Magic's Memories

Chapter Two

"Is there anything you can't fix?"

"Only your broken self-preservation," said Feyla, her dark turquoise eyes still glued to her beau's black eye.

Sedgewick chuckled under his breath. "It was worth it."

Feyla pressed slightly harder on the developing bruise, smirking as Sedgewick's laugh turned into a hiss. "You promised me that you wouldn't start stuff."

"I did not assault him. I merely...corrected his ignorant statement."

Feyla huffed at that, blowing a strand of her honey-blonde hair out of her face. Sedgewick wasn't known for his tact and Lord Faren, the king consort's father, wasn't known for letting an insult slide. She leaned further over the desk she was perched on and summoned her magic. The tips of her fingers tingled with rarely-used energy. A faint pink glow encircled her hand as she twisted it into one of her old healing spells. "What did he even say?"

Sedgewick's long, pointed ear twitched in irritation at the memory. "He said that I should enjoy it while it lasts."

"Enjoy what?" Feyla asked as she dragged the spell across the fresh black eye, smiling slightly at how it receded at her touch. Still got it.

"Us."

Feyla's attention drifted from the wound to the wounded look in Sedgewick's bright amber eyes. She dismissed her magic and cupped his cheek. "You shouldn't let them get to you," Feyla said, poorly mimicking his foreign accent as she repeated his past words back to him. After all, she'd heard the whispers too. She was a gold digger, he was a cradle robber, she'd seduced him away from his pursuit of magical knowledge, he'd bespelled her into his arms, and other silly, but still stinging, statements.

"They'll all come around," Feyla added, going back to healing his eye. They would too. Sedgewick and she just needed to show them, reason with them, and eventually, everyone would see how well they worked together.

Sedgewick snorted at that. A strand of his dark red hair fell across his face and tickled his pale nose. He scowled at it. "Your optimism extends too far." Sedgewick rapped his fingers across his dark wooden desk as she reached a particularly swollen spot. "You can't beat sense into an idiot. They just beat you in return," he grumbled.

"Well, if you think it's so hopeless then maybe you shouldn't antagonize a man twice your size." Feyla pulled her hand away and admired her handiwork. Sedgewick still had some slight bruising, but the swelling and the darkest patches were gone. Not bad for an ex-battle healer.

Sedgewick turned in his chair and pressed his thumb against an indent on the underside of his desk. Bright orange veins of magic, born from centuries of being a mage, rippled through it, causing a drawer to pop open. He pulled out his spare pair of round-rimmed glasses and slid them on his face before standing from his desk and offering her a hand down.

Feyla took it and was greeted with that rare, tender smile of his. The one that made her feel like anything and everything wrong would work out all right as long as Sedgewick was tackling it.

"And being the dear you are, you patch me up in spite of my 'broken self-preservation'."

She blushed at that, her cheeks heating up enough for the color to show through her dark tawny-brown skin. How could anyone not understand why she loved him?

"Although I doubt you'd want to go have mid-meal with me while I look like—how did you say it? A beaten piece of butcher's meat."

Feyla laughed on the way back to her own smaller, less magical assistant's desk, only to smack her forehead in remembrance. "I think I'm going to need a raincheck on that."