and dipped his head forward. "My apologies for your loss." His gaze moved to Erryn. "And my apologies for the interruption."
She folded her arms tight across her chest. "It was very rude of you and unacceptable."
"It certainly was," he agreed. He turned to leave.
"Hey! Before you go, you clean that up." She pointed at the spit mark. "You do not spit on the floor in my house. It's bad enough that you barged in to begin with, but you spit on my floor and leave it? I do not think so."
Traelan gave her a hard look, shook his head, and chuckled. "Very well, good lady." He stooped down and wiped up the floor with the edge of his cloak. Then, with a flourish, he left. The door banged shut behind him, and the cool night breeze swept along through the windows as if to erase all traces.
MISSING FAMILY
"Are you all right?" Erryn locked the door as soon as it clicked shut.
Ryul stood there, translucent wings still flared and chest wide. As he breathed, he drew back as if starting to relax. "I'm fine." He halted, glancing around the interior of the cottage. "I'm so sorry. I've wrecked your home. Did I knock that into the soup?"
He pressed his hand to his mouth. When he pulled it away, his fangs had vanished.
She turned back to the stove. The pepper grinder from the shelf had somehow fallen in. Sweeping up the slotted spoon, she fished it out. "It'll clean up fine."
The spice jars and tea urn weren't going to be easily fixable, but that didn't matter.
"I'm still getting used to my wings," he admitted sheepishly. "I don't—I'll fix all this. I promise."
"Don't even worry about it."
There were far more important things. Especially if she had to move, she wouldn't have been able to take those items with her, and they weren't sentimental.
"It's embarrassing, regardless," he muttered. "I'd rather no one see them like this. But…sometimes that's not possible to prevent. Especially if I'm alarmed. And I was afraid he might hurt you."
His wings had a decidedly unformed appearance to them. Faintly colored veins moved through them, their shape and form similar to a dragon's. Though they'd nearly knocked her over, they'd almost seemed to evaporate now. It was as if they were there and yet not. Maybe they were fading with his strength?
"They look almost like glass. Your wings, I mean."
"They're still developing. For someone like me, they'll—fluctuate, I suppose. They'll keep on developing until I'm around a thousand. So for now, they are just—well—inconvenient." He closed his eyes, a muscle pulsing along the side of his neck as he pulled the wings back in. Slowly, they folded against his back and then vanished.
"Can you fly then?"
"Not much better than Buttons for now. But he'll learn before I master it most likely. Especially with my magic depleted."
"About your magic." She put the fallen shelf back on the wall and picked up the broom to sweep up the fallen fragments. "The night we met, were you just coming out of battle against Volsrei? Whoever he is."
"No." Crouching, he gathered the larger pieces of broken pottery and set them aside. "That happened a long time ago." A heavy sigh rocked him. He massaged his brow. "No. I was—I've been trying to get back to my family. And I can't."
She wanted to ask what had happened. Her heart clenched. This was the first time he had spoken about his family. Neither of them had been especially open about their pasts.
Buttons sat in front of him and placed his paw on Ryul's knee.
He smiled a little, then tousled the dog's ears. "This little one was supposed to be a flying garm who breathed fire and opened pathways. That way, I could take what remained of my home and Quinn through whatever portal we fell through and be reunited with my siblings. I'd searched for so long to find the incantation and necessary pieces. It was a long shot. And my magic just isn't good enough to create something like that. It has changed. Even though the garm was supposed to be my…"
The disappointment in his words cut deep.
She gripped the broom handle a little tighter. He was alone. Maybe that was why she had felt that connection to him even without talking about this. She knew that loneliness.
"My magic wasn't strong enough to begin with. I didn't have as much as I should because of the battle."
"Against Volsrei?"
He nodded. "We won, though. My siblings. My cousins. All of us who were left. We shattered his consciousness and trapped pieces of it in different realms, putting it in stones and mortar to be built into structures. A tavern inn here. A flour mill there. That way, he'll never be able to come back together again. But our castle also broke apart, and their consciousness fractured. I think. I don't think all of it came with me."
