Not Magic Enough (4 page)

There was little of decoration here, he noted, warming his hands by the fire.

Herbs grew in small pots in the high narrow windows that faced south, to gain the most sun. They smelled fresh and were brilliantly green against the shutters.

A tapestry hung on one wall, the stitches small and neat, depicting a little vale filled with little white wildflowers, the ones men called fairy rings, while another tapestry waited in the loom.

It was beautiful work, lovingly and patiently done.

Touching it, he knew instantly who had stitched it - who had created such beauty and allowed himself a smile here where no one could see. It was like her - a touch of brightness in the gloom of winter in the outerlands.

He sensed her presence coming down the hall and turned.

“Your room is ready,” she said, “and a bath awaits.”

Delae was grateful Dorovan couldn’t know she’d hauled the great copper bath there with Hallis’s aid and filled it, not being able to bring herself to ask Hallis to do it. She’d set him instead to filling her own bath, knowing it would be nearly tepid by the time he finished. The buckets were heavy. It was her duty to see to her guest anyway.

The room she showed Dorovan to was clean, as plain and unadorned as the rest, the ticking in the mattress hay, but covered in thick wool and then in linen sheets so well used they were supple, clean and smelling lightly of lavender. A thick comforter topped it, offering warmth.

Steam rose from the waters of the bath where it sat close to the fire, and from a small kettle of stew set in the coals within the small hearth.

“Be welcome to my home, Dorovan,” Delae said, gently. “If you need anything, you have only to call. Else, no one here will bother you.”

He looked at her and inclined his head. “My thanks, Lady Delae,” giving her honor and title such as men did, not his own folk.

A small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth as she sighed ruefully. “I am no Lady, Dorovan - although the folk here call me so and certainly not to you. Delae is enough. And the thanks are to you for your aid. Well I know - we wouldn’t have succeeded without you.”

It pained him - the certain knowledge in her blue eyes, shadowing them as she closed the door behind her.

She’d known she was likely to die there and yet she’d stayed, saving those she could with no sure chance at saving herself amidst the fury of the storm, yet still she would’ve tried and kept trying despite the odds. Here in this woman was one of the race of man who understood Honor as his own folk did.

For a moment he simply stood there, looking at the door through which she’d passed.

It felt good to bathe and then to take up the bowl of stew, a pleasant change from dry travel bread.

As she’d said, the food was simple but good - there was fresh bread beneath a cloth on the tray by the fire. It was all very welcome.

She’d also put herbs and lavender in the bath to sweeten the water, and oil to soothe the skin. With a grateful sigh, he stripped and sank into the heated waters - letting his head fall back against the smoothed oak of the tub, his eyes closing. He hadn’t thought to find anything like to this before he reached his Enclave.

For a time he drifted in thought, the memory of the days past returning to haunt him.

He ached for the one they’d lost - for Melis and her pain at the loss of her soul-bond - he who’d been half her soul.

If Dorovan had had his own soul-bond she would’ve been there to offer comfort and to be comforted in turn but that balm to his soul hadn’t yet been afforded him.

There was time yet and he was neither the oldest not to have found a soul-bond yet by far, nor a true-friend bond either - he’d had alliances, as he must to preserve the bloodlines and for the comfort they offered. Elon of Aerilann had gone far longer, although he had Colath for true-friend, at least. Some solace against the isolation.

Still, Dorovan longed for a bond - any bond - for the comfort it would’ve offered to his grief at the loss of one who’d been a friend, if not a true-friend.

It was his own fault - he was so far from others of his kind who would’ve offered solace; he was  rare thing, a solitary elf, restless and yearning…though, for what he didn’t know.

Once more he saw Calon fall, the goblin’s spear taking him from the saddle even as Dorovan himself had turned his bow upon it. His desperate race to reach Calon was nearly a match to Melis’. He could still hear her cry of grief as Calon fell…

He shook his head to clear it. Restless - that cry of agony still ringing in his head - he dressed in clean clothes from his pack.

The room was too small, too confining. It wasn’t for Elves to be held within stone, yet the storm outside raged ever more fiercely, as he found as he returned to the great room to look out through the shutters there. Even if he left the warmth here, took Charis out into the storm it would be a day or longer before they would reach Talaena and there would be the storm to add weight. Even his innate magic would be hard put against it, not to mention the risk of injury to both himself and Charis. It was foolish to consider it.

Still, grief and sorrow moved in him.

Delae too, found sleep far away - her thoughts caught up with worry, with calculation and cost. The storm looked not to abate for days and the food the refugees would eat would deplete their stores badly. Once the storm broke she would have to send someone to Riverford to purchase more against need - there would be more storms yet to come in what promised to be a very long, very harsh winter.

And if this was a harbinger of what was to come? If they were caught short, folk would starve. They were her responsibility. And yet coin was short.

Her cares ate at her. They weighed on her as she tried to find the balance between current need and future need.

For all her weariness, she knew she would get no sleep this night so long as she fretted.

It seemed a heaviness to the spirit hung in the air.

