by A. M. Manay
So intent was she on escaping them that she ran headlong into their partner-in-crime. He was much larger, a man grown, and seemed unperturbed by the pain caused by her charms. The man grabbed her by the arms and lifted her a foot into the air.
Shiloh’s stomach was a cold pit of fear. The boys were flushing me. They’re the dogs, and this is the hunter.
“What have we here?” the Feral asked, grinning. “Now, don’t be scared, half pint. I’m not gonna hurt ye. We’re just gonna take ye someplace nice and warm. Me wife has got a nice stew waiting. Don’t you scream, now. Could cause an avalanche. Wouldn’t want that.”
Shiloh kicked desperately, unable to make much contact with her little legs. Her flailing knocked her hood back, revealing her pink braids.
The grin disappeared, and the man sighed heavily. He placed her gently down on the snow and pulled her hood back up. “Go on home, now, wee one,” he told her, and patted her on the head as though in blessing.
She stood frozen for an instant, eyes wide, paralyzed with shock. At last, Shiloh processed the words, and she began to run, stumbling on trembling legs. She heard the man’s voice rise up once more behind her, scolding his assistants.
“Now, what did I tell you boys about the one with the pink hair?”
By the time Silas regained consciousness, someone had set and mended his leg. It ached like mad, but it was straight. He wiggled his foot.
“Easy there,” Shiloh warned him. “You’re going to have a hell of a headache.” Her nose and eyes were red, as though she’d been crying.
“Is it as bad as all that?” Silas asked, reaching up to touch her face.
She held his hand against her cheek. “No, you’re fine. Now. But I felt what Olin did. I sensed the curse he cast when you were already down. I’m just so angry. It was all I could do not to take his stupid head off. He broke the rules!”
“But we passed their little test, I take it?” Silas groaned as Shiloh helped him sit up. His head throbbed more than the drums outside the tent.
Jonn waved to him from his own pallet, smiling entirely too much. Riah sat next to him, drinking from a gourd and looking amused.
“Yes, indeed. We’re members of the tribe. Sorry you got the worst of it, Silas.” Jonn looked positively chipper. Silas narrowed his eyes, and Jonn laughed.
Mosspeak looked tired but otherwise unharmed. Keelie clucked around him like a worried hen, showering him with kisses, and he winked at Silas. “I’m up for another go around,” Mosspeak claimed.
“You are not!” Keelie scolded.
Shiloh shook her head, eyebrows drawn. “He hurt you on purpose,” she declared.
“Yes,” Silas acknowledged.
“A message from his chief?” Shiloh asked, glowering. “Do I need to yell at Keegan?”
Silas shook his head, brow furrowed. “I’m not so sure.”
“Gret already gave Keegan what for while Riah and I were putting you back together,” Shiloh said, then handed him some water, which he swallowed gratefully.
“The crowd seemed to enjoy watching me get stomped on well enough,” Silas groused.
“Well, to be fair to them, you do have a terrible reputation,” she replied. She finally managed a wisp of a smile.
“I don’t suppose you could find me some clothes that don’t smell like sweat, blood, and vomit?” Silas asked with a sigh.
“You’re in luck,” Shiloh replied. “Gret brought a stack of clothing. Though you’d better have a wash before putting them on. You’ve got some time before the feast.”
“Yes, because if there is anything I want to do tonight, it’s go to a party with a bunch of savages that just watched me get crushed into the dirt,” Silas complained.
“Come on, Silas. I’ll carry you to the bathhouse,” Jonn cajoled him. “And then we’ll get you good and drunk, and you’ll forget how much your head hurts.”
“Only until I sober up,” Silas shot back, but he allowed himself to be jollied out the door.
Lanterns floated in the air above an open patch of meadow. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits as Shiloh watched from well beyond the edge of the crowd. A boar roasted in a pit, the scent of the meat filling the air and making her stomach growl. Kegs of beer and wine sat on planks set across sawhorses. Other tables held all manner of food, most of which Shiloh could not recognize.
