Trinket (Reverse Harem)

An Intimate Punishment

They flew an hour outside of the enclave. I was in such shock I didn't even protest to the flight.

Until it started to rain again, and the rotting rain made Itek's back slick.

After we landed and made camp on an outcropping of sort of flat rocks, I huddled under Korr's wings and tried not to think about it. Itek, in human form, squeezed under there with me, while Korr twisted his neck around like a swan tucking its head, and Ethat just shoved his head under there too.

"Are you sad he is such an idiot?" Korr inquired.

"Sad about Assund?" I asked, hugging myself and shaking.

"That's what I asked, isn't it? Are you upset he rejected you again?"

"I wasn't there asking him for anything," I snapped. "I just wanted to know if he existed."

Itek shimmied closer and hugged me against him. We were all wet, the rocks were wet, and under the shield of Korr and Ethat's extended wings—each one resting on their brother's backs—the rain dripped, and lightening illuminated the sky in the distance, and the thunder rumbled. Itek kissed me just behind the ear.

"It was just a question," he whispered, stroking my wet thigh.

"How did it happen?" I asked nobody, staring at the storm in the distance. "I know my enclave was real. It had to have been real, right? I've got these scars, don't I?"

"It was real," Korr said, his icy eyes observing Itek stroking my sides and gently kissing me along my neck and shoulders. "We know it was real because Assund visited you there."

"But how did he get his Trinket?"

A snort of fireflies from Ethat, and Korr said, "He went to the Temple, of course. And then he had the dream of you. I wonder what would have happened if he'd had accepted you in the dream. Would you have pulled him in with you, or would he have pulled you out?"

"Then the gods had to know where I was," I said, uncertain. "Maybe.. My enclave was all a dream? I remember the man who brought me to Haven finding me. Maybe..."

I touched my long-healed scars on my face.

"We also remember that man," Ethat said. His bright eyes narrowed. "We may need to find him. I have his scent."

Korr said, "We must tred lightly, brother."

"Why?"

"Have you considered that perhaps our pet escaped a prison, and her keeper is looking for her?"

I shivered, and Itek held me tighter against him.

"Now Everfell knows we have her," Korr said, tone tense. "And their chancellors do too. Assund was able to make the trip there, but we must consider the gods did not lead her out, but that she escaped. In your memories, Theia, did you sneak out, or simply walk out?"

"I waited until night and left quietly," I said.

"Did you tell anyone?"

"No."

"Why not?" Korr asked. "You were an unwanted foundling. No one would have stopped you."

All I'd been thinking was no one could know I'd left, and I needed to be miles down the road before I'd been missed. But the guards wouldn't have stopped me from leaving, and I'd left the enclave plenty of times before to fetch water or work in some fields. I'd taken such pains to hide my face that last time, except even as I thought about it, I still felt the anxiety that nobody could know I'd left.