Ailsa’s lips twitched. The fae were much different from her people. They were modest despite their loose tongues, and each male seemed to take a personal offense when she brushed them unintentionally. In contrast, there was little of her clan she hadn’t seen, being the only healer on the channel, and she had stripped in front of Erik too many times to count.
But they were similar in that they liked to keep secrets.
“I’m just going to spread a tincture I’ve concocted from a special blend I discovered a few years ago. Trust me when I say I have plenty of experience in healing overworked bodies.” She gestured to the carpet of grass, and he obeyed. But she felt the eyes of his subordinates watching them as she lifted the back of his shirt and spread the oil base across his skin. Her thumb traced small circles against the muscles that tensed beneath her touch, until he finally relaxed and melted against her bewitching hands.
“Are you happy to be going home, Sorrin?” she asked.
The elfin tensed again. “Happy does not quite do my heart justice. But yes, we are all very much looking forward to seeing Alfheim again.”
“How long has it been?”
“A little over fifty years, I believe. I’ve spent a third of my life on this adventure.”
Her fingers pressed into the spaces lining his spine, and he squirmed. “Anyone special waiting for you?”
This made all the tension in his body melt away. “Yes, my daughters. I left when they had just turned the quarter of their first century. They’ll be nearing their third quarter now, and I cannot wait to see what they’ve accomplished while I’ve been gone.”
She wanted to ask of their mother but thought it better to save that conversation for another day. “Why did you leave? It must have been a good reason for you to leave your family with no idea of when you’d return.”
“Because I believe in Vali. I believe in who he is and will serve him until my dying breath should it come to it. My daughters understand, and if they did not before, I’m sure they do now.”
Ailsa paused her work and sat back on her heels. Sorrin was a good man, she could sense the genuine spirit that clung to him like an aura. To her, Vali was a monster, a murderer who had brought his men from a distant realm to slay her countrymen and steal the last years of her life. But to a male like Sorrin he was worth leaving behind his family, his entire life.
Who is Vali to demand such loyalty?
Sorrin pushed up to his knees and sat beside her in the cool grass, somehow sensing she needed a lift. “We are sorry for what happened between the elven and your clansmen. Your people were innocent and simply caught in the crossfire of something much bigger.”
“And what of me? Will I be another nameless soul that was simply caught in the crossfire? Will I have to die as someone else’s martyr?”
He released an uneasy breath. “I do not know, Jarl Ailsa. These things have never happened before in our history, we do not know—"
“You are a terrible liar.” She spat as she stood from her seat in the grass and wiped her hands clean on a towel hanging from her waist band.
“What? I’m not… I only mean—"
“How would you feel if it wasyourdaughter?” she interrupted him. “What if it was one of your own in my place, would you escort her to her own grave? You all know something I do not. I hear the whispers when I pass, the pointed stares, the condescending smirks from yourcaptain.I’m nothing but another casualty for your cause, and you won’t even tell me what that is!”
“Keep your voice down,” he warned, his finger raised to his lips. “The woods are listening, Ailsa.”
“At leastsomethingis listening to me.”
“What’s going on over here?”
Ailsa’s shoulders fell at the sound of his voice. She tidied the rest of her herbs into her bag and drained the rest of her canteen before answering him. “Just helping your officer with his injury.”
“How benevolent of you,” Vali said, his voice tight. “I’m sure you had no ulterior motives.”
“None whatsoever,” she replied tersely. His hand gripped her forearm as she turned to leave them both. She glared back at him, and he matched her look with an equal fierceness. “Let go of me.”
“What is your problem?” he asked, voice deep like a growl.
“Myproblem?You aren’t seriously asking me what I could possibly be upset about!”
Vali squinted his eyes, as if trying to peer into her mind. “This is hardly the time or the place to discuss the things you want to know, Ailsa.” His grip on her was strangling now. “I am asking you,please, to drop the subject for now. When we are in the fae realms, we will be safe to speak of it.”
“And you will tell me everything?”
He nodded only once. Ailsa sighed, frustrated. But the look in his gilded gaze was brimming with something she had not seen in them before.