Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(83)

We turn to face each other, and his slow breath brushes my face. We blink in unison for a few seconds, sinking into the moment.

My eyes slide closed, his fingers gliding down my arm to settle on my wrist. As everything goes still.

And we drift into sleep.



Three days have passed, and the king still hasn’t woken from hibernation. His raven, Bran, perches on the headboard, and his wolf is curled at the foot of the bed, both guarding their master. I sit close by, either beside the king’s bed or near the fire, warring with myself, seeing my chance to run. But for some unfathomable reason, I’m unable to make myself leave his side as he sleeps.

His shade, Eric, a large Norseman who came in with the first invasions and died in battle, stays with me at all times, never leaving me alone with his master. He insists that the king hasn’t ever been down this long after a healing, but he also mentioned that the king’s feedings have decreased these last three months, so perhaps he’s just weakened.

“Why has the king cut back?” I ask.

Eric merely looks at me.

“Shouldn’t he have been paired with a shade for hibernation then?” I ask, a helplessness weaving through me. I’m not sure how the children of the Morrígan pair for hibernation, but my guess is it’s bloody. I can’t think how else he’ll rejuvenate if he’s alone and hungry, though.

Eric shifts his feet, looking uncomfortable.

“Speak, fool!” I bark.

The raven echoes my annoyance with a screech.

Eric clears his throat. “He wouldn’t wish for me to speak of it with you, mistress.”

“So you’ll watch him sleep as eternity passes us by? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“My king is trying to please you,” he says, as if he’s accusing me of something. “His desire for you consumes him. He starves himself, believing he can learn to control his hunger, his power, more effectively. So that when you become his in truth, he won’t feed from you or harm you in any way.”

My pulse quickens. “What?”

I look over to the king, his hands folded over his chest, skin gray, lips violet, as if he were carved from solid death. He’s denying himself so that he won’t accidentally harm me? The idea doesn’t fit with what I know of him, of his cruelty. It doesn’t match the monster I faced during the Bonding ceremony.

“He wishes to please you,” Eric says again.

“Well, he shouldn’t,” I mutter, rising to my feet and walking over to the hearth. I pull a pinch of lavender from the pouch tied to my skirts and toss it into the flames. It sizzles for a moment, the smoke lightening. “Mother Goddess, hear me,” I say to the flames. “My Bonded sleeps and cannot be woken. Please give me guidance. How can I help him?”

The logs shift and sizzle immediately, as if my mother knows the urgency I feel. But when the words come, my heart sinks. Surrender . . . the flames whisper again, drawing out the sound with a hiss. The fire born within you shall bring rebirth. Surrender, child. Do not delay.

I turn away, turmoil brewing in my gut. I hardly know what that means now. How can I surrender to a force that’s asleep?

“What did she answer?” Eric asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “She said nothing.” I walk away from the hearth and return to the bedside. “I need you to send a message. I need you to call for the monk Lailoken to attend me. Tell him his ward is in need of him.”

Eric gives me a frustrated look, but then he reluctantly bows his head, saying, “If I must, mistress.” He slips out of the room, leaving me alone for the first time in days.

I stare down at my king and wonder what the mother goddess could possibly want from me. To surrender to this beast? Truly? The image of him placing his hand on Fionn’s breast to heal him surfaces again. It’s the reason he’s in this bed, silent. Helpless. He did that to himself to save a foolish girl’s bird.

Lailoken arrives at the keep as evening falls. Eric begrudgingly lets me know of his presence in the gallery, but then stands by the door, resuming his position of guard.

“Bring him up,” I say.

He looks back and forth between his master lying in the bed and me, as if the king could give an order for him to stop listening to me.

“Please, Eric,” I add, attempting to put strength behind the words. I’m tired from lack of sleep, weakened from lack of food. I haven’t truly fed for months. I’m practically human right now. Eric could deny me and have me locked in my rooms if he wanted. Of the two of us, he’s the stronger at this point.

“He is a Christian monk,” Eric says, bitterness on his tongue. He flexes his wide shoulders as if to intimidate me. “He’d see me damned to his hell.”

“He understands the old ways and respects the goddess.”

“Both of them?”

“Are we going to debate religion or seek help where it can be found?”

He seems to consider and then miraculously mutters, “Very well, mistress,” turning to walk out. He returns with Lailoken in his grasp. The usually tidy old man is tousled from head to toe like he’s been searched for weapons. His dark woolen robes are torn at the hem, and his cross is missing from his belt. There is a smudge of blood on his chin, his lip swelling.

Eric drags him forward and tosses him to the floor in a heap before the hearth.