A Thread in the Tangle (25 page)

“Tell me about my mother,” she whispered softly against his broad chest.

“You look just like her, Sprite.
 
With eyes like emeralds and hair as brilliant as fire.”
 
The nymph had heard these words a hundred times and she could hear them a hundred more.
 
“I’ve never seen anyone or anything more beautiful.
 
Your mother could make a man weep just by looking at her.
 
Although she was a bit taller than you, and she wasn’t near as mischievous—not a whipcord lookin’ for trouble like you,” he smiled, ruffling her hair.

“She looked more like Zianna?”

“That ungainly thing has nothing on your mother.
 
Everything about her was perfect, but what was more, she was gentle and kind.
 
Spent most of her time in the gardens.”

“The one I burned down?” she said with dismay.

“Things grow back.
 
She would’ve understood,” Oenghus hastened to say.

A sudden thought occurred to Isiilde.
 
All the nymphs who she had read about were forced to bond with the men who took them, but the bards sang of the Emperor’s love for her mother, and hers for him.

“Was my mother happy with the Emperor—my father?
 
Did she love him?”
 
Isiilde had never asked this question before and the deep, brooding silence that answered, twisted her insides.

“Please tell me the truth, Oen,” she whispered into the silence.

“No,” he said, harshly.
 
“Your mother wasn’t happy with him—not at all, and she most certainly didn’t love him, nor did he love her, but for his own selfish desire.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she scrubbed them frantically from her cheeks.
 
It had been a dim hope—a naïve dream—amidst the cruelty against her kind.
 
The thought that one nymph had found love, meant that perhaps, one day, she would as well.

“Did you love her?” she asked, scanning his face.
 
Oenghus met her gaze, sapphire eyes glistening in the dark.

“With all my heart,” he replied, fervently.
 
“I still do—I always will.”

“Then she was happy, because you were her friend,” Isiilde said, laying her head on his chest, offering what comfort she could.
 
Oenghus said nothing more, he did not trust himself to speak.

“I wish you were my father,” she confided, softly.

The silence deepened, the great heart beating beneath her ear quickened, and a shudder swept through his body.
 
When he bent to kiss her forehead, cold tears dripped onto her skin.

Thirteen

I
F
THERE
WAS
one thing that Isiilde excelled at, it was sleeping in, and she did so with impressive dedication, sleeping well past sunup and nearly to noon.
 
However, her stomach was still unsettled and she silently swore off chocolates for the rest of her life.

Oenghus and Isiilde left for home after midday.
 
Despite the poor roads, they made good time with their empty wagon.
 
Although the dreary landscape went by at a swifter pace, the journey seemed much longer, because she half expected to find Marsais, lying unconscious in a ditch, or worse, dead.

The Isle had its share of bandits who preyed on travelers, and although the attacks were rare, the danger was always present, especially for a lone traveler at night.
 
She scanned the grey countryside, chattering with Oenghus about her trip to the festival.
 
Her breezy conversation was more of an attempt to distract herself from her worries and ailments, but that all changed suddenly when she mentioned Coyle’s invitation.

Isiilde was utterly unprepared for her guardian’s reaction.

“You aren’t going to have lunch with that swine,” Oenghus bit the words out with restrained fury.

“Coyle’s not a swine—he’s a man,” she pointed out reasonably enough.

“Exactly!”

“I thought you liked Coyle?”

“Aye, until I find out he had the gall to ask you for lunch.”

“And what’s the matter with that?” Isiilde demanded, leaning to the side, distancing herself from him on the cramped wagon seat.
 
“Why can’t I have friends?”

“It’s not friendship that’s on his mind.
 
Trust me,” he grumbled, tugging on his beard in irritation.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m a bloody man.
 
I forbid you from seeing him.”

“I will see him if I like,” she stated with all the bearing and poise of the blood flowing through her veins.

“You will not, Isiilde Jaal’Yasine.
 
I’m your guardian, and you’ll do as I say.”
 
It was never a good sign when he used her full name.
 
“I’m dead well serious, if I catch you near that lad, I’ll make him wish he never looked at you.
 
This matter is finished.
 
I won’t hear another word against it.”

The nymph bristled at his ultimatum.
 
She turned away from Oenghus, staring straight ahead in tight-lipped fury.
 
If he didn’t want her talking back then she wouldn’t talk at all.

The silence deepened, with only the creak of the wagon and the ocean breeze to interrupt the chasm between them.
 
They passed three lonely cottages before Oenghus finally took a deep, calming breath.

“Look, Isiilde, you can’t go fooling around with the lads.
 
I gave an oath to the Emperor to keep your honor intact.
 
