The Story of the Trees - Sword, Ring, and Crown Book One

Chapter Seventeen

"Purity test? I won't do it." Klick and Klack hissed on my shoulders and snapped their beaks at him once they felt the tension rise in me.

"The Temple will insist." He stood in front of me, then fended off my birds as they pecked at his face. 

 "I don't have to prove anything. If the Temple needs something like that, then you can find someone else to help you." I turned from him to leave.

"Wait." He grabbed my hand. 

I turned as he pulled me and found myself nose to chest with him. When I placed my hand on his chest to push him from me, the tracery of roots pulsed brighter with my contact, and Luke put his hands over mine. Although I meant to pull my hand free, the emotions that traveled from him through our touch flared stronger and stopped me. 

Layers of other complicated emotions were all directed towards me. I recognized the soggy sponge of worry. There was despair which felt like boulders being stacked upon me, and shame was like a vice squeezing me. However, I also felt respect which gave me a sensation of flying up on wings. Awe was vast, like being in an endless field, and longing was a silk tie that tugged. I was frozen from the assault. Touching had amplified everything.

The emotions did not freeze Luke, but they had struck him the same as me. He was lifting my face with his fingertips so that he could meet my eyes. I stared at him unflinchingly, my mind still processing all the feelings coming at me. "What is that?" He whispered. "I can feel what you feel."

"It started happening after I attached myself to you guys with these roots.  It looks like it gets worse when we touch, so you should probably let go of my hand." I hadn't figured out how to let go of his. His longing continued to tug at me, bind me.

His hand tightened as his expression grew sad. Sadness was saltwater against my face, and it hurt. "You are frightened and angry, and you resent me."

I made a mirthless, sputtering noise as I tried to resist feeling sad with him. "We don't need this connection for you to figure that out." Then I stepped back and forced myself to let his hand go.

His hand reached out again, but I shook my head. "I'm tired and in pain. I want to like you, I do. I get that you believe you're doing the right thing, but It's been a long, confusing day, and it's still not over."

"I apologize." His voice was gruff, and I felt his shame chipping at me again. "I am so bound to the traditions that I keep forgetting you have been here for less than a day. I never thought I would meet someone so frustrating, so..."

"... So not fit to be a princess?" I asked with a quirk of my lips.

His features had softened - such a contrast from his stiff introduction, and his longing grew so strong that I felt my body lean even though we weren't touching. His hands were cupping my face, and I left them there. The ties of his longing were pushing down the pain.

Luke exhaled sharply, and his expression became intense.  "Not a princess, no. You have taken all this in with a steady resolve that I never expected. You are more than worthy of being a queen."

"Oh." I fidgeted from his compliment and the swell of his pride for me. Pride felt like being at the top of a tall mountain, and mountains had cliffs. "Well..."

"So I apologize about the purity test. I cannot imagine why the Temple should ask you to endure it. You are not full Sidhe, and Duir only considers the Sidhe as truly pure worshippers."

"Duir's not my goddess." I had said it before; why didn't he get it?

Then he drew up tall, and the crazy intimacy we had experienced evaporated as icy rejection pulled his emotions from me behind a wall. Although I didn't like it, I held onto that feeling as the key to blocking out the emotions bombarding me. If I threw up that wall of rejection, I didn't feel them.