The music was more familiar. Shiloh knew the mountain tunes on fiddle and drum, the same ones she remembered from Solstice feasts of her childhood. The dances, too, she felt in her bones. Her feet began to tap of their own volition.
A colorful banner flew from a tall pole, lit by a hovering lantern. It wasn’t until a gust of wind blew it out straight that Shiloh could read what it said: Welcome Home, Shiloh.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and tears filled her eyes.
“As far as my people are concerned, a child was stolen from us, and by some miracle, she’s come home,” Keegan said from behind her.
She wheeled on him. “I’m still angry with you,” she managed to say through her tears.
“I know. I’m sorry. I saw the look on your face when his leg broke. I shall endeavor to control my hatred for the man,” Keegan pledged. “I promise you, however, that I did not order Olin to do that.”
She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.
“You look lovely,” Keegan told her.
She looked down at the beaded midnight blue tunic and light tan leggings Gret had given her, along with a matching blue scarf for her hair. “Thank you. It is much more comfortable than court finery, and a welcome change from the uniforms we had to wear when we were imprisoned. All of us appreciate your wife’s gifts. Even Lady Mosspeak was smiling, and she’s probably never worn leggings in all her life.”
She caught some movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Silas and Jonn striding toward her. Silas showed just a hint of a limp. They were decked out in leather breeches and vests, arms bare in the moonlight, every inch the Feral gentlemen of leisure and looking hilariously discomfited.
Keegan snickered. Shiloh whacked him in the chest with the back of her hand. “You’d look just as silly in velvet,” she hissed at him. “And the limp is your fault. Behave yourself.”
Shiloh walked swiftly to her husband and slipped her arm into his.
Silas smiled, looking much better than he had before the bath. She wondered if Jonn had pressed some comfort potion upon him.
“Shall we, my lady?”
“We shall.”
“Where’s the bread?” Shiloh whispered uncertainly, eyes searching the tables in vain. Her wooden plate was full of pork and greens.
“They don’t grow grain,” Silas explained softly. “They don’t grow much of anything, except vegetable gardens, maybe a little flax for linen. They steal. They gather. They eat a lot of acorns.”
Shiloh grimaced, and Silas barked a laugh.
“They leech them of the tannins, to take out the bitterness,” Silas hastened to assure her. “Then they grind the acorns into flour and make those flat cakes over there. They taste pretty good, actually, especially with some honey or fruit preserves.”
“When have you tried them?” she asked, taking one onto her plate and eying it warily.
“During the war. One of Keegan’s men had a wife who’d packed him a sack full. To a hungry, growing boy, they were better than a king’s feast,” Silas said.
They found a bench to perch on. “You weren’t much older than Jivan, were you?” Shiloh asked.
“No, I was not,” Silas confirmed. “I must’ve been thirteen when I ran off with Edmun.”
“I imagine it was awful,” Shiloh replied after a bite of food.
“Sometimes,” Silas confessed. “The Citadel must have been awful, too.”
“Rather.”
“You should talk about it,” Silas prodded.
“Do you talk much about the war?” Shiloh retorted.
Silas heaved a sigh. “No, I suppose I don’t. B
ut I’m not exactly a paragon of wise behavior.”
“I hope the others talk,” Shiloh said. “I hope they tell everyone how evil that place was.”
“You can’t expect them to do what you won’t,” Silas pointed out. Her shoulders slumped, and Silas added, “But not tonight. Just try to enjoy the party tonight.”
She shot Silas a smile. “Then you’re going to have to dance,” she informed him. “How’s your clogging?”
“I’m starting to wish you’d left me in the Dark Tower.”
“This is my house?” Shiloh asked. Silas watched her face, saw the mingled gratitude and pain in it.
Keegan and Gret stood with them in a sitting room carved out of the mountain. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, casting their light onto cushions surrounding a low table. A hearth filled one corner.
