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“Five months.”
“Then you’re halfway there,” I offered cheerily. “What a blessing.”
“We’ll see if I’m halfway. I could have seven more if I follow the gestation period of the beast fae.”
It was true that it took a full year for dark fae females to give birth following conception rather than ten like it was for the light fae. It had me wondering if it would be the same for me.
“I wonder,” I asked, lowering my voice, “how did you come so far north from your home in Myrkovir?”
She glanced at me with hesitation, but then answered, “Our clan moved after the last Solstice celebration and settled just south of the Borderlands. Our high lord wanted to be far from the fighting.”
“I see. And your sister? I remember meeting her as well.” Her vision under the moonlight still burned bright after all this time.
Tessa hesitated, her gaze focused forward as she said softly, “She’s still there. When I met Bezaliel, I wanted to bring her with me, but”—she shook her head—“she didn’t want to come.”
Recognizing the emotion radiating from her, I said, “You worry for her. You miss her.”
“Very much. I understand why she wouldn’t want to come and live with a beast fae clan. It’s so different from how we grew up. But I couldn’t leave my mate, and I worry for her living there on her own.”
“But she has your father, right? The innkeeper?”
Her face tightened as she glanced at me. She didn’t say anything, only gave me a sharp nod. Then Bezaliel stopped at the line of trees and turned to face us under the shade. He was truly a large fae. I nearly gasped aloud when I’d first seen Redvyr. The beast fae were molded like giants.
“Grindolvek is beast fae,” he stated calmly, “no matter what he looks like.”
Goll and I glanced at each other curiously.
“So that you understand, his mother went into labor here at this stream. A naiad heard her cries and helped her through the birth. Some exchange of naiad blood transferred to Grindolvek when he was born, changing him.” He paused, his frown returning. “His mother died during childbirth, and the naiad who played midwife raised him. He chose to remain and live here away from Vanglosa, though we still count him as one of us.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“We aren’t sure,” he answered gravely. “At least a thousand years ago.”
“He’s over a thousand years old?” I asked. The fae could live three, maybe even four hundred years, but not a thousand.
“The naiad’s blood in him, I imagine.” He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to face Goll. “It would be best if only you and your mizrah go in. The other two can follow at a distance.”
“You’re not coming?” Goll asked.
Bezaliel pulled Tessa closer in a protective hold. “We will wait here.”
His apprehension heightened the tightening tension as we drew closer to the trees.
Goll nodded to Keffa and Soryn, then took my hand as we made our way beneath the canopy of trees. The leaves had begun to turn gold and orange; our feet crunched on the fallen ones on the path. A murmuring brook drew my attention as we stepped into the cool quiet of this small woodland.
It was like an oasis of wooded beauty in the middle of the wide-open plains. Then I felt it. Gods’ magick.
I squeezed Goll’s hand. “Do you feel it?”
“I do.”
It was strong. Like a stream of cool wind, it wound through this place, lacing it with vibrant energy. I felt as if I could breathe it in, my chest heaving from inhaling deep.
“Grindolvek,” I called, having stopped before the stream.
While the trees had begun their change for the season, the thick growth of green lilies and vegetation around the water’s edge remained as if it were deep summer. The clear stream had a pool deep enough I couldn’t see the bottom, but then I saw something swimming beneath the surface. A shimmer of bluish-green sparkle. It caught a ray of sunlight dappling through thetrees and glittered beneath the water before it disappeared. A naiad.
I was wondering if it might’ve even been Grindolvek when Goll squeezed my hand and tugged me closer to his side.
