Jealous

She held in the question for as long as she could manage, but she couldn’t hold it forever. Arawn introduced her so formally to Sirona. She didn’t know if it was because they were somewhere sort of public and no one knew about their relationship or not, but she didn’t think that was the case.
It had to be Sirona.
When she went to his chambers to ask him about her, she braced herself for the worst. She knocked and Arawn called out that she could come in.
He looked up as she entered and smiled, “Little gem, what a pleasant surprise. Just in time too.”
“In time?”
He nodded, “I’m doing a bit of spying. You said once you were interested in how I got my information.”
Her heart leaped at the chance to know more about him and that he was offering her the chance. She closed the door behind her and tried not to let her excitement overshadow why she had come in the first place.
“Who is she?” Fedelm asked watching him carefully. “Sirona.”
“My pupil,” he said, still looking into his scrying mirror. “She’s catching on quickly, but I’m not sure if it will be fast enough.”
Her heart eased a bit at how nonchalantly he said it but something at the back of her mind said that it wasn’t that simple. She was dealing with a deity; nothing was that simple.
Arawn felt the tremor in her faith, a little wavering that he had never anticipated, but he should have seen it coming. Had he known that Sirona existed, he may have started to shift the source of Fedelm’s belief away from their sexual relationship to an intellectual one with a bit more force.
As it stood, he’d have to start now or risk losing all of her belief in him. The faith of a queen like Fedelm was a powerful thing. He gestured for her to step closer and she looked over his shoulder into the vision.
She had never seen Anu, but she was surprised that she looked a lot older than she expected. Fedelm guessed at least ten years older than herself.
“She looks older than you.”
He chuckled, “She chose her vessel to suit her needs. Marrying a king there is quite different than marrying a king here.”
“And you?”
He looked up at her and his lips twitched, “Are you saying you’d prefer me older?”
Her face flushed, “Of course not, I was just curious…”
He never spoke much about his time before Berth and before her. She wasn’t confident that she had more than a handful of details about his life as a young god or even more recently. Why hadn’t he told her that he knew Druid personally? Why hadn’t he told her anything about Sirona before she arrived?
She held back those questions.
“I chose my vessel a long time ago for different reasons. Though it has served me well over the years.” His eyes twinkled, “It has gained me your presence and faith, has it not?”
Fedelm’s heart fluttered, “I do not think my faith is based on the appearance of your vessel.”
“What about your faith in my ability to please you?”
She sputtered and he laughed, loud and boyish, “A-Arawn, that’s not…”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, “It is endearing that after all this time you are still so easily flustered.”
She turned her head, “W-What do you see?”
He chuckled and turned back to the mirror and gestured to the map that appeared. Most of it flashed red like a warning. Fedelm didn’t recognize the place, but she knew the Tara River. He’d been hinting that Anu was nearby, but she had never imagined that she was that near.
“She’s conquered most of the continent already. Within a few weeks, maybe a month, she’ll have dominion coast to coast.” His voice was tense, “At that point, I can’t say what she will do.”
It was possible that she would be satisfied for a time, but it was more likely that she would gather her troops and turn her sight on the southern continent.
“What should I do?” Fedelm asked, “We are not faced with much opposition headed towards the other coast, it is mostly disorganized tribes and small towns out there.”
“It’s not that simple,” he said, “For now, stay the course.”
She nodded as he ended the vision through the mirror and stood. The sun was setting.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” Fedelm asked with a bit of a smile, “I thought we might have a little more time tonight.”
Arawn skimmed his fingers across her cheek, “Not tonight, little gem.”
Arawn turned from her and escorted her out of his rooms and to the dining room. She watched him walk away before going to sit for dinner with a few of the generals who lived in the castle.
She didn’t participate in the conversation and finished eating quickly, hoping to get an idea about what Arawn was up to.
“The courtyard should be a good place,” she heard him say and peered around the corner to find him escorting Sirona down the corridor. She wasn’t carrying a weapon as far as Fedelm could see.
“What about the flowers?”
“You’ll just have to be careful.”
Fedelm clenched her draw and crept down the hallway down the hall after them towards the garden's courtyard.
They turned to one another under the moonlight. Sirona tied up her hair as Arawn faced her. Fedelm couldn’t make out anything they were saying, but she felt a little relief as he materialized a blade out of thin air. Sirona did the same.
It seemed that she was a mage. Maybe he had been telling the truth about just training her. Maybe she was part of his plan, but she couldn’t turn away. When had they last trained together? It used to be at least once a week that they’d end up sparring, but lately, she was lucky to have enough time to get him alone long enough to have sex between the war and whatever he did all day.
Arawn had trained her well it seemed, but the style Sirona was using was very different than the one of Berth or even the one that Arawn used. They were moving so fast it was a bit hard to keep up until they disarmed each other and Sirona launched herself at him. They fell into a heap and rolled and tussled.
Fedelm heard a shriek of laughter and she turned away. There had been just once that she and Arawn had sex in the garden. It had been in a much more secluded section of the garden and she remembered it clearly.
She checked back hoping that it wasn’t what she thought, but she heard Sirona cry out. Fedelm rounded the area only to find the two of them gone with only his jacket where they had been.
Fedelm’s jaw trembled.
“Your Majesty, is everything alright?”
She turned stiffly to see her captain of the guard come towards her. Captain Duran was a broad man. He didn’t have any of the boyish beauty that Arawn had, but she was hard-pressed to ever say that he was unattractive.
“Fine,” she said finally. “I… have an assignment for you.”
“It would be my honor.”
“Keep an eye on the woman Druid brought with him, Sirona. I want to know what she’s doing while here in the capital.”
“It will be done.”
Fedelm nodded and turned, hurrying down the hallway towards her quarters. She closed the doors and ordered the maids to leave her. When they were gone, she paced. The anger and hurt boiled and exploded until she was screaming, grabbing her sword and swiping at the dummy she kept in an antechamber to take out her frustrations.
She hadn’t had a reason to attack it in years, not since she and Arawn began sleeping together. She cut and stabbed until she could barely hold the sword up and slumped into the seat in the corner of the room.
She had to be reasonable.
There were other options.
It could be a magical thing. They could have gone flying or something, but flying where? Why had he left his jacket if that were the case? Why did his voice sound so warm when he introduced her the first time?
Damn it. She needed answers. Not knowing would drive her mad, but she couldn’t trust Arawn to tell her anything more than he was teaching her.
Teaching her what? He’d certainly taught Fedelm a great deal over the years about war, conquering, pleasure, and everything else that she feared.
What would she do if Arawn was sleeping with Sirona? She wasn’t so much of a fool to think he didn’t have other lovers, but this was different.
None of the others were mages, she was sure. In Berth, mages were the closest things to gods walking on the continent.