“Why?”
“I can’t.”
She angled her head. “You’re infertile?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. The Oracle told me when I was a kid that I was to be the last of my bloodline. So either I die before I can sire a child, or … I’m shooting blanks.”
“Does it bother you?”
“I’d prefer not to be dead before my time, so if her words just mean that I’m not going to be a father … I don’t know. It doesn’t change a lick of who I am, but I still try not to think about it. No one in my life knows, either. And considering the father I have … maybe it’s good that I won’t be one. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to be a decent dad.”
“That doesn’t seem true.”
He snorted. “Well, anyway, that was my stupid way of saying that while I might not be having kids, I … I get what you’re saying. I have people in my life who will, and for their kids, their families … I’ll do whatever I have to.”
But she was having none of his deflecting. “You are kind, and caring. And seem to love those around you. I can’t think of anything else needed to be a father.”
“How about growing the Hel up and not partying so much?”
She laughed. “All right. Maybe that.”
He smiled slightly. Faint, distant stars glowed in the darkness around them.
She said, “You seem unsettled.”
“I saw a bunch of fucked-up shit today. I was having a hard time sleeping before you knocked.”
“Knocked?”
“Whatever you want to call it. Summoned me.”
“Shall I tell you a story to help you sleep?” Her voice was wry.
“Yeah.” He’d call her bluff.
But she only said, “All right.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“Why not?” She motioned for him to lie down. So Ruhn did, closing his eyes.
Then, to his shock, she came and sat beside him. Brushed a burning hand through his hair. Warm and gentle—tentative.
She began, “Once upon a time, before Luna hunted the heavens and Solas warmed Cthona’s body, before Ogenas blanketed Midgard with water and Urd twined our fates together, there lived a young witch in a cottage deep in the woods. She was beautiful, and kind, and beloved by her mother. Her mother had done her best to raise her, with her only companions being the denizens of the forest itself: birds and beasts and the babbling brooks …”
Her voice, lovely and fair and steady, flowed through him like music. Her hand brushed through his hair again and he reined in his purr.
“She grew older, strong and proud. But a wandering prince passed by her clearing one day when her mother was gone, beheld her beauty, and wanted her desperately to be his bride.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a comforting story,” Ruhn muttered.
She laughed softly, tugging on a strand of his hair. “Listen.”
Ruhn figured to Hel with it and shifted, laying his head on her lap. The fire did not burn him, and the thigh beneath was firm with muscle, yet supple. And that scent …
Day went on, “She had no interest in princes, or in ruling a kingdom, or in any of the jewels he offered. What she wanted was a true heart to love her, to run wild with her through the forest. But the prince would not be denied. He chased her through the wood, his hounds following.”
Ruhn’s body relaxed, limb by limb. He breathed in her scent, her voice, her warmth.
“As she ran, she pleaded with the forest she loved so dearly to help her. So it did. First, it transformed her into a deer, so she might be as swift as the wind. But his hounds outraced her, closing in swiftly. Then the forest turned her into a fish, and she fled down one of the mountain streams. But he built a weir at its base to trap her. So she became a bird, a hawk, and soared for the skies. But the prince was a skilled archer, and he fired one of his iron-tipped arrows.”
Ruhn drifted, quiet and calm. When was the last time anyone had told him a story to lull him to sleep?
“It struck her breast, and where her blood fell, olive trees sprouted. As her body hit the earth, the forest transformed her one last time …”
Ruhn woke, still on the mind-bridge. Day lay on the couch across from him, asleep as well, her body still veiled with flame.
He stood, crossing the distance to her.
A princess of fire, sleeping, waiting for a knight to awaken her. He knew that story. It tugged at the back of his mind. A sleeping warrior-princess surrounded by a ring of fire, damned to lie there until a warrior brave enough to face the flames could cross them.