In only her threadbare robe and linen nightdress she wandered out to the great room, thinking of the tapestry that awaited her there and the distraction it would offer.

And was surprised to find herself not alone - Dorovan stood at the shutters looking out onto the howling winds of the storm-tossed night.

As it had in that first moment when he had crouched beside her, his beauty caught at her. More so now.

Dressed simply in an Elven-silk tunic and loose drawstring trews, it was clear he was as lovely in body as he was in face.

Lost in thought, completely unaware of her presence, there was something in his stance - his solitude, a slump of those broad shoulders, the slight bow of his head – that spoke of some greater sorrow than her own. She understood what it was to be alone with no one for comfort. When the Grippe had come, laying waste to whole villages, it had taken her parents and so many others with as it passed, leaving no solace behind it.

What she couldn’t have, she would give.

Small slender fingers touched the back of Dorovan’s hand, so much in the way of his people that the simple gesture alone eased him, gave him a small measure of peace. It softened his surprise as he looked down to find Delae beside him, her vibrant hair atumble, her blue eyes compassionate, her expression gently questioning.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

She shook her head, all unknowing of what she’d done.

“No thanks needed. Should I ask?”

That courtesy was a surprise as well, giving him the room to withdraw if he so chose. He didn’t.

“I was with a party of Hunters - we lost one among us.”

His heart twinged at the memory.

To his surprise, he found himself taking the comfort she offered, his fingers threading between hers.

The pain was piercing, Delae could see it.

In comparison to the lands of men, those of the Elves were few and their numbers equally so as they weren’t as fertile. She also knew enough to know of the empathy they shared. To lose someone who shared that same kind of sense, who he would’ve known so well…

“Oh, Dorovan,” she said, heartfelt, “I’m so sorry. This then is little enough comfort to give.”

There was a shared grief in her eyes - sympathy and sorrow at his pain - at his loss.

“It is enough,” he said. And, surprisingly, it was. To find it here even more so.  “Like enough to what my own folk would give to remind me that sorrows can be shared.”

And eased. Something her very presence gave him a kind of solace. He felt less alone - not so far from home with her there - although she wasn’t Elf. He found it didn’t matter so much. Yet still, he wasn’t alone because she was also awake at such a dark hour.

“Which brings me to ask what you do so late? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Delae waved it away as if carelessly, not wanting to make much of it. “I don’t sleep well or often, I just hadn’t expected to find another awake on my late night ramblings.”

On many nights she walked or paced these same halls by herself, and so often she could walk them blindfolded.

For all the lightness of her tone, Dorovan could sense the weight that lay on her heart that she put aside in the face of his.

“Sorrows can be shared, Delae,” he repeated.

Looking up into his eyes, his beautiful face was as impassive as all those of his race, in those eyes Delae could see compassion, could sense it in him.

Still.

A part of her ached - yearned for comfort and yet she dared not. Once that wall came down… She quailed, flinched away in fear at the thought, afraid the weight of her responsibilities would crush her if she looked at them too closely.

“You have enough of your own sorrow,” she said, gently, “You don’t need mine as well. I’m long used to it.”

“You seem very…alone,” he said.

She did. Even in the midst of her own people she’d seemed solitary, as if there were a barrier he couldn’t see between her and them.

His perception pierced her.

At his words Delae had to turn away, from the sympathy but above all from the kindness in his voice. It touched her to her core. Kindness would undo her, who had known anything but weight and responsibility, demands and complaints for so long - and she knew it.

He still had her hand and wouldn’t release it however gently she tried to free it.

A part of her went still, understanding he wouldn’t let it go.

She realized too that she couldn’t look at him long. Her loneliness cried out to her.

As with all his people, there was a beauty in his calm sureness. He attracted her with his compassion and kindness, with that devastating beauty, dark silky hair and silvery eyes. A sudden yearning came over her, to be touched and held, to give and be given comfort. The sudden rush of heat - of need - raced through her with such shocking intensity it stunned her, catching her completely off guard. It was something she hadn’t allowed herself to think or feel in such a very long time she’d almost forgotten what it was.

His mere presence made her want what she hadn’t had…couldn’t have.

Dorovan was Elf. She was of the race of Men. It was foolish even to think it.

Even this touch though, this sweet clasp of hands, was more than she’d known for more years than she could count.

The sudden sting of tears in her eyes horrified her. With an effort she turned her head away, forced a smile and a light laugh.

“I have plenty of people here,” she said, in answer to his statement.

And she did, all around her, but none who touched her.

Dorovan could feel the weight on her heart as much as he sensed her sudden bright burst of need, desire. Unlike many of her kind though, she turned away from it.

In all his time he’d never seen another living creature so alone and so in need of simple comfort. And yet she would deny herself that, even when offered.

Reaching out, a small frown creasing his forehead though he didn’t know it, Dorovan drew her chin around and up so he could look into her eyes and held her there until she looked back at him. It was so little to give and so much to receive.

Delae couldn’t be so rude as to tear herself away from him, nor so cowardly as not to face him, so did what she could to try to hide that which ached inside her until she saw what was in his eyes and then all the breath escaped her in a soft rush.