You go fooling around and it’s not just my head on a block, but you’ll be sold first chance and it might not be to one of the larger kingdoms.”

Her mouth fell open in shock.
 
Where in all the realms did he get such ideas from wanting to have lunch with someone?
 
And for that matter, it made no difference what kingdom bought her, she would still be sold as a slave.

“I just want to have lunch with him, Oen.
 
I don’t want to—bed him,” she explained.
 
“Am I not allowed to have friends?”

“Not if they piss standin’ up,” he replied.
 
“And don’t think I haven’t noticed you eyeing him up at the forge, so don’t talk to me about friendship, because I don’t catch you staring at the other lads like that.”

Isiilde stared at Oenghus in misery, speechless and confused.
 
She looked at Coyle because he was nice to look at, but she hadn’t thought anything beyond that.
 
Regardless, when Oenghus used her name, it was pointless to argue.
 
Through the years she had discovered that she had better luck arguing with a rock.

“Crying isn’t going to work.
 
You can’t see him anymore.”
 
His final words echoed as grimly and hollowly as a trap door opening beneath a gallows.
 
Isiilde bit her lip in frustration, and despite his attempts to coerce her into conversation, she kept her eyes firmly ahead.
 
Oenghus finally gave up trying to make amends.

They spent the rest of the journey ignoring each other while Isiilde struggled to make sense of his anger.
 
It wasn’t as if she had never tried to make friends with other girls her age, but for some odd reason, flaming sneezes unnerved the village girls.
 
As if being a nymph weren’t bad enough, she was further ostracized for being the youngest apprentice on the Isle, even Zianna, for all her pettiness, was double the nymph’s age.

The majority of men just gawked at her, never uttering a word in greeting (largely in part to her guardian’s tendency to inflict bodily injury).
 
And the few Wise Ones who actually conversed with her were usually peppering her with questions, trying to dissect every detail of her life for the Order’s libraries.

However, Coyle was different, he always had been.
 
Since the time they were children he had treated her as he might any other girl who was a year younger than he.
 
He was one of the few on the Isle who treated her like a human, not a big-eared faerie who was of a lesser species only belonging in a bedchamber.

When Oenghus pulled the horses to a stop in front of their tiny cottage, Isiilde climbed off the wagon seat and darted into the house.
 
She slammed the door behind her, but owing to her meager strength, only managed a dull thud instead of the defiant bang for which she was hoping.
 
This only fueled her frustration.

Mousebane cracked an irritated eye open when the nymph stormed in, disturbing his nap.
 
The hearth was cold, but she didn’t care.
 
She slipped out of her clothes, tugged on warm leggings and a nightgown, and crawled beneath the covers.
 
Mousebane flicked his ears, but in the end, forgave her, slinking under the covers to primly settle himself against her body.

Whenever Isiilde was confused, she ached to find Marsais, because he always helped her understand things when they made no sense.
 
She felt safe in his study, high in his tower, away from all the prying eyes.
 
Unfortunately, the hour was late and Oenghus would never let her travel to the castle alone, so she huddled under her blankets wallowing in misery.

Sometime later, Oenghus brought her a warm dinner and started the fire, chasing back the creeping chill.
 
It promised to be another frigid night.

“I’m sorry, Sprite.”
 
His considerable weight settled on the edge of her bed and the wood groaned in protest.
 
“I know it’s not fair, but such is life.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t let me see him.
 
Coyle is very nice.”
 
Her voice was muffled by a cocoon of feathers.

“Because he’s a man and you’re a nymph.
 
Even if you were free to do as you wish, it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Oenghus said, and then paused, sighing heavily.
 
“Believe it or not, this is for your own protection.
 
Nymphs are—well they can be overpowering for a man.
 
‘Specially a young man.
 
Just trust me all right?
 
I’m not doing this to be cruel.”

“I know,” she muttered, sullenly.
 
She lowered the covers to regard him.
 
“But it doesn’t make it easier.”

“Life is never easy, Sprite.
 
Let me know if you need anything.”
 
He bent forward and kissed her forehead before his heavy footsteps faded from the room.

Isiilde spent the evening curled beneath the covers with Marsais’ gift cradled in her delicate hands, traveling the realms as if she were at his side.
 
She saw the Western Gates, and the town of Haven nestled against white cliffs that rose to dizzying heights.
 
She travelled through its gates and walked the long, dark tunnel beneath the cliffs, emerging onto a vast bridge that boldly crossed a bottomless chasm.
 
Above, in the sliver of starlight between the chasm walls, floated the Isle of Iilenshar, torn from the earth and placed in the clouds—a sentry against the Void.