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

Of course, Delyth knew the language, but…

Alphonse glanced at the warrior and then away.

She couldn’t ask the priestess.

“Well… I hope that doesn’t mean she’ll start targeting you the way she does Etienne. Her dissatisfaction can be quite painful to withstand.”

Tristan snorted. “I doubt it. Etienne is too tempting a victim.”

He looked over Alphonse’s shoulder to where the other two were almost finished setting up camp. “Hey look, I think your little mouse is starting to get sweet on me. She’s even worried about me.”

“What? No—I was only asking—” Alphonse sputtered, immediately horrified. There was no chance she was growing ‘sweet’ on Tristan, and the thought that Etienne or Delyth might think so was embarrassing.

“Leave her alone,” the warrior said. Alphonse cast her a grateful look, but Delyth was already turning away. No longer the healer’s friend or protector. Just doing her duty to Enyo, keeping Tristan from harassing her too much. Alphonse’s heart faltered.

✶

Dinner was uninspired but warm and filling. Enyo hadn’t gone hunting, and no one wanted to slow their progress to do so. Thankfully the rations Etienne had gotten in that mountainside settlement were still holding them over. Dried noodle soup with a few spring onions and carrots found on the side of the road.

Etienne watched Alphonse shovel down her food and head immediately to her tent. Delyth watched her too, but just when he expected the warrior to follow her, she hunched her shoulders and turned back to her near-empty bowl.

No one spoke.

The scholar sighed. This wasn’t going to get any better if it continued in this way, and perhaps that was for the best. Alphonse didn’t need to be worrying about Delyth’s feelings when it came time to bind Enyo in the temple.

Then again, if he were to be honest, he’d have to admit she would worry anyway. That was just Alphonse. And the journey would be hard enough without the added tension between them.

“I don’t know much about people,” he told Delyth in hushed tones, “but I know Alphonse. If you want this to get fixed, you’re going to have to let her know. Otherwise, she’ll just assume you want nothing to do with her.”

For a second, he could see past Delyth’s perpetual mask. She turned to him, growling in frustration. “But that’s— I—you’re the ones that left.”

Tristan was looking between them with interest, his face unreadable. “Exactly. She left us. Let her stew in it.”

Etienne shot him a frustrated look. “No one asked you. And yeah, we did. Obviously, it wasn’t the best choice, but if you think Alphonse is worth fixing your friendship, then that’s what you have to do.”

He turned back to his bowl as if he didn’t care what the others did, his temper up. For a long moment, Delyth didn’t move either, but when he looked again, she was staring towards the tent she shared with Alphonse. A second later, she placed her bowl down and moved towards it.

“Really? She ought to come to you to fix it, not the other way around,” Tristan said, but Delyth ignored him and slipped inside.

❀

True to her plan, Alphonse was wrapped in her blankets, eyes firmly shut, back to the entrance of the tent. She would make this as easy as possible for Delyth. Even if she was listening on tenterhooks as the other woman entered, the earth beneath her feet crunching as she moved.

Was she lying down with her back to Alphonse as well?

The healer’s heart stammered at the thought.

Schooling herself to breathe slowly, calmly, as if asleep, Alphonse strained to hear more. Was Delyth’s breathing fast and angry? Unlikely. The priestess was disciplined beyond reason. Perhaps from a life of people fearing her intense and different appearance, being a Cabot and all. Or did her breath hitch with hurt or sorrow? Surely if that was the case, Alphonse should comfort her?

But Delyth didn’t want Alphonse to comfort her.

Was it possible for Alphonse to release Enyo on purpose? To show Delyth that her Goddess was alive and well?

A bundle of emotions in her chest tightened at that. Yes. It purred. Release Enyo. She’ll make the priestess happy. 

“I know you’re not asleep,” Delyth said finally, her voice quiet.

Stiffening, Alphonse at least had the wherewithal to feel a touch embarrassed when caught pretending to be asleep. Like a child, whose parents had looked in for the night only to be found reading under the covers with a mage light.

She swallowed and spoke into the darkness. “I didn’t want to—to make you feel as though you had to speak to me.”

Because Delyth seemed tired of the apologies and uninterested in conversation. And all Alphonse wanted to do was apologize over and over again and beg for forgiveness. Slowly, she peered over her shoulder at the warrior. Delyth was sitting on her own pallet, scabbard and boots discarded, tossing the wolf furs aside. She was looking right at Alphonse, and hastily, the healer sat up. “Delyth?”

༄

Delyth struggled for the right thing to say. She felt like she was caught in a storm, a tumult of anger and guilt and simple loneliness. Should she just come out and ask Alphonse why she had left her behind?

The idea made her feel raw inside like she’d been cut open and turned inside out so that all of the writhing, dark bits she didn’t show were on full display.

She swallowed and delayed. “You think too much.” This, of course, wasn’t helpful. She had come in here to talk. She had to say something or give up, defeated by her own fear.

And she was afraid. She could feel it in the feather-pulse of her blood, but she couldn’t say what exactly it was that scared her. Delyth swallowed again. “I don’t like this,” she said, gesturing between them. “How things have been.”

A shuddering sigh whooshed out of Alphonse. She leaned forward, not a hint of embers or fire in those amber eyes. They were purely mournful.

“I hate this. I hate that I hurt you. That I