Elora Wilde's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

Before they left the cottage, Elora stood at the threshold and drew a line of ash across the wood. She spoke the warding from her book over the sleeping animals inside. The bird of light settled on the sill and would not follow her. It would stay and watch. She closed the door. Rowan waited on the path with a lantern. "They will be safe," he said. She nodded and stepped after him into the trees. They walked a short way through cool ferns. Rowan stopped at the base of a wide oak. A ladder ran up the trunk into a shape she had not seen from her yard. The tree had grown around the boards. Rope and carved beams held a small house in its branches. Tools hung from pegs on the outside walls, each one worked with a rune. Rowan climbed first and pushed the door open for her. Elora stepped inside and forgot to breathe. A hearth had been carved into the far wall, its stones set into living bark. A fire already burned there, low and warm. A bed stood against the other wall, its frame made of oak branches still curved as they had grown, the blankets deep purple. At the foot of the bed sat a carving of small creature with a sleek gray coat and tufted ears. An ottercat. It seemed to be watching her with its life like green eyes but it did not move. On every shelf and beam she saw his carvings. A fox mid-leap. A hare. A stag with its head lifted. A butterfly with wings thin as paper. "You built this," she said. She walked to the hearth and touched the carved mantle. Under her fingers she felt a small deer, worked into the wood. She turned to look at him. Rowan stood by the door with his hands at his sides. "I built it fort future," he said. "The tools are in the workshop below. I have been at it since the spring." He did not add anything else but she noted that was when they first crossed paths. Elora unclasped her cloak. She held it out to him. His fingers brushed hers when he took it, and the spark ran up her arm the way it had in the forest months ago. She did not pull back this time. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and she understood what he had known since the first touch and had not said. "You already knew," she whispered. Rowan hung the cloak on a peg. "I knew." He turned back to her. "Words were not enough. So I made this." Elora sat down on the edge of the bed. For the first time in years, she was not the only one keeping watch. Rowan took seat next to her “I’m here, every step of the way. No matter what you want” his heart thundered in his chest hoping she felt the same as he. “Before the mate bond was undeniable” her voice was low “I already wanted you, you are the first person I have feels at ease with in more years than I care to remember” he held her hands in his, she looked to him seeing the love shine in his eyes. She placed her lips on his, an explosion of sparks danced on them both their lips moved in sync. She pulled away and he spoke “we must rest for now, I’ll stay by your side” with that they both lay together in the grand bed and drifted into an exhausted sleep.