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Chapter Thirty One
I stared at her in the reflection, my face showing my bafflement. The queen and the Fae woman both chuckled, but there was no malice to their laughter. “I’m not sure I understand,” I said carefully.
“Marriage amongst the Fae and magical brethren is much simpler than amongst mankind,” she said gently and with patience, resting her hand upon my shoulder. The Fae woman resumed styling my hair, setting the circlet into the locks. “It’s an invocation of the rule of threes. Three openings to refuse, three declarations of intent, and, of course, three consummations...” she arched her eyebrows, prompting me. “Did Rivyn never mention the rule of three, to you?”
My chest tightened as my heart picked up speed. Remember, anything important involves threes, Siorin, Rivyn had said to me. The conversation had struck me then, as out of place. He had been, I thought, trying to tell me that he had ta
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Through story, we teach the rules by which we share this world with the brethren. Around the dying coals of the evening fire, we spin tales of naughty children stolen never to return, of the brutal punishment of liars, and of trespassing travellers going astray.Tales teach us to seek out good-witches to tend to sore teeth or to help with difficult births, and diviners to foretell the weather, but to fear sorcerers or sorceresses who prey upon the unwary, sprites who blight the crops, and mermaids who drown sailors.Most of all, the tales teach us to fear the Fae with their deceptive beauty, costly altruism, and cruel punishments.-“That is not my child,” my mother’s denial was final and broken. “It’s a changeling.”The maids had let the fire die down to embers, distracted by the demands of a new baby upon their time, and the cold had seeped i
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I looked in the direction of the voice without pulling Coryfe to a stop. I could make him out, a tangle of limbs and cloth, strung by a net and suspended in the boughs of a tree, a little off the path. What were the chances, I wondered, of two travellers on this road at night, and one of them being unwise enough to venture off the road and become ensnared by a net?I considered him. “You could be a trap to lure a traveller off the trail,” I told him.He laughed, dryly. “I think I am the trapped traveller.”“How did you get yourself trapped up there?” I asked him, we were drawing equal to his tree.I did not have long to decide what to do, without having to retrace my steps. I could make out details of him within the net now. A sizeable, booted foot hung out between the weave, the boot finely made and tooled with elaborate detail, the sole barely showing wear. The c
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I sighed, unsure which was the least pleasant prospect, being lost alone, or being lost with this dark-haired mage. I did not argue his control of the reins and let him steer us into the trees.“I did have other plans for the night,” I muttered under my breath.“Not important ones.”“You don’t know what I was about, so how can you judge?”“Well, perhaps I should say, my needs are more important than yours.”“Excuse me,” I took the reins back from him, annoyed. “My horse. It is awfully dismissive of you to assume your needs are more important than mine when you don’t know what they are.”“That spot over there,” he pointed as we entered the trees. There was a space between the trees that I would have normally avoided, its circumference uncomfortably round, too simila
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Coryfe picked his way through the trees like a child picking their way through a meal. I could not blame him. The floor was thick with undergrowth that hid hazardous roots and dips, and every now and again, an unexpected explosion of brethren folk would be unsettled by our passage. He had almost shied twice now at such an occurrence; once when little sprites that had exploded from a bush he had brushed against, their gossamer dragon-fly wings whipping against us as they passed, and the second time when a scurry of fur-clad beings I did not get a good look at had raced across our path, pursued by a fox that stopped and looked at us with too wise, unafraid blue eyes. Rivyn was less patient. “Have you never ridden this horse across anything other than a road or field?” He demanded, reaching around to claim the reins from me. I held them out of his reach, and he blew out a frustrated breath. “He isn’t my horse, he is my father’s,” I replied.
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The stream was more of a river, too deep to ride across, and we had to ride downstream for some way before we came to a stone arch of a bridge, green with moss. I threw the last scone over the edge. “In case there’s a troll,” I explained to him when Rivyn protested. “And if there’s not?” he wondered as he guided Coryfe across. He held the reins in one hand, his other wrapped around my middle. I was sure I was not imagining that he was riding closer to me, his chest now firmly pressed against my back and my legs resting against his. He had taken over the stirrups, too. “Well, something will eat it, I’m sure.” Beyond the bridge, the grass began to show wear, gradually forming into a road. “We’re on a road now, so we’ll come upon somewhere eventually,” I was happy about that. I did not like being ignorant as to where we were, and hopefully, if there was a village or a town, we could find lodgings overnight. I hoped the mage would pay. I had
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Mages spell components were both odd and slightly disgusting, I decided, as I picked through the inn keeper’s kitchen. It was a large room, used not just for the preparation of food, but for much of the family’s time. The walls were lined with shelves holding everything from crockery to buckets, and the roof was strung with hocks of meat and drying herbs. Rivyn had to duck to avoid some of the beams, warped and roughly shaped, they seemed to sag in places. The floor was stone, scattered with thresh and debris from the cooking, resulting in a less than savoury scent if it was kicked up underfoot. A bench was set along one wall, and shelves on the other. The shelves held a fascinating array of jars and items I could not even begin to identify. From the dust that gathered around and on top of most of the items, I imagined the innkeeper’s wife could not identify them either. In the centre of the room was a large table
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Stable boys waited in the shade of the pillars and ran up to us as we dismounted Coryfe. Rivyn exchanged a coin with one of them and I watched them take the horse behind the imposing building wondering if I would see him again. Rivyn took my hand in his as we began to mount the stairs. “We shall lead them to believe that we are married,” he looked down at me. “Understood?” “Yes.” Did he say to do so to preserve an element of respectability, or to prevent our separation? Either way, I was happy to continue under the guise of his wife. I might be facing ruination in my village having been stolen by a man from the road and having spent many days and nights in his company now, but that did not mean I wanted to advertise it to others. Following the steps led us between the pillars. There was a space held between them and the face of the building, along which I could see seating had been placed. There were no windows. I
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“We’ll discuss this further in less formal settings,” the woman announced grandly. The figures on the raised seating rose and began to shuffle out murmuring amongst themselves, as if her words were some pre-arranged signal for them to depart. The woman stepped off the dais and walked towards us. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were the same white as her hair. Her eyes were cold and speculative, I thought. “You can drop your guard,” she told Rivyn. I felt him relax, and he dropped his arm. “You are a very interesting couple,” she looked at us with interest but not hostility. “Come, we will have something to drink, and discuss why you are here, and where you came from.” “Siorin?” Rivyn murmured as he took my hand and followed her to the door which the robed audience had used to exit. I looked up at him, meeting his eyes. There was concerned enquiry in his. He wondered where it was that I had been taken and whether I had e
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- The Mage's Heart Chapter Thirty One
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