Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“I can make a soup from the root plants in those baskets, if you’d like,” she offered, hunger having chased the flutters from her stomach.
“That would be good. I do grow hungry. I will leave you to it while I see that the sentinels are in place.”
“What of Sinead? Will she follow you here?”
“Aye, she’ll make a perch for herself in one of the trees but keep her distance from that part of the forest the animals and birds refuse to enter and visit with me when it suits her.”
“I will be a while. Do not leave here,” Varrick ordered.
“As you say,” Fia said, her thoughts on food and the root soup her grandmother had taught her to make.
After she got warm, she got busy preparing the soup and enjoyed the task. The small cottage reminded her of home, a place where she had been well loved. It brought back good memories and she found herself missing her mum and grandmother. She missed talking with them, sharing laughter and even tears with them. Loneliness was not something she was familiar with when she had them. At least when her mum passed, she had her grandmother, then when she passed… she had no one. She had lived a solitary life since then, seeing only those who came to her for healing, mostly women. She kept herself busy, but there were times she could not help but feel lonely.
She had not felt that since meeting Varrick and the more she got to know him, the more she enjoyed being with him, the more she came to care for him, the more she questioned if love began that way.
Varrick returned just as the soup was ready and they ate, Varrick moving the small table close to the hearth and sharing the one bench with her. It was a tight squeeze but a comfortable one since his body heat kept her comfortably warm along with the hearth’s fire.
“The soup is tasty,” Varrick said after finishing his second bowl.
“My grandmother taught me to make it. She loved to cook almost as much as she loved healing people.”
His wife talked easy of love. Love was foreign to him. He knew nothing of love, expected nothing from it since he had never known it. And yet? He was curious about it, having seen men and women act foolishly over what they believed was love. Though he believed most men mistook lust for love.
“Your thoughts are heavy,” Fia said. “Can I help lighten them?”
Would a healer know? He decided to find out. “What is the difference between lust and love?”
Fia smiled, the answer coming easily to her. “Lust is fleeting. Love is forever.”
“You will love forever?” he asked, a tightness in his chest at the thought of being loved that strongly, never doubting it, love always being there no matter what.
“Aye.” Her smile grew. “Forever and ever.”
“How can you be sure?”
She shrugged. “That’s the strange part. I can’t be sure, yet I am confident my heart will not fail me.”
“Do you forget you are already wed?” he asked with annoyance. “And if stuck with me, you will never know love.”
Her smile softened. “That would not stop me from loving you.”
He glared at her. “Of course, you would. It is your duty as my wife.”
“Someone cannot be forced to love out of duty.”
“Then why love me?”
“Why not love you?” she asked.
“I would not love you,” he snapped.
“Why not love me?”
“Enough foolishness!” he said and stood. “It is time for sleep. We get an early start in the morning.”
“As you say, my lord,” Fia said and cleaned the remnants of the meal off the table, her husband leaving the table where it sat, but moved the bench to rest against the wall.
She wondered about the sleeping arrangements. After all, she was his wife. They could share a bed. When he went to the bench and sat, his body relaxing back against the wall, she knew that was where he meant to sleep, uncomfortable as it would be.
Fia said nothing to him. Leaving her garments on, she got into bed and wrapped the blanket tight around her and she was soon asleep.
Varrick stared at his wife, her eyes closed in peaceful slumber.
She had annoyed him when she told him she would love him if they were somehow stuck with each other. He did not need her pity. He closed his eyes and cleared his head of thoughts so sleep would come quickly. He learned to do that out of necessity when young. If he did not get enough sleep, did not have the strength to do his chores, he suffered for it. It helped when a battle ensued for days or weeks. He would grab what sleep he could as quickly as he could to regain his strength. It was about survival. He had survived much, and he would survive a witch.