This is an ongoing companion piece to be read after completing the Snakesblood Saga. Because it takes place during the final chapter of the last book, it will be very full of spoilers. It’s also unedited first draft fluff… just for fun! Read at your own risk, and expect installments no closer together than once a month.
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The morning that followed was quiet. The damaged door latch disappeared into Rune’s study with him and Firal chose to leave him be. She joined Minna in the kitchen, helped prepare breakfast and sliced fruit for Lulu while tea brewed. Seeing to the girl always came first, and by the time Firal had finished tidying the kitchen and helping with the dishes and the pot of tea was ready, Lulu was finished and toddling out the back door.
Firal had not yet settled and turned to go after her, but Minna intercepted her halfway across the room.
“The well’s cover is on. Let her be a child for a bit. She’ll be all right.” The old woman shooed her to the table.
Firal craned her neck to look out the back door, anyway. “It’s not like it was back in Core, when you could send the children out to play in the river. They all went together. She’s out there alone.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with being alone,” Minna chided. “But you’re the one who needs to know that, aren’t you?”
Light and teasing as it was, that struck Firal in ways she didn’t expect and her heart turned to a lump in her throat.
What was that supposed to mean?
Before she could sort it out, Minna patted her arm and excused herself out the open back door.
Firal frowned and lingered in the middle of the kitchen for a time, watching her daughter wander between the herbs in the garden. The mornings had grown cooler, and in the morning light, everything looked a shade more golden. She had never experienced a change of seasons like what she knew was coming, and it coiled an odd sense of foreboding around her heart.
Minna herded Lulu away from one of the more delicate plants and Firal made herself relax. For now, she did not have to worry.
She returned to the table to serve herself tea and eat the breakfast she’d prepared before everything else had distracted her. Steam rose from her teacup to tickle her nose and she held it in front of her mouth, watching.
Waiting, she decided a moment later, and not for another glimpse of her daughter outside.
Much of her life had been spent waiting.
Waiting for a higher rank within the temple.
Waiting for her husband to return.
Waiting for some sign things would be all right.
She shut her eyes and breathed deep.
Her nerves had not settled before footsteps in the hall stole her attention.
Firal glanced up as Rune came through the doorway with rolled paper in his hand. He moved with a familiar determination, moving every empty dish before he spread a map across the table and halfway across her morning toast.
“I want your opinion,” he announced as he slid his hands over the map to smooth it, then tapped a shape she recognized as a building a moment later. He gave her no chance to react before he went on. “This is where the bathhouse is going to be. It’s in a difficult place, right between a mercantile district here and a residential area here. Space comes at a premium and at the moment, we don’t have any options for pumping the amount of water needed daily.”
She blinked and slid her plate out from under the map. “Water?”
“Because of the barrier over the Royal City, employing mages isn’t an option. Anyone with an access stone is too high-ranking to take a job like that, and there aren’t enough access stones to give them to common workers. Not that the sponsors of the project are willing to pay many.” The corners of his eyes tightened, revealing what he thought of that. “We petitioned for windmills and Vicamros denied the request. Every design we’ve proposed is either too big to fit, or too loud to be built that close to the homes of nobles.”
“Windmills?” Firal couldn’t help but ask, for all that she hated how foolish it made her sound. “To move water?”
Rune stared at her for a moment, then turned the edge of the map. He produced a piece of graphite from somewhere—she thought it was behind his ear—and set to drawing an example. “Do you remember the waterwheel in Core? How it used buckets to carry water to the races that fed the bathhouse there?”
She nodded, but her eyes were fixed on his hand. He clasped the graphite loosely between his first two fingers as he sketched a simple depiction of a windmill and the shafts and gears that went with it. He still held it as if he had claws.
“The windmill moves these pulleys to draw buckets the same way, but that would require us to dig a large well in the middle of the city and Vicamros didn’t like that, either. So far, he hasn’t liked anything.” He paused just long enough for one corner of his mouth to twist. Then he resumed his drawing. “The placement isn’t good, either, since the city’s walls and the height of the buildings inhibit the wind flow, but the only other option we’ve come up with so far is manual power. We could have people turning wheels to do the same thing, but it goes back to the issue of how much the sponsors are willing to spend.”
His illustration grew to show how such wheels might replace a windmill. He never so much as raised his head.
Firal watched his hand and then his face. The intent way he stared at his diagram reminded her of the first time she’d seen such a spark in him—back before she’d known it was him. He’d shown the same spark the first time he’d shown her the waterwheel and everything it could provide. She settled her plate on her lap and kept her teacup in her hands. “Why are you asking me?”
