Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

Delyth’s brow creased, her eyes on the healer’s dark-rimmed eyes and sallow skin. “Alphonse, are you suffering?”

“Just a bit of a headache,” Alphonse replied hastily, looking away from both Delyth and Etienne. “I’m certain it will go away. Enyo is just… um…  a little upset.”

“Oh…” Etienne breathed, deflating, and Alphonse’s heart lurched. “We can save it. Only lock her away for the really bad stuff.”

Relief colored the healer’s voice as she replied. “That’s a good idea, Etienne. Only for very bad things and the rest— You and Delyth can just give her what she wants to keep the peace. I understand. I won’t be disappointed or upset.”

“That is the simplest choice, aderyn bak,” Delyth said, making a tent for Alphonse out of one wing. “Doing what Enyo likes often allows us to continue moving forward. And ultimately, that is our most important goal right now—getting you to the temple. However, the easiest choice is not always the best one.”

She sighed again, looking to Etienne. “I will do everything in my power to see us to the temple, but I will fight to keep my… my humanity along the way. Enyo is only the latest in a long line of those who would take it away.”

For a long moment, all Alphonse could do was curl into the curve of Delyth’s wing and think. A difficult task with her head splitting and her stomach clenching and that heaviness. That weight. That pressure against her heart.

The sickness wanted out.

Finally, Alphonse only nodded in understanding. She fought Enyo every day and lost. And each time Enyo took over, Alphonse’s friends paid the price.

But still, she fought.

And they would as well but…

“But when we get to the Temple— Enyo…” she swallowed, not daring to look at Etienne, else she reveal their secret plan to remove Enyo from her body. “Enyo wants to go there. She— You— The plan is for her to go there to become more. Isn’t it? To become more like what she was before?” That had been her understanding, the way Enyo obsessed over the temple, the way she insisted they go.

It wasn’t so she’d be cast back into the dungeons of nowhere, that in-between place she had occupied for three hundred-odd years.

༄

Delyth sighed deeply for a third time. “The Enyo we have seen is little like the Enyo I grew up worshipping. I think perhaps she was not meant to live in a human body, or else her time bound away has affected her…”

The warrior looked down at Alphonse, where she was nestled close and curled her wing closer around the smaller woman’s frame. “Perhaps there is something at the temple that will make her better. Perhaps she will be able to exist without a human body.”

Across the fire, Etienne looked more exhausted than thoughtful. He gave no indication as to what he thought of Delyth’s musings. “We should sleep,” he said simply and abruptly.

Alphonse barely covered a yawn before she held out a hand to Delyth to be helped up. The warrior pulled her easily to her feet.

“Goodnight, Etienne,” Alphonse said, and they turned towards their tent, Alphonse resting her head against Delyth’s shoulder, their hands not quite touching.

Delyth held her breath, walking smoothly as possible so as not to disturb Alphonse’s gentle veil-draped head on her shoulder, and when they reached the tent, she held the flap for Alphonse to slide in and change.

She made quick work of the ward, allowing herself, for just those few moments, to dwell on the easy, comfortable way Alphonse had curled up against her at the fire. Then, when the sounds of rustling had ceased to come from within, Delyth followed Alphonse inside and curled up on her side of the tent so that one wing draped over the other girl’s pallet.

“Goodnight, Alphonse.”

❀

“Goodnight,” she agreed, yet didn’t close her eyes. In the near darkness of the privacy of Delyth’s wing, Alphonse gazed instead across the pallet to Delyth. Priestess, Warrior, Friend. Several minutes passed, but Alphonse didn’t close her eyes, didn’t drift off into that heavy sleep usually brought on by a long day's travel.

Instead, she shifted to cup her hand under her head. She could feel the shield of Delyth’s wing just within reach of her fingertips.

Slowly, Alphonse reached out to those velvety expanses of skin. She had learned in the weeks of sharing a tent, that the underside of Delyth’s wings were particularly soft to the touch. Strange, since they were so powerful.

She let her fore finger and middle finger trace the veins of one spine. Then another. A soothing touch, as much for herself and her aching mind as for Delyth.

“I don’t have very many friends. Most at Moxous thought me… boring.” She hesitated on the word. They had thought her a prude and a blind Mother Agathi follower and many other unflattering things. “Etienne doesn’t care if I am drab to look at. He only cares about my mind. About magic.” He had never made fun of her veil or her plain colored dresses or her modest style. He had never made her feel self-conscious for being soft-spoken.

༄

Delyth held absolutely, perfectly still from the moment Alphonse’s gentle fingers began to stroke her wings. She hardly breathed. The touch was soothing, unassuming even, but beneath the forgiving darkness of the tent, her cheeks burned.

“I’ve never had many friends either,” she admitted quietly. “People don’t tend to like the way I look.”

It felt a little silly to say it so blandly, but neither was Delyth particularly interested in dredging up past hurts just then.

“Even if I had, I wouldn’t care what others thought of you. I don’t think you’re boring.” Slowly, Delyth reached out across the tent to brush her fingers against Alphonse’s upper arm. She swallowed hard.

“Do you think that we could be friends too?” The healer’s eyes to Delyth’s face, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“Of course, we can be friends. I think we already are, aderyn bak.”

Alphonse shivered at