Page 13 of Seduction of a Psychopomp
“Your wife?” he inquired, stepping closer, as if to verify my words. “Does she… need anything? Is she well? I can send for the healer in Bhalden’s Po—” He froze for half a beat. “ByBalthor’s beard, she’s a fae!” he nearly gasped, noticing her small antlers for the first time. “My goodness. Well, you would think I’d have seen one before with as close as we are to that Gate into Faery, but I never have. They just don’t come through there anymore, and I’d always heard they stopped allowing their kind into our lands.” He looked at me with wide eyes, as if I might have some kind of explanation. That wasn’t exactly true, but it didn’t matter. I just shrugged, not having any desire to discuss fae politics and societal norms with him.
“I stole her.” That was simple enough.
Yasgrot made a peculiar choking sound that made me wonder if he might be unwell himself. “Youstole her, sir?” His eyebrows shot up nearly into his hairline.
“She said she wanted to leave.”
“I see.” He seemed troubled as he looked at her, which added to my own concerns. Could he see something wrong with her that I couldn’t? “And she lost consciousness when, sir? At the Gate?” His questions were timid, as if he were afraid of the answer.
“Shortly after our binding ritual.” I shifted my left arm to show him the binding marks and the tenseness in his shoulders relaxed a little for some reason. “Nearly a full day ago,” I explained further, and his shoulders tensed back up.
“Well, I do fear I know very little about high fae and binding rituals. I greatly doubt the healer will either, but I can fetch her for your… wife.” He wrung his hands as he glanced around the room before calling for his two employees and rattling off a list of instructions for each of them. Torindal was sent for the town healer, and Brishta, a young dwarvish woman with a cheerful smile and a messy bun atop her head, ushered me into one of the bed chambers and turned down the bed sheets for Celeste. She added more wood to the fire in the hearth next to the bed and then dusted her hands off on her sturdy woolen dress while enthusing about how beautiful my new bride was before saying something about fetching the food.
I stood beside the bed feeling overwhelmed by the chatter and the activity and waited for her to leave before I laid Celeste on the bed. Brishta seemed like a nice enough girl, but all the staring made me uncomfortable. I wanted to protect Celeste from unwanted eyes. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been subjected to this amount of physical contact with another person for this long probably since my infancy and was surprised at my reluctance to release her from my hold. Her soft, even breathing was something I could anchor myself in, but I felt at a loss to know what she needed.
I gently unwound her cocoon of blanket and cloak and lowered her to the bed as carefully as I could, consciously fighting the worm of panic in me that made me feel as though releasing her from my grip was some kind of abandonment. She just looked so small and frail lying there all alone in the giant bed, and I didn’t know what to do. She’d been unconscious for a whole day, had nothing to eat or drink, hadn’t even emptied her bladder, which seemed the most concerning. Wasn’t that something mortals needed to do rather often? Didn’t that mean she was severely dehydrated? Couldn’t mortalsdiefrom dehydration? I’d never had tokeep something alivebefore. This was entirely removed from my area of expertise.
I tried to remind myself that she did appear better than she had two days ago, even though it was obvious now that whatever healing potions they had given her before the ceremony were no longer working in her system. The skin under her eyes was no longer sunken, and now that she was next to the fire, her skin was returning to a more normal-looking hue. Her bones showed more than seemed healthy to me, but since the high fae often had a leaner build in general… maybe that wasn’t too far outside the realm of her normal build. The feathers of her wings were badly rumpled from being wrapped in cloth for the ride, so I reached out to straighten them for her, marveling at the satin feel of her wings as I ran my fingers along them. She truly was beautiful to look at, I had to acknowledge, though I still resented that it seemed to be the thing everyone remarked on the most about her. And though she currently wore her beauty in that broken-flower way, she did seem to be healing, which helped to soothe my internal panic.
Her rest seemed at least to be a peaceful one, so I allowed myself to study her—this woman I was suddenly so bound up in. Her face was as “angelic” as her wings, with her small, sharp features, and large eyes with long lashes that currently rested on her cheeks. Her heart-shaped lips had a slight upturn that made me wonder if her dreams were pleasant, or if that was just her expression at rest. And there was a feminine gracefulness to her limbs that was evident even in sleep. But she was more than that. She had shown great strength of will and perseverance during our wedding ceremony, and I hoped, for her sake that who she was inside would come to be what she was known for rather than her physical appearance.
The desire to protect Celeste from prying eyes led me to draw the bed sheets over her when Brishta’s footsteps sounded in the corridor. Her wings were a lovely part of her, but I suspected she wouldn’t want them exposed like this to strangers, especially when she was so vulnerable.
