The White Sheep's Disguise ✓

Chapter 5

As I expected, Castiel is sitting at the table when I walk into the cottage. What I didn't expect was Chaska, sitting in the chair next to his with a cheek full of garlic-buttered bread. She raises a slice in the air, grinning when I shut the door behind me and shrug off my satchel to hang it on another metal hook. A much lighter weight than back at the home I share with Rylan.

Castiel's wheelchair sticks out awkwardly against the round table and his legs, which haven't moved since the day the Void Queen took the ability away, don't have any room to shove underneath. No one in the village has the time or the care to craft a taller table. And the man standing in the kitchen, our adoptive father, would never pay for something so fickle. Not while Castiel believes the fuss isn't necessary.

I place the corked bottle of pink liquid onto the table next to Castiel's working hand and he mutters gratitude under his breath. We've gotten past behaving awkwardly about the subject, and his focus on repairing what looks to be a hole in the toe of a leather boot halts the forced grins and spilled truths of appreciation. The last words I desire to hear out of his mouth are that my sacrifice isn't taken lightly. We all know it isn't.

"Must Rylan always put you in such a terrible mood?" Theoden calls from the kitchen.

I glance over my shoulder, slumping into the chair opposite of Chaska's, and squint into the open archway providing a clear view of his hunched back. "It's partly my fault," I call back. My eyes dart to Chaska's and she shakes her head in disappointment before waggling a slice of bread, silently urging me to eat so we can train. I drop my voice lower, muttering, "I chose to poke the bear. It's only fair for him to attack."

As the years go on, Theoden's steps slow and his posture worsens. He shuffles back into the small dining area no bigger than a royal's bathing chamber, and plops down into the last empty chair. Every movement strains his ability to breathe. The world sucks the air out of him when he reaches an elevated level of height. Precisely why he slumps.

Castiel and I weren't the only victims of lost loved ones during the Void Queen's siege three years ago. Memories of their smiles and companionship never fade away despite the ache of loss wearing off. For Theoden, the man that took us in when no one else would, his eyes the shade of frozen mud tell the saddest story known to man. Even a warrior would weep.

"Eat, child," he urges me with a wave of his wrinkled hand. I do as he asks, and what Chaska suggests, by stuffing a bite of garlic bread into my mouth. To satisfy them both.

He has curly hair, tight like a cap. When we first met after the slaughter of innocent parents and fishermen, not a single strand stuck out from the oil black dome. Now, half the hairs have greyed despite my Luminary abilities taking them away when he requests to see himself younger. He hasn't asked for such care in a while. Too long, actually.

The best bakers in the kingdom don't match what Theoden does in his small, rickety kitchen. Though the countertops of splintered wood and brick oven are not of the highest quality, he never once cared. By firelight, he used to tell us how, when life was better, he complained. Nothing made him happy; not the small kitchen or the creaking door that screeched every time someone entered or exited. These were things he couldn't fix, not on a fletcher's salary. But he had his wife.

The door still creaks, the kitchen wouldn't be considered enough for a royal member, and his wife is dead. He buried her near the garden so she'd always be near. Every evening, I glance out the window and spot his huddled figure against the stone wall bordering our yard, his lips moving as he speaks about another day to a woman that may not hear. Not after she fell to the army of the soulless.

I glance over at Castiel's quickly working hands. He threads the needle through tough leather, a bead of sweat on his brow, his back hunched. The potion remains where I set it, wobbling slightly against the tug and pull of his movements. I consider moving it out of the way so he doesn't knock over something so expensive. Rylan would be opposed to buying another.