Gaffriel 99

Interesting fact: a small portion of women, after having a child, lose some degree of bladder control for a while. Letti was part of that small portion. She didn’t even get to heal my jaw before she brayed with laughter, doubled over, and—yeah.

“Not yet, you’re not. Hell, I don’t even think you’ve had ‘the talk’ yet.” Letti leered. “Hell, you wouldn’t even know what to do with your p—"

“I had health class in school,” I interrupted, loudly.

“Yeah, you had human health class. Wildling women are different.”

“But she’s not Wildling.” I squinted at her, confused.

“Yeah, but a viola and a fiddle both play the same. So, it’s all fine-tuning.” She wriggled her fingers, and I didn’t know what she implied, but I hated it.

Letti looked at Kiromir judgmentally.

Kiromir glared at her. “I haven’t… I’m not giving him the talk! I know what he’s going to do with that information. No. Thank. You.”

“No, our boys don’t need a talk from a few swans on how to please a lady. I don’t even think you two know what to do with each other, pft… You know what. This evening I’ll have Dimal go gather the boys. Krell, Lizer, and Nodak probably never got the talk from Lowak back when he was the man in charge.” She nodded self-importantly. “Damn, I’ll do it if I have to. I could give better tips on what to do than Dimal could, but he does the job.”

She stared at her nails for a moment.

My face bore the same scrunched-up sour look that spread over Thanus and Kiromir.

“Anyways, I’ll go change and fix your jaw in a few minutes.” Letti flitted off and left all three of us miserable.

She came back with Dimal, and he looked amused.

“Letti said the carrot got himself a new nickname.” Dimal clutched Mesin up against him in a protective swaddle. The baby fussed from his blanket, but Dimal seemed to be just tuning it out.

Thanus rolled his eyes and took Mesin, changed the position of the swaddle, and cupped the small thing up against himself. He was good at this, and Kiromir looked at him like I looked at Niala sometimes. I would have that someday, too, creator willing. I smiled to myself and looked away. Letti and Dimal knew what they were doing and smirked their own little matching smiles as Kiromir slid up to Thanus to fawn over Mesin.

In our culture, sometimes, a woman wasn’t born to be a mother. I thought of Ester, my mom. We have a duty to have children, but it’s not mandatory. There are women, though, that go through with it just to make sure that people like Kiromir and Thanus… Ranna and Touk… Lerrin and Kirayan all got their chance at a family. Ranna and Touk had never been offered a child, and no orphans were made in their times in the flock. I wondered if Kiromir and Thanus would ever take a child. They had Niala, so maybe that’d be enough.

Our soft moment ended with a sharp crack as Letti brought the heel of her palm to the side of my jaw with obnoxious precision that left my mouth dangling, head reeling, and pain blossoming. I barely had time to react before her green fires suffused my vision, and the crunch of my jaw settled into a smooth set.

“FUCK!” I shouted. I did feel a lot better. I rubbed over my jaw and paused as I caught the scent of roses and salt in the wind. “Revik?” I jumped up, but I didn’t smell winter steel and my heart fell.

Kiromir spun around and spied him, storming from towards the forest up with a glare. His face looked like raw meat.

“Letti, you mind?” He asked through broken and missing teeth. The raw meat of his face sent horrific thoughts running through my mind.

“Feathers, Revik. The fuck did you do? They’ve not seen you in thirty years, and here you come busted up a few seconds after running off with our baby girl.” Letti gave Revik her healer’s fire.

“Who touched you up before me?” Letti asked.

“Myself.”

“Ah, nasty.” Letti swarmed her green fires, and Revik sighed in relief.

“She’s with her grandfather,” Revik grumbled as Letti kept at her work. Revik’s damage had been significant.

“Is she ok? What the hell happened to you. Is she safe?” I thought to ask.

“Yeah, safe as houses, safer maybe. Kael just wasn’t ready to… ah. Her name is a sore spot to him, and saying it set him off. She’s named after someone important to him. It’ll mean a lot to him eventually.” Revik hissed at the sensations of Letti’s work.

“But she’s ok, right?” Kiromir tensed and relaxed, aura twitching. Either he was going to get all emotional again or throttle Revik. Letti made eye contact with me and hedged nonverbal bets.

“Yes and no. Has the Greentree boy told you everything?” Revik gave me a stern look.

My eyes fell as all expression slipped away. “Yes.”

“So, she’s got binding fever, and that’s going to take a while to calm her down from. She’s on some medicine to mitigate it. It’s not too uncommon for her people; It’s just uncomfortable because there’s the drive and fires but no true binding to really make things work.” Revik went on, and I nodded, just listening. “Greentree, you’ve got the potential for it once your mana starts picking up a bit, and it will. So, I’m keeping you on that medicine.”

I wasn’t going to argue. I hated the feelings I’d been having. They felt disrespectful to what Ni and I shared. She was my best friend. She was Ni, my partner in crime… not a toy, not something to pleasure myself with… Not unless she wante—No!

“Then there’s the matter of her anemia, the starvation, and her teeth.” Revik continued.

“Anemia? Starvation? Teeth?” Kiromir’s gaze grew stern.

“She’s pale as a ghost. Her people need so much more iron. They file their teeth down sharp to eat things fresher and… yeah. They live in a land of pure flowing mana. Their language is mana itself, so much so that it screws with our mana and magic to hear it. She’s starved of it. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but she’s Seraph. She’s not nearly strong enough. I saw her eyes go dark a few times and not even a flicker of flame over her skin.” He seemed so exasperated, dodging something.

“Will she be ok?” I gripped my hand to the table.

“Yeah, but it’s going to take time, and we’ve got bigger problems…. They know about us, now and they’re coming. Rolyn has royally screwed us on Niala’s behalf.”

“Oh shit,” Thanus breathed.

“Why would it be such a big affront to have one child? Surely, they won’t begrudge us for doing the best we could, not knowing and all.” Kiromir argued.

“We call her grandfather Afryth, the rage, the King of the Acir.” Revik snapped. He’d said something about her being royalty before, but this sounded upsetting.

“Shiiiiiiit.” Thanus breathed, unable to form any other words. Nothing Revik said sounded good.

“Mir, as flockleader of the Wanderers, one slighted by both the Grells and the Sentinels, you’re now a major player, here. With Niala as your ward, you’re going to be who everyone wants to talk to. Make sure Tavar, Filson, and Sorrin know that someone’s going to wear a crown by the end of all of this, and it won’t be them.

“All hail king Soulstar,” Dimal spoke lamely.

Letti grinned. “I’d vote for it.”

“Me too.” I raised my hand.

“You don’t get a vote. You’ve got skin in this game, but I’d vote for it, too.” Thanus leered with a half-cocked grin.

“Whatever you decide, just get the war council ready to delegate. Everything we do from here on out determines how bad things will get.”

“How bad did I fuck up by keeping her?” Kiromir wilted.

“That’s likely going to be the part that saves us, believe it or not,” Revik said.