“I brought you some stew, sir, and some of the broth for your love.” I paused at her words, at the assumption that, because this woman was my wife, I loved her, and then blinked down at Celeste until Brishta pressed a steaming bowl of stewed root vegetables into my hands and set another on a side table. She came back with tea and some mulled wine and busied herself about the room while I stood staring in bewilderment until Yasgrot finally knocked at the bedroom door with the healer. The older woman couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with Celeste, but she admitted that Yasgrot’s assumptions were correct; she knew nothing of the high fae and equally little about reaper magic. She suggested that I support Celeste with fluids, keep her warm, and send for her again if her condition deteriorated.
I was unsure of what that meant.
Perhaps sensing my discomfort with the amount of people in the room, and seeing that they were unable to help anyway, the kind dwarves bid me farewell and left for the night with Yasgrot promising to send a maid and a cook the next day.
Once we were alone, I set down my bowl of stew and picked up Celeste’s, dragged a padded chair around from beside the fire to the side of the bed, and settled in next to her. Taking the spoon, I gathered the smallest amount of the stew broth, tested it for temperature, and then tipped it ever so slowly into her mouth. Waiting until she swallowed each time, I spent the next hour sitting beside her and trying to make sure she got the fluids she needed.
I had no idea how to make this work. I was finally alone with this woman who was my wife, and yet, all I felt was incoherent panic at the fact thatI was alone with this woman who was my wifeand she was clearly still horribly sick andI didn’t know how to keep her alive.I had never planned on having a wife in the first place. I raised another spoonful of broth to her lips and questioned yet again what I had been thinking to steal her away from people who knew her and knew about her medical issues. But I knew what I had been thinking—this precious soul was distraught and I wanted to please her.
But now what was I supposed to do?
Chapter 9
Celeste
Icouldn’tseemtoescape this dream of being swallowed up by shadows. It was a dream I was familiar with—something I’d dreamed again and again while being trapped in a sleep I couldn’t pull myself out of. There was no up or down. I had no physical body to endlessly battle with. There was nothing but darkness pulling me down into its horrific, inky maw and swallowing me whole. That darkness had always frightened me, and it had consumed me over and over again no matter how many times I’d had this dream.
But this time something was different.
I was different.
The shadows that came for me this time were still powerful and ominous feeling. They were possessive and all encompassing. They still swallowed me down into the darkest chasm. But this time, instead of feeling powerless and afraid, I felt… comforted. Protected. Changed. The darkness was no longer a gaping maw of terror and despair. It was an obsidian fortress, it was strength, and it was part of me now. I floated in these shadows endlessly until a small, cool hand—much smaller than the one that usually cupped my cheek—pressed against the side of my face.
“Her temperature feels okay,” I heard a soft voice say into the darkness. It was high and feminine with an accent I didn’t recognize. “I know you’re very anxious,” she said gently, “but do you think you could pull your magic back a bit?” Her tone was so kind and encouraging that I couldn’t help but want to do as she asked. I wasn’t holding any magic, though. I hadn’t been able to use my magic properly for years, not since my body had begun destroying itself. “A little more?” She raised her pitch at the end like it was a question. “It’s so overpowering I can’t feel much else in here.”
“I’m holding no magic,” his voice said quietly.Him.The one I was traded to in exchange for my life. The one who I’d been horrified to learn I was betrothed to from the moment my mother woke me and informed me I was tomarryhim, until I’d heard his first words to me,“Is this what you want?”His voice had been so distractingly decadent that I’d nearly forgotten to be afraid. When I’d finally understood him, I’d been terrified for another reason. Would he back out? Cancel the wedding? Would I finally die from my body’s betrayal? But he hadn’t backed out. He’d been infinitely kind to me, listened to my every word, and treated me with a tenderness that had shocked me. Vague memories of being held comfortably against his chest while riding fast, and the warm, clean scent of man with the barest hint of something sharp—like a cold fireplace—flitted unformed through my memory, but I couldn’t hold on to them.
“Oh!” the woman said, sounding startled. “It’s her! High fae have reaper magic?” The voice sounded a little more distant when she asked the question, as if the woman had turned away from me in the darkness.
“It was given to her during our binding,” his voice said.
Our binding. My mind instantly shied away from the painful memory. Why hadn’t Apollo been there to support me? His loss still felt like an open wound. And how long would my arm take to heal? The tightening of my betrothed’s jaw as his veins had been opened had not prepared me for the stinging pain of the knife slicing through my flesh. I let my thoughts escape instead into the memory of how he had stood beside me at the altar and had borne me up with strong arms and his comforting presence, even as a complete stranger to me. I felt tears threaten in the darkness even though I had no eyes to cry with here.
“To… heal her?” the woman asked. There was no response that I could hear and after a moment she continued. “Well, I can feel some other magic underneath yours, but I can’t make sense of it. There’s alotgoing on here.”
