“Go ahead and sound it out with me. Rep—“
“Rep…”
“—Ar—“
“…Ar…”
“—Ashuns.”
“…Ashu—ns…”
Veleria made a face. However embarrassed by her illiteracy, she shifted her lips into a smile when she saw Caed nod.
“Reparations, it means to…?” Caed prompted her with an open palm.
Veleria swallowed the saliva gathering in her throat. This was difficult, and she was more nervous around Caed than she had been with Adrian concerning her lack of knowledge.
She closed her eyes and said, “it means t-to make amends.”
“Ya get the gist. Now what did our friendly lich do, according to this text, that counted towards said reparations?” The sorcerer asked, then reached over to close the tome in Veleria’s hands. In response, she breathed anxiously.
“He, uhm…Lord Cromwell reduced the economic prowess of the elves, and di—distributed that to their former slaves.”
With a small grin, Caed flipped the dangling portion of her hair ribbon onto her shoulder. He said, “good use of those words. One could argue that was his most significant contribution.”
Veleria looked at the closed book in her hands before saying, “why does everyone seem to hate the guy so much? He seems to do a lot of good.”
In contemplation, Caed began rolling one of his cigarettes. Being this exposed to her for so long was making him more anxious than even Raker’s inevitable arrival had.
“Hate is a strong word, and I think it depends on who you ask. To me, he seems to be at the center of our magic degradation problem. Maybe it’s the opposite and he’s actually trying to fix it, but so far I’ve only seen evidence for the former.” He closed his palm over the exposed end. It lit and, following a deep drag, he breathed out through his nose before returning his attention to Veleria. “Now, he directly opposes Alk’Hath, so of course she’s going to despise Cromwell so long as they continue to feud. As for your friend Giarmund, I heard that he just didn’t want to give him too much power over other regions.”
“Why does he oppose Alk’Hath anyway?”
Caed looked at her through a thin cloud of smoke, “what did the elves hire you for?”
That…That was a fair question. She knew why now that she had seen Lord De’Tarsons again, but at the time of her involvement with Alk’Hath she’d only had a vague understanding of her contract.
Timing her silence, Caed sighed, extinguished his cigarette, and then leaned forward to face Veleria head on.
“Listen, all of this speculation and playing around is fun and all, but I didn’t untie you out of the kindness of my own heart. You’re cute and I’d love to keep talking and playing teacher, maybe even get a good fuck in, but…” At this, Veleria blinked in shock. “Alk’Hath decided she needed me so fucking badly that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She sent Raker after me. That means Raker is on his way.”
Veleria’s jaw dropped. She could feel herself begin to shake. None of his words mattered, only the horrifying reality that a complete lunatic was coming. Before her, Caed took her chin in his hand. His grip was strong despite his composition. He pulled her close enough that their lips were nearly touching.
“We all have things we desire. Things we strive towards while damning the consequences. You, alone, could satisfy my hunger; however, I am not so bold as to assume I could defeat that monster. If he sees you then he’ll either kill you or take you to Alk’Hath, and I can’t allow for either of those two outcomes. Istvar only knows what he would do to you on the way back—“
“He’d do what he’s done to all the other women before me. Turn me into ‘art’ after he gets bored of raping me.” Veleria interrupted him, her voice distant. Her chest was burning. Although she could not see it herself, Caed watched as her eyes appeared to melt into bright, brilliant gold. Even her tone of voice appeared to change. “Would you have done something similar were Raker not a wrinkle in your plans?”
Caed narrowed his eyes briefly before a grin brightened his face, “what, are you asking if I’d take advantage of ya? Nah, but I wouldn’t say no if you were feeling frisky.” He watched as her pupils surfaced, her gaze softening. “Truth is, I’d rather let you out of my reach than give you over to that madwoman. Doesn’t make me a good or bad person, just a normal one. We all have our limits. Our lines in the sand.”
“Our ‘one good thing’,” mumbled Veleria.
He let go of her.
“Something like that, yeah.”
Veleria kept his words in the back of her mind. Then, with the historical tome still in her hands, she asked him, “will you still teach me?”