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“You were studying,” he said simply, which made my anger boil.
“Didn’t you think I would want to know?”
“I didn’t want you to be distracted.”
“Shouldn’t you have left that up to me?”
He let the moment between us hang, then said, “Judging by how you’re acting now, no. And if you so much as touch her, Wyrval, I will twist you into pieces.”
“Bah,” I complained, but finished all my chores.
That eveningI took the stairs up to my room, which was above hers, pausing at her door. I wanted to knock on it and demand answers, full of frustration—but then, as if sensing my mood, I heard Frenel fuss, and her having to soothe him. At the thought of requiring her to soothe me, too, I gathered my pride and made it to my own door.
Then Frenel didn’t stop. I lay down on my bed, and heard her trying to keep him quiet for several hours, listening to her shuffling and whispered singing, before I got up and went down to knock on her door for a different reason entirely.
When she opened it, her hair was tangled, and there were bags beneath her eyes. “I’m so sorry—”
“Did you need help?” I asked, cutting her off.
She looked hopeful, and then sighed, shrinking in on herself as Frenel made unhappy noises. “No—”
“You seem tired, and I’m perfectly capable of walking around in circles while humming, too,” I told her, and she snorted.
“Am I that loud?”
“Only because I’m listening,” I said, reaching to take the baby from her. “But don’t worry, Xelrim’s going deaf as a post.”
She relinquished the child over to me, and rearranged the top of her dress, as Frenel kept up his tiny cries. “I am very,” she started, then changed direction. “It’s been—”
“A while since you’d had a full night’s sleep?” I finished for her, and she closed her eyes and nodded. “I imagine I can get you a few hours, then.”
“Thank you,” she said, wearily sighing. “But if he starts rooting around on your chest, bring him to me; it means he’s hungry.”
“Understood,” I said, and then turned my attention to the child. “But in the meantime, let’s go visit the barn,” I told the baby, and I shifted my body from side to side like I’d seen her do earlier in the day while holding him. Rocking him felt natural, and I liked the way he fit into the crook of my arm.
“It’s cold outside!” she protested.
“Then it’s a good thing I have a coat,” I told the baby, before taking him downstairs.
It was odd,carrying another living thing this close to myself. Rather like holding a puppy or kitten, only it was an entire tiny human—related to Shayla, no less.
I kept him tucked against my chest, inside my thickest fur, all the way into the barn, rocking him gently until we were inside and the doors were closed. He’d calmed down some, and I used my magic to shine a gentle light, the same one I used on my plants during winter to keep them alive in the cold dark, moving from plant to plant, inspecting them again since I was there.
These were my children, and it was like I knew them by name—I knew all of their linages, because I’d been the one to pollinate all their flowers and set them to seed for generations.
“Who is your father, little one?” I peeked into my fur to ask the baby, where he’d quickly gone to sleep. I could only hope that Shayla trusted me enough to do the same.
I couldn’t image Shayla leaving a good man—so either Frenel’s father wasn’t good, or he was dead. The latter seemed more likely, what with there always being some sort of war on.
“Will you look like him, when you grow up? Or will you look like her? Or maybe, just maybe, will my magic rub off on you?” I reached in to stroke his tiny nose with my forefinger and woke him up enough to smack his lips, before he settled back to snoring. “Today I will make a strawberry just for you. It will be tiny, tart, and sweet. Maybe I will make you two or three of them, hmm? Would you like that? I would like that.”
“Don’t teach him magic,” I heard from behind me—and found a disheveled Shayla there, standing just inside the door, coat-less herself despite the chill.
“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to,” I assured her, then frowned. “Did you not trust me?”
Something haunted crossed her face, but then she quickly became presentable again—as if she were putting on a mask. “It’s not that,” she claimed. “I’ve just never been away from him before,” she said, but I knew she was lying.
I wanted to call her on it—to call her oneverything—but what if me asking questions was the thing that made her leave again? I couldn’t risk it.
