A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 20

A fter a nap, Briar cracked a few books to search for information on the strange enchanted sphere, but discovered nothing.

Vatii suggested, gently, that he ask Gretchen. Though a good idea, Briar’s pride still stung. The news of his impending death had made him emotionally volatile and thin skinned. Perhaps his reaction had been overblown—Gretchen had spent most of her death trapped in spectral limbo, unable to manifest through the layers of salt keeping her at bay, and he’d thrown those fears in her face quite literally.

Still, he wasn’t ready to reconcile.

He called Linden.

Minutes later, the shop door clicked open. Linden unlocked it with magic so Briar wouldn’t have to limp downstairs. He appeared on the landing, Atticus weaving between his feet.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Do you know what this is?” Briar opened the drawer.

In the pause before Linden moved, Briar wondered what he thought he’d been called for. Another emergency, perhaps. He seemed harried. Nevertheless, he straightened the linen of his shirt and came to look in the drawer. Seeing what was there, he stepped back.

“Briar, where did you get that?”

“Rowan found it.”

“Rowan.”

“The alderman. We were wondering what it is.”

Linden’s eyes narrowed. “How did he come by it? And why did he give it to you?”

“It’s a long story involving curses and wards and the town’s history of death and destruction. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Linden’s blue stare was indecipherable. He looked back at the sphere. “It’s a siphon.”

Briar had never heard of such a thing. “I wish I’d been more diligent in my apprenticeship, because you’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

Linden chuckled. “You seem more yourself today. Well, you needn’t worry. They’d never teach you about magic like this. It’s dangerous and taboo.” His eyes flicked to Briar’s arm. “So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you in possession of it.”

“Why is it taboo? What does it do?”

“A siphon hoards tithes from a hotbed of wild magic and contains them, to be used at the witch’s whim for powerful spells. It drains these tithes from any natural source of relative purity. A river, a forest, the sea—wherever tithes can be harvested en masse. They’re notoriously difficult to create and volatile to control when used. Highly dangerous magic.” He hovered a hand over the rune chain containing it. “Though you seem to understand that.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It appears,” Linden said, using the drawer to tilt the sphere just slightly, “that someone wanted to know the same thing. That’s a tracing rune on it.”

Briar’s eyes widened. It was difficult to see, but Linden was correct. A tracing rune had been drawn on the siphon to discover its creator. Had éibhear discovered who made this and for what purpose? Had it led him to the battle, to his death?

Noticing his discontent, Linden shut the drawer. “You’ve done an excellent job containing it. I wonder, what do you plan to do with it?”

“Leave it there,” Briar said. Or use the same tracing spell to see if he could discover its owner, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

“It bothers you. Why?”

“It feels off.”

Linden tilted his head. He wore a smile so slight Briar almost missed it. “You’re quite sensitive, aren’t you?”

Briar puffed up. “I’d take offense, but yes, I am.”

Linden straightened to meet Briar’s eye. In the flicker of the candlelight, his expression softened like melted snow. “I meant no offense by it,” he said.

Briar only had a moment to register the look Linden gave him for what it was. Then Linden leaned in and kissed him.

It was not quite passionate and not quite chaste. It was just as Linden was—poised and lingering. It lasted long enough for Briar to feel chastened that he hadn’t closed his eyes or reacted at all.

Linden Fairchild was kissing him. Why wasn’t he kissing back?

When Linden broke away, his brow folded in confusion. Alarm bells went off in Briar’s head. This was the destiny laid out for him. He’d left Rowan to follow it, and he was about to spoil it.

“I’m sorry,” Linden said. “I thought you—”

Briar broke from his trance and lunged. He kissed back, eyes clamped shut. With determination, he stuffed away the thoughts and feelings that made him hesitate and guided Linden’s arms around him. He heard the pat of paws and flutter of wings as Vatii and Atticus left to give them privacy.

It was not difficult. These were motions with which he was well acquainted, and the past few days had left him harrowed, lonely, craving comfort. So it was not difficult to let Linden’s cool, slender hands circle his waist. It was not difficult to reach and pull him closer. It was not difficult…

And it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

Something sharp dug into his breastbone when Linden pressed tightly against him. Briar cried out. They drew apart, and the talisman fell free of Linden’s shirt, which trailed laces, undone far enough that Briar could see the arch of ribs expanding to draw in a sharp breath.

“Ah, stupid thing,” Linden said.

He stripped, amulet and shirt both gone at once. It should have been a moment for admiring his lean frame or the flawless skin, unmarked by tithes. Instead, Linden’s aura smothered Briar in an uninvited hug.

He’d thought it would taste like a jolt of coffee in the morning, feel like cashmere on bare skin, smell like sunscreen.

Linden was nothing like that. He was fog on the moors at dawn. The snick-snick of scissors cutting silk. He was the first breath of winter air you took after stepping outside in January, or the peculiar loneliness of feeling invisible in the middle of a crowd.

Briar couldn’t determine if it was pleasant or unpleasant, only that it shocked him. Linden stepped in again, lips cool against Briar’s throat, where his pulse scraped like fingernails underneath his skin. All the feelings he tried to suppress bubbled up, panic leading the charge. When Linden’s hands shifted under Briar’s clothes, he had to battle the instinct to recoil. He stilled Linden’s hands with his own.