“There’s more,” Keegan answered with barely contained excitement.
He led Shiloh into the next room, a kitchen complete with a cast iron stove and a water pump. Beyond it was a large bedchamber with a thickly woven carpet of blue and green, a stout trunk whose open lid revealed piles of new clothing, and a comfortable bed surrounded by curtains. Two smaller bedchambers lay on either side of a short hallway, with pallets on the floor and hooks for hanging garments. Last came a closet with a basin, water jug, and privy.
“It’s lovely. Thank you,” she whispered.
“I finished it years ago,” Keegan told her. “It’s just been waiting for you.”
Shiloh blinked away her tears.
“Come along,” Gret urged her husband. “Let’s let them get some rest.”
Silas saw them to the front door, and when he returned, Shiloh and Silas found themselves truly alone for the first time in many months.
“Do you like it?” Shiloh asked uncertainly. She touched a blanket.
“Of course. I mean, it’s not Castle Northgate, but it is quite a step up from recent months,” Silas replied.
“Do you think we’ll ever see it again? Northgate, or Greenhill Palace, or the Patriarch’s house in the Claw that you had to give back?” Shiloh asked.
“I don’t know,” Silas confessed. “Probably not without a fight.”
Shiloh shook her head. “I don’t know if I want to fight.”
“You don’t have to decide today,” Silas pointed out.
Shiloh smiled crookedly. “No, I suppose not.”
She slipped her feet out of the moccasins Gret had given her to wear to the party, then curled up on the bed.
“If . . . Do you wish me to sleep in one of the other rooms?” Silas asked.
“I . . . only if that is what you want,” Shiloh answered.
“It is not,” Silas said.
He stretched out next to her and pulled a blanket over them. Shiloh curled up on his shoulder and almost immediately began to cry. Silas held her and cradled the back of her head with his hand.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he whispered.
“The Citadel was so awful,” she cried. “Some of it was so bad I don’t even remember it.”
“I know, little bird. I know.”
“I want to go home,” Shiloh sobbed.
“I know,” he replied, heart breaking and yet gratified that she was confiding in him. “I do, too.”
“This isn’t home,” she despaired.
“I know. I know.”
“Did you see how they stared at me? Keegan wants me to believe that they’re all happy we’re here. Happy I’m here. But they aren’t. They don’t trust us at all. They never will. Keegan wants me to be one of them, but I never will be. I will always be an outsider here.”
“You don’t know that,” Silas countered.
“Keegan or his people must want me for something. Like everybody else. Like you and Rischar did. Like Fenroh and Korra did. Why else bring me here?”
It gutted him to hear his name in that list, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it.
“Keegan loves you,” Silas said, “at least, as much as a man like him is capable of loving a daughter he does not really know.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t hoping to use me,” Shiloh argued.
“No, it doesn’t,” Silas acknowledged. “But I don’t think he will hurt you on purpose.”
“I don’t belong anywhere. Not in Smoke Valley. Not here. Edmun and my da saw to that. Not at court. Where do I even have a home at all?” Shiloh sniffled.
“With me. You have a home with me,” Silas pledged.
Shiloh’s tears eventually tapered off, and her conversation turned to the political.
“What about you?” she demanded, voice sharp. “What’s your grand plan? You must have one. All those months with nothing to do but think. You must have been plotting.”
Silas almost laughed. “If I could have my way, I would plant you on the throne of Bryn,” he admitted. “Esta is a disaster. Loor is a baby. Neither of them could expel Gerne now that it has a toehold. You probably could.
“But I know that leading an army isn’t what you want. And you’d likely need a more suitable husband than I am if you were to reign and have any chance of support from the lords. And that . . . that would cause me pain.” He turned and kissed her forehead. To his relief, she did not reject the gesture.
Silas continued, “Regardless, autumn is upon us. Winter is no season for war. We have time to discern our next steps. Time to gain some strength. Time to learn a few more tricks. Time to gather more information and make proper plans.”