He glanced up then, a blankness in his eyes. “I want your opinion.”
That was what he’d said when he first walked in. It raised more questions than it answered.
“I know nothing about mechanics or engineering.” She raised her teacup to her lips.
“Maybe, but you don’t need to in order to see what I’m overlooking.” His gaze slid back to the map and a hint of wistfulness stole across his face. “I have to be missing something.”
Firal doubted she was qualified for the task, but she studied the map of the city for a time while she drank her tea. Eventually, she ventured the obvious question. “If the windmills or magic-powered pumps are a problem inside the city, why haven’t you tried to build them outside the city’s walls?” She touched a shadow she assumed was the lake south of the Triad’s capital. “Couldn’t they go by the water? There would be more wind there, and easier access to what you’re after.”
Rune shook his head. “We suggested that before. Vicamros thinks having an aqueduct going over the city’s walls introduces security risks.”
She peeled an inch of crust from her toast and popped it in her mouth. “Does it have to go over the wall?”
He stared at her for a long time, then abruptly seized the map from the table and disappeared out the door.
Firal did not know whether to laugh or be offended. In the end, she chose neither and ate her breakfast in peace.
The day unfolded much the same as others, and Firal assumed that was the way things were around the estate. The house was quiet, she and Minna were left to their own devices, and much of the afternoon was spent outdoors.
Firal helped pick wildflowers and tie them into bundles, fed Lulu fresh foraged berries, and listened to the drone of insects in the woods until sunset came. It was peaceful, and so far separated from the life she was used to that it left her unsettled.
She was not used to peace. Her life in the temple had been dominated by schedules and pressure and stress, and the latter two had grown far worse after she moved to the palace. Only in Core had her life been tranquil, but even then it had come with responsibilities and expectations. Now there was nothing. No burdens. Only freedom, yet she felt as if her wings were clipped and she was left unable to do more than flutter and fall.
Minna had a meal prepared by the time dusk fell, and the old woman let Firal tend Lulu on her own before bed. She washed the girl from head to foot, scrubbing dirt from the pads of her toes until the glowed pink, then combed her hair and carried her to bed. The room she’d been given was next to Firal’s, but aside from the few toys scattered on the floor, there was little to mark it as a child’s room.
Something to be rectified, Firal decided as she pressed kisses to the girl’s round cheeks and tucked her underneath the blankets.
It was only after she stepped from the room and closed the door that she considered she had not seen Rune again.
It was not unusual for him to eat on his own. Or sleep on his own, or… do whatever it was he did through the day. She knew little of what he kept busy with and chided herself for not asking.
Her footsteps carried her back to the main floor, to the study he so often shut himself in. Light glowed in the gap beneath the door, but the door remained closed and she regarded the latch with uncertainty.
She’d let herself into his private spaces a little too forcefully the night before.
She would not repeat that action.
Instead, she wandered the rest of the manor, searching for something to do until her footsteps carried her back to the kitchen.
Minna had just finished cleaning and stood by the counter, wiping her hands on a rag. The lights burned low and the dimness made Firal drowsy.
She rubbed her eyes. “Has he eaten?”
The old woman shook her head. “The lord’s not been out of his study this evening.”
Lord. What an odd title, though it was correct. Firal nodded absently in response. “I’ll take him something. Thank you for your work today, Minna.” She dismissed the woman with a nod, then fetched a plate and found the food put up from the evening meal. It was less appetizing cold; she cradled the plate in her hands and focused just long enough to summon heat. Elements had never been her specialty, but warmth was one that came more readily, tied more closely to her own affinity of healing.
She did not know what to take to drink, so she retrieved a pitcher of water and a cup and carried them all to the other end of the house, where the study waited.
It was the thoughtful thing to do, wasn’t it? To intrude and ensure all was well? She still did not know how things sat between them. Part of her thought it was a good sign he’d sought her for input on whatever project lay before him. Another part reasoned that she was the only other person available. He had not spoken to her otherwise, had not mentioned their conversation the night before or that they’d woken in the same bed, offered know acknowledgment of how she’d tried to bridge the gap.
Firal hesitated outside the study door and took a breath.
She’d bridge it again anyway and hope for the best.
No one would deny food.
She transferred the pitcher and cup to her arm to free a hand, then knocked.
Silence.
A long moment dragged past in the dark before she knocked again.
When no answer came, she tested the door and muted her surprise at finding the space was not locked.
The room beyond was empty.