Clipped

Chapter 6.

​The journey into the mountains was a blur of swaying shadows and the rhythmic clatter of hooves against stone. For three days, Fenris- whom the guards and scouts they passed addressed with a reverence that bordered on fear, kept his word. He remained on the outside. He brought her warm stews and thick blankets, speaking only when necessary, his voice a low hum that gradually replaced the harsh, oily echoes of Gorgon’s laughter in her mind.

​As the carriage climbed higher, the air grew thin and sweet, smelling of crushed pine needles and ancient stone. They eventually reached a hidden plateau, a place where the trees stood tall and silvered by the moonlight, their leaves whispering in a language Rhiannon almost recognized.

​"We stop here," Fenris said, opening the door.

​Rhiannon stepped out, her legs shaky. They were at the edge of a clearing. In the center lay a pool of water so still it looked like a fallen piece of the moon. It was the Lunar Pool, a place of deep, terrestrial magic.

​"The water is fed by an underground glacial spring," Fenris explained, shedding his heavy fur cloak. "It has healing properties- not just for the flesh, but for the spirit. You’re malnourished, Rhiannon. Your magic is trying to keep you alive, but it has no fuel. Wash here. Drink. I’ll be by the treeline."

​Rhiannon approached the water’s edge with a trepidation she usually reserved for the Master's bed. She knelt on the soft moss, her deep blue hair spilling over her shoulders like an ink stain. For a decade, her only reflection had been the distorted, gold-framed mirrors of the brothel- surfaces designed to show a product, not a person.

​She leaned over the pool.

​The water was crystal clear, illuminated from beneath by glowing moon-stones. For the first time in ten years, Rhiannon saw herself in the light of the natural world. She saw the sharp, skeletal jut of her collarbones and the way her skin, though pale, held a faint, sickly grey undertone from years of sunless rooms. Her deep green eyes, nearly black in the shadows, looked back at her with a hollow, haunted stare.

​She looked like a winter branch- thin, fragile, and stripped of its leaves.

​"I look like a corpse," she whispered, her voice trembling.

​Fenris, who had been standing with his back to her, turned slowly. He walked to the water’s edge and sat a respectful distance away, his massive frame casting a long shadow over the moss.

​"You look like a survivor," he corrected. "There is a difference."

​Rhiannon dipped her hands into the water. It was bracingly cold, sending a shock through her system that felt like a spark of lightning. She splashed her face, then drank, the water tasting of minerals and life. As the cold settled in her stomach, she looked at the man beside her. He sat with his shirt discarded, and for the first time, she saw the map of his own history.

​His back and chest were a lattice of silvered scars- deep gouges from claws, jagged lines from blades, and one puckered mark near his heart that looked like it had come from a silver-tipped arrow. A large bandage across his shoulder- a fairly new mark she assumed.

​"You have them too," she murmured, reaching out instinctively before pulling her hand back. "Scars."

​Fenris looked down at his chest. "I am the Alpha of the Nightshade Pack. We are the largest pack in the northern territories, and they call us the most ruthless. You don't get to that position by playing nice, Rhiannon. Every mark on my skin is a reminder of a choice I had to make, or a life I had to take to protect my own. I was a stray once, an outcast like you. I fought my way up from the dirt."

​"Ruthless," Rhiannon repeated, the word tasting of iron. "The Master said you were a dog. But dogs follow orders. You... you look like you give them."

​"I do," Fenris said, his blue-gold eyes locking onto hers. "But never to you. To the world, I am a monster. To my pack, I am a shield. To you... I would just like to be Fenris."

​The honesty in his voice was a physical weight. Rhiannon felt a strange, uncomfortable warmth blooming in her chest- a feeling she hadn't felt since she was eight years old, sitting under the cedar roots in her forest sanctuary. It was hope, and it terrified her.

​"I don't know how to be a person," she admitted, her voice breaking. "I only know how to be a prize. Or a toy. When I try to think of the girl in the forest, I see her crying. I see the shears. I can't find the part that was happy."

​"She’s still there," Fenris said softly. "She’s just hiding under the ice. Let it melt, Rhiannon. Take your time."

​Rhiannon looked back at her reflection. She thought of Malory and Lyra, still trapped in the brothel. She thought of the wind on the cobblestones. She looked at Fenris, this brutal, beautiful monster who had spent a fortune just to give her a lock on a door.

​A strange sensation tugged at the corners of her mouth. It was a rusty, mechanical feeling, as if she were trying to move a limb that had been crushed and reset poorly. She forced the muscles of her face to shift, to lift.

​She tried to smile.

​It was a small, flickering thing. It didn't reach her eyes- those remained guarded and dark, but the effort sent a sharp, stinging pain through her cheeks. It was the pain of a muscle waking up after a decade of sleep. It was clumsy and looked more like a grimace of agony than a gesture of joy.

​Fenris didn't laugh. He didn't look away. He watched her with a reverence that made her breath hitch.

​"It hurts," she whispered, her lip trembling as the smile collapsed back into her permanent frown.

​"I know," Fenris replied, his voice thick with emotion. He reached out, and this time, he didn't just touch her hand. He brushed a stray blue hair away from her damp cheek, his fingers lingering for a second too long to be accidental. "But it's the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in this kingdom."

​Rhiannon looked down at the water again. The ripples from her touch had smoothed out, leaving the surface perfect and silver. She wasn't the eight-year-old fairy anymore. She was something forged in fire and kept in a cage, now standing by a pool in the moonlight.