AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The words could have been talking about things more intimate than channeling. But that felt right, somehow. Sex was mundane; magic was not.
Bastian leaned his head against the wall. “I’m sorry. But we had to heal the farmlands anyway. There are already food shortages.”
“I know.” The shortages had been a problem even before what happened with the fields. Kirythea bottlenecked trade routes, and when winter came and the passes to Caldien froze over, going through Empire territory or by sea was the only option.
“I just wish…” She twisted a loose thread in her nightgown, trying to find words for something wordless. “I wish there had been a different way. And I wish you’d told me what you were planning, so I would have expected a bigger audience.”
“Why does the size of the audience matter?” He sounded genuinely curious.
Lore shrugged, not wanting to talk about the vulnerability, how raw it felt. Maybe channeling together only felt that way for her. Maybe it was different for Bastian, who’d never had to think of his power as something profane. Maybe she’d made all of this into more than it really was, in her fierce desire to prove that she wasn’t something monstrous to be put down.
Not that Bastian would do that, even if she was. She still had that much faith in him, at least.
When it became clear she wouldn’t answer, Bastian sighed. “I wanted to tell you. But if I told you, I’d have to tell Gabe. And we know how that would have gone.”
Just Gabe, he said. Not the council. She and Bastian might be two halves, but whatever they made was split into thirds.
Lore tapped her thumbnail nervously against the side of her teacup and changed the subject. “Nothing happened, right?” She pressed her eyes closed; it was news she only wanted to hear in the dark. “Tonight, when I was asleep, there were no… nothing like the villages?”
A pause, one that felt like it stretched years. “Of course not.” He sounded stunned. “Why would you think that? Did you dream?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
Shocked silence, but when Bastian spoke, his voice had a dagger edge. “Remaut isn’t doing his job, then.” Remaut now, not Gabe, creating distance. “This is the second time, isn’t it? You dreamed after we channeled in the catacombs.” He looked at her, contemplative. “And you think that’s why.”
It was odd, to hear the fear she’d been secretly harboring put into such stark terms. Odder still, that he’d pick up on it so quickly, with barely any input from her. “Seems to be the logical conclusion, yes.”
“But nothing happened,” he said. “You channeled, you dreamed, and it was fine.”
Fine didn’t seem like the right word for it. Lore could still recall the dream voice, so familiar, those hands on her waist. And the night before, her torch against trees.
No, the dreams hadn’t killed anyone, but they didn’t feel completely benign, either.
“Maybe you don’t need to work with him anymore,” Bastian said. “He’s busy, so are you, and we can—”
“No.”
Her own vehemence surprised her almost as much as it did Bastian; he closed his mouth, his eyes narrowing.
“I still need him,” Lore said, looking straight ahead. Her jaw hinged open to elaborate, then shut. There was nothing else to add.
Next to her, Bastian shifted. The light in the window glimmered across his hair, bringing out golden highlights. “I don’t think you actually need him,” he said quietly. “But I understand wanting to.”
Lore didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t know what to say.
A moment, then Bastian sighed. “You know there’s more keeping him here than you. You know that I’m not going to ship him off to the Burnt Isles. Don’t feel like you have to pretend you need him in order to save him.” His jaw clenched, then softened. “He doesn’t deserve it.”
They echoed each other so often, Gabe and Bastian. She remembered all the times Gabe told her the then–Sun Prince didn’t deserve her trust, her friendship, her compassion. But it was never a question of deserving. She couldn’t fathom not giving them those things. Either of them.
“It’s not that,” Lore said. “Just because I had two dreams that didn’t result in murder doesn’t mean the danger has passed. Especially if we’re going to channel more moving forward.”
“I don’t see a way around that,” Bastian murmured.
“I know.” Lore took another sip of her tea, and when she spoke, it was direct and matter-of-fact, all the wavering forcibly pressed out. “But I’m afraid, Bastian. Anton told us that if I keep growing in power, bad things will happen, and I know it was religious horseshit, and that we aren’t beholden to the Church anymore, but I am afraid.”
His hand settled on her thigh, light pressure. “They were lying, Lore.”
She took a shaky breath.