A look of confusion surfaced over the lustful bat of Linden’s eyelashes. Briar had to explain. Wanting this should have come easy, so why was it so hard ?

He knew the answer and didn’t want to admit it.

“Can we take it slow?” It sounded uncharacteristically prudish. He’d never shied away from the bedroom before.

Linden looked chagrined. “Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m not feeling well, and I don’t want to ruin it.”

“No, of course! Your health is paramount.” As if approaching a spooked horse, Linden pressed a hand to Briar’s forehead. “You are a bit chilly. You should rest.”

Remembering the cards and Death’s grinning skull watching him, Briar added quickly, “We could… cuddle?”

Linden smiled softly and helped Briar to bed. Sat up against the headboard, Briar let himself sink against Linden’s shoulder. Though he was the perfect height for it, though his touch was both gentle and firm, Briar found himself shivering. He tried to relax. Tried to imagine a world in which his feelings weren’t so polluted by prophecies and lovely bearded men who cooed at chickens and baked shepherd’s pies.

“You know,” Linden said, his fingertips tracing lazy patterns against Briar’s shoulder, “yesterday, I intended to ask if you’d let me court you properly.”

This should have surprised Briar but didn’t. Perhaps because a certain prophecy had ruined the surprise. “You did?”

“Shall I take this as a yes?”

“Yes.” He wanted that still. Didn’t he? “I thought you said we should stay friends.”

“Ah. My parents’ influence.” He leaned his cheek against Briar’s hair. “I’m afraid they did not approve.”

“What made them change their mind?”

“They didn’t. I’m here against their wishes.”

Briar tilted his head to look up at him. Linden seemed completely at ease for the first time Briar could recall. It set off a chain reaction of pleasure and guilt. Pleasure that Briar had been the cause, guilt that his heart didn’t quite reciprocate those feelings in spite of Linden’s charms.

It wasn’t fair to him, and Briar knew as much. To make this work, he had to forget Rowan.

So when Linden leaned in to kiss him again, Briar let him. He let Linden’s fingers card through his hair. He closed his eyes, tried to close his heart, too. But kissing Linden felt a little too much like the few times Briar had kissed girls. The knowing how he ought to feel, yet didn’t, was awful.

When Linden pulled away some time later, he said with mild self-reproof, “I should really get back to mine.”

He shifted, climbing over Briar and out of bed, looking around for his discarded shirt.

“You could stay.”

“Regrettably, I have much work to do, but… thank you. I could return later, if it would not disturb you.”

Before Briar could answer, a knock came at the door. His brow scrunched. It was too late to be a prospective customer wondering over the state of their commission.

Linden said, “Do you get many night callers?”

“No.”

“Shall I get it, then?”

“No, stay here.”

The wood under Briar’s bare feet was frigid, the squeaky stair creaking more quietly than usual. Outside, the wind whistled with streams of snow, and in the crescent moon window of his door, he could see a familiar shape.

Briar opened the door. Rowan stood there, as he had on so many days and nights past, but he looked very different. His face was open and scared. Wind and snow mussed his hair, and he breathed as though he’d run there. He had his hands in his pockets and pulled one out in a fist.

“Briar,” he said. “I’ve come to tell you something. And it might not come out right or make sense, but I have to tell you. If you’ll listen.”

Briar heard himself say “of course,” as if from far away. Internally, denial wrestled with intuition. There were few things he could think Rowan would come to tell him breathlessly in the dead of night. Either the forest had attacked someone again or this had to do with… them. Their relationship.

Rowan steeled himself. For a moment, instead of speaking, he looked like he’d be sick.

“I’m—” he said, but no more, because in the short intervening time, there came footsteps on the stairs.

Briar saw the moment Linden came into view. Rowan’s head snapped up, his gaze following Linden’s movement, until a long, cool arm draped across Briar’s shoulders. Linden wore the amulet but not his shirt.

“Ah, the alderman,” he said. “What seems to be the matter? It’s quite late.”

Rowan took in Linden’s state of dress, their tussled hair, the arm around Briar’s shoulders, and his harried breathing stopped. Briar would tithe anything of his to never again see Rowan look the way he did now. He thought about Rowan’s hands on his cheeks as they shared a kiss in the snow. His laugh. The lit fire between them.

He wanted to say, No, no, it’s not what it looks like.

It was.

I’m falling for you.

It didn’t matter.

He couldn’t even say I’m sorry. Not with Linden standing right there.

Rowan’s normally stoic countenance wore a gutted expression for a beat too long to hide. Then he seemed to shore up the walls that had once contained and protected him before, the ones he’d let down for this moment, and he summoned a smile. Briar remembered learning in astronomy that a dead star’s light still reached Earth years and years later, so distant that it took all that time to go out. The light of a dead star and the brittle brightness of Rowan’s smile were the same.

“Never mind,” he said, so quietly Briar almost didn’t hear. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

He was already moving away, turning and hurrying down the street into the snow.

Briar watched him go with the sense that he’d just lost something perfect he didn’t know had been his to claim.