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

that time were tiny in comparison to what faced them now—to the task at the temple. He shuddered and glanced at Alphonse. They had changed so much. And not particularly for the better.

Across the fire, Delyth was staring at Alphonse with wide eyes, her face drained of color. “In Ingola, I would be a Cabot?” she asked, her voice hushed. “There—there are others who are not exactly human?”

Tristan snorted at this. “What, did you think you were the only one?” It was clear that he thought she was ridiculous.

“I’ve never met another,” she shot back.

Etienne wondered what that was like, but shook his head after a moment. He couldn’t imagine being the only one like—like that. Then a curious thought struck him: How did she learn to fly?

Was it the sort of thing you were just born knowing how to do, or did you need someone to teach you? Had she learned by trial and error? He resolved to ask her if he ever got a chance.

❀

Alphonse nodded slowly in sad realization. Delyth had truly not known any of her own kind? She had said she was raised in the temple, but for some reason, Alphonse had thought there would be other priestesses with wings and mighty swords.

“Yes. Cabot simply means… mixed.” Well, actually, it meant something a bit more derogative than that, but the effect was the same. Not fully human. They were rare, but not unheard of. Dailion certainly had a handful that she saw regularly.

Brande had been the first she had touched and interacted with on a personal level, but…

“I’ve not seen any with your wings before, but I’ve heard of many different types of Cabot. Some who swim, some who can breathe underwater—well…” She wouldn’t get into all of the different kinds.

Alphonse’s heart whined in pain for her friend. She now lived that life. Alone. One of a kind.

“I’m sorry, Delyth. I didn’t mean to tell a sad story…”

She should have just told the story of the time she accidentally transfigured Etienne’s hair into a blooming bush of roses, and he had to walk around for a day and a half with butterflies and hummingbirds chasing him down for a drink.

༄

Delyth supposed Tristan was right. It had been ridiculous to think of herself as the only one. After all, she had to have come from somewhere. Only, she’d heard stories all her life of the monstrous creature that must have been her father. She had never thought there might be people like her. Ordinary, wonderful, working, struggling people.

And the idea that not only were there others but that there were many different kinds… She struggled to wrap her mind around it. She wanted to meet them, to find them and join them and learn more about them. She wanted to be seen by people who would understand not only what she was but part of what she had gone through. Almost like… well, family.

“It's not a sad story,” Delyth said slowly. “It was a happy one. You saved this Cabot man, even if… if he was not popular amongst most Ingolans.”

In her mind, Delyth saw Alphonse’s face looking up at her in the dim light of their tent. ‘Do you think I am not strong enough to stand by your side in such times?’ she’d asked.

The priestess was sorry she’d ever questioned Alphonse.

“I— Well, Delyth, do you want to tell a story?” The healer looked decidedly uncomfortable with the attention focused on her.

Delyth let her eyes drop back to the fire. She wanted to tell a happy story as well, one without any bloodshed. When the right one came to mind, she smiled slightly. The pain that used to come with memories of that time had faded to a sort of bittersweetness.

“I was late the day I was to be made priestess.”

She had woken up that morning in a small copse not far from the village proper. It was a balmy spring day, the trees above whispering morning gossip through green leaves, the rough blanket below her a thin barrier from fervent earth.

And there had been Tanwen, of course.

They’d fallen asleep naked, as entwined as the roots of neighboring trees. Delyth’s head rested on the clan girl’s shoulder. Tanwen’s thigh pressed between the halfbreed’s legs. Both were soft with sex.

Delyth had just lain there for a time, drowsy and content, until the memory of what they had to achieve that day came rushing back to her.

“At the temple where I was raised, warrior trainees were permitted to try for the rank of priestess every year, starting at sixteen. We called the series of tests `Y Treialon.’ The Trials.” She looked up from the fire at Alphonse. “I was eighteen the first time I was permitted to run.”

Although Tanwen could not be made a priestess, she had begged leave to participate, to test herself. No one turned her down. Tanwen was slated to rule over her clan one day. But despite her obvious eagerness for the Trials, the clan girl had made getting up and dressing that morning all but impossible, pressing kisses to Delyth’s body even as she tried to clothe it.

When they finally arrived, they were both panting and red-faced, their hair disheveled. They only just made it before the start of the first Trial, trailed by the disapproving glares of their elders. Tanwen had been too rapturously excited to care, dismissive both of the older warriors and Delyth’s fretting.

“The Trials were composed of three parts. The first was an obstacle course of sorts, a trail that ran into the surrounding mountains, pitted with traps and leaps and climbs. I was never strictly prohibited from flying, but I refused to do so. I didn’t want to finish only for someone to claim that I could not qualify.”

Delyth and Tanwen both had sprinted from the starting line at the call to begin. All who finished the Trials made the rank of priestess, but it was a point of pride to complete them first.

“We—That is myself and—and