The Living Wife

The Ball (I)

The healer came sooner than Amara had expected. Xelan almost hadn't let her near when she mentioned she had been sent by Lyle. But Ida had reassured him about the woman's integrity. She had nodded off once she had set to work on her wounds, a green glow coming from the brunette's hands being the last thing she saw.

When she woke, it was dusk again, the room lit up by the tiny wisps of lights on the gold chandelier. Xelan sat just before the door, a good distance away from her. It wasn't just her imagination earlier. He seemed to be trying to keep his distance. She didn't mind it. Considering all that happened which she still doesn't know much about, she preferred it stayed that way.

"Xelan?" she blurted out. He looked up from the pocket watch he held, his countenance brightening.

"You're finally awake. How do you feel?" he asked, straightening. She sat up, noticing the ruined gown had been changed to a simple ivory silk dress with spaghetti straps.

"Ida took the liberty to change your dress to something more comfortable."

And a bit expensive, she noted to herself. She felt her side instinctively, her fingers brushing the healed area. Her ankle was fine as well but she rolled her foot anyway to test it.

It must be nice, she thought dryly. With magic like that at their disposal, the horrors of hospital antiseptic smells and health insurance would be absolutely nothing to them.

"I feel better now, thank you for the dress."

He nodded, putting the watch back in his pocket. "I wanted to ask, why did you go outside the house?"

She sighed, brushing the strands of hair that had escaped her band. "I just wanted air."

He nodded in the direction of the balcony. "You could have gotten more than enough here."

"It wasn't enough for me," she returned, letting her hands play with the edge of the ecru quilt. She was hardly in the mood for a lecture. He seemed to have noticed too as he sighed.

"I'm not trying to scold you. I just wanted to—"

"—know if I was trying to run away?" she finished for him. He didn't reply, his silence affirming it. She did expect him to ask.

"Maybe I was. I mean, I'm in a world I hardly know anything about and instead of dying, I'm blessed with new tattoos and a marriage I don't want. I don't even know what you are and how you can fly or make fires. You even beheaded that thing earlier with your slender sword like it meant nothing so you are used to killing living things. How is that ..."

She trailed off, sucking in a breath at the memory of his cold voice and the greyish blue blood of the wilderghast running down his sword. All of a sudden, his inhuman nature was starting to raise the delayed warning signs in her head. And his gentle nature wasn't enough to ignore the kind of realm he lived in.

"A magus," he replied simply then added when she frowned in confusion, "You said you didn't know what I was. I am a magus."

"Oh," she replied, stunned by his reply. It was a far cry from all the things she had thought of. "Sorry, but what does that even mean?"

He mused over the question she asked, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Well, your world could call us mages or witches."

"So you're a warlock?"

He laughed dryly. "Not exactly. We are closely related to your kind in some ways, with our similar physical traits and emotions. But we possess a wider lifespan and heightened spirit levels that granted us our abilities. Our values are also different as well. Some things you do have a different effect on us here."