Shiloh took a deep, shuddering breath and slowly blew it out. “You’re right,” she finally said.
“Aren’t I always?” he teased. To his immense relief, she barked a laugh.
“But . . . there is something about this that doesn’t feel right,” Silas admitted. “It’s all gone too easily. Your brother bringing you your wand at just the right moment. Our finding Keegan in the woods straight away. Our ease getting Mosspeak and the others out. Being admitted to this place. The Keegan I knew would never have let any of us set foot here, except for you. His people would have revolted. Courtiers in Freehold? Please! We’re everything they hate. You can hear it, the tone when they call us Citizens, as though we’re covered in oozing sores.”
“Maybe he’s just trying to gain my trust by including all of you,” Shiloh said.
“Maybe.”
Silence reigned for a time, and Silas thought Shiloh might have drifted off to sleep.
“You’re not going to be able to just walk away from Bryn, are you?” Shiloh whispered. “Chuck it all and run off with me to Estany to live on your hidden fortune?”
“No,” Silas acknowledged, his heart clenching. “I don’t think I can.”
“You were married to Bryn before you married me,” Shiloh mused.
Now it was his turn to laugh. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. But you’re a lot easier to love than Bryn is.”
He wished he could see her face, see how she took his oblique declaration of affection. He hoped she might say something in return. He tried to content himself with the fact that she didn’t pull away.
“Goodnight, my lord husband,” she whispered.
“Goodnight, my lady wife.”
“Hana?” Shiloh called from outside the tent. “Are you in there?”
A moment later, Hana’s blond head popped out of the doorway. “Look who’s come down off the mountain to meet with the little people.”
Shiloh pursed her lips. “I need a favor.”
Hana sighed dramatically and pulled back the curtain. “Come in.”
The two young women settled onto cushions before Hana asked, “What could the great and powerful Shiloh Hatch need from me?”
“I noticed you got your hair to grow back. Was that a potion or a spell or what?” Shiloh asked, feeling silly. “I don’t know anything about that kind of magic.”
Hana shook out her luxurious mane. “Finally, I know more about something than you do. I got sick of being reminded of the Citadel every t
ime I caught sight of myself. I wasn’t about to wait years for it to grow long again. Oh, it infuriates me to think of some hussy out there wearing a wig made of my hair. Anyway, what do you care? You always cover it up outside anyway.”
“I’m not always outside,” Shiloh countered, then blushed furiously.
Hana’s face lit up. “Oh, I see. You think the Hatchet likes your hair long.”
“I like it long,” Shiloh protested, but her ears still burned.
“Does he like to pull it? Or run his hands through it? I always wished Jasin would pull mine, but he never did,” Hana confided with a mischievous expression.
“Hana!”
“Fine, fine. Pretend this isn’t about seducing your husband if that’s what you have to do.”
“If you must know, I like when he helps me brush it,” Shiloh admitted. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”
“I’ll fix you up. How long do you want it?” Hana asked.
Shiloh examined her friend’s own locks, which cascaded down her back nearly to her waist. Shiloh had never managed to grow hers that long. There had always been some ill-timed fever that required a chopping. “Like yours?” she ventured.
Hana drew her wand with a flourish. “Do try not to be intimidated by my gifts, Shiloh.”
“Bluebell! Hana!” Silas cried, running to catch up with the women. The two friends were walking next to the river.
They stopped and turned to wait for him, and he fell into step beside them.
“If you’re looking for Shiloh, we haven’t seen her since right after breakfast,” Hana told him. “Make sure you compliment her hair when you find her.”
“She’s with Jonn,” Silas informed them. “I wanted to speak with you two.”
“My, my,” Hana replied. “The Hatchet wants a word. Be on your guard.”
“I beg your indulgence, my lady,” Silas said with a smart bow. “I wanted to know if you would tell me more about what happened to Shiloh at the Citadel.”
“She’ll tell you when she’s ready, my lord,” Bluebell scolded.