Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence

by Anna Patrick Paige

  Bromly’s round cheeks reddened. “I’d like to, someday. But I have to save enough coin to buy a home and set up house for us. I wouldn’t ask her to marry me unless I could provide for her. I save a little of the money I make each year.” He glared at Flint. “I don’t give it all to her.”

  “At the rate Bromly’s savin’ coin, he’ll marry her in ten years,” Flint claimed. “And less coin to go ’round this year since Aya’ll get a share.”

  My throat tightened. “No, I’m not taking anything from you.”

  “If ya help us, ya get paid. Right, Bromly?”

  Bromly went silent, avoiding the question.

  “You assume I’ll still be living with you or even alive by the time you travel to Burge. I doubt Darric will allow either of those options.”

  Flint frowned. “Ya will! You’re stayin’. Darric’ll get over it.”

  I shot a hard look at Bromly, hoping he would intervene. Instead, he left to retrieve three wooden cups from a basket under the table.

  “Why do ya always have to be so silent ’bout everythin’?” Flint scolded.

  Bromly returned to his seat and spooned a cup of tea for each of us. “Burge is months away. Best to take this new situation on a day-to-day basis for now. I’m not taking sides in this mess you two created.”

  Flint crossed his arms over his chest with a humph.

  “Still, it would be nice to have an extra set of hands to help sew pelts. I suppose there’s a point about payment. Aya, it wouldn’t be right to use your labor and not give you something in return.”

  “You have given me enough,” I insisted.

  He ignored me. “I’ll talk to Darric, see how he feels about it.”

  Great, let’s poke the grumpy brother.

  “I’ll go find him.” Flint chugged his steaming tea until his face turned the same color as his hair. Once finished, he took a large gulp of air and squeaked, “That was hotter than I thought it’d be.”

  Unfazed, Bromly blew steam away from his cup. “Leave Darric alone right now. You know better.”

  Flint also should have known better than to chug scalding tea, but I was beginning to suspect he was a bit of a buffoon. He gargled and slapped his knee as his face turned ever more crimson. I tucked my lips under my teeth to keep from laughing.

  “Where does Darric keep going?” I asked.

  “The last few days he’s been tracking our short-lived visitors to make sure they didn’t discover the Hovel before we were ready.” Bromly tipped his teacup to his mouth, testing the heat. “Darric leaves for a while after something like this happens and spends some time alone. None of us enjoy this part of living in the mountains.”

  “He feels like he needs to serve as guard to us. Keep things safe ’round here,” Flint rasped. He cleared his throat and punched his chest to find his normal voice. “Me an’ Bromly are here all the time without him. We can take care of ourselves. Insomnia can give ya a bad grasp on reality.” He twirled his finger next to his temple.

  “Darric is an insomniac?” I questioned, intrigued.

  “Worse, he never sleeps, an’ when he does, he’s violent—”

  “Flint!” Bromly interrupted. “Let him decide if he wants her to know any of that.”

  I had to give these men credit. They had a talent for creating awkward encounters. Despite being brothers, they didn’t ever seem to belong in the same room together. “Forgive me for saying so, but the three of you look nothing alike for being brothers.”

  “We aren’t brothers by blood,” Bromly confessed, tea dripping off his mustache. “My mother had a heart for adopting homeless children. When I was three, she found Flint freezing to death in a gutter in the poor district. We looked for weeks for his family, but no one ever claimed him. So we took him in.”

  I looked at Flint, and he shrugged. “I don’t remember. I was one.”

  “After my father died, my mother made a meager living baking bread to sell at market. We were barely surviving. Yet, she found ways to keep a roof over us, leaky but still a roof.”

  Flint laughed. “Hey, tell her ’bout how I used to teethe on flint stone an’ that’s where my name came from.”

  Bromly gave me a quizzical look before continuing. “Flint became like a brother to me. He is my brother. My mother worked twice as hard to keep us fed, so Flint and I used to beg for coin outside the noble district. But, um . . .” He set down his cup and rubbed his hands together. “She didn’t have to go into prostitution until we found Darric.”

  There was only one city in Brisleia large enough to have districts segregated by class: Alamantia.

  “We were pedaling for extra copper the day we met Darric.”

  Flint narrowed his eyes at the memory.

  “Flint was too young when we found him to realize he’d been abandoned. He was innocent and just needing love, but Darric . . .” Bromly let out a long breath. “It was like all the life had been sucked out of him. His eyes were just . . . dead. He was beyond weary and dirty. It took Flint and I hours to convince him to follow us home. But once he did, he slept for days and only woke up to eat. It took him a year to tell us what happened to his family and that he’d traveled all the way from Vegathyad, alone.”

  I gripped my teacup so tightly that my fingers turned white. “What had happened to him?”

  Bromly shook his head. “It’s not my place to tell you Darric’s history, and I’d rather not talk about it. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand.” The reality that the three of them had lived below me in Alamantia City astounded me. Could I have seen their house from my private garden? Had I ever watched them chasing a town cat down the street or gazing at the palace towers for a glimpse of the Divine? Recently I’d been lost in a massive universe, but this simple revelation made the world feel comfortingly smaller. “How old was Darric when you found him?”

  “Uh . . . six.” Bromly avoided looking at me by refilling his teacup.

  “And he’d come from Vegathyad?” I mused, astonished.

  He nodded. “We aren’t sure of his exact nationality, but it was nice having another brother. With Darric around to help with chores, our mother could find new means of income.”

  Flint’s hand clenched around his empty cup. “She never would’ve had to do those things if he hadn’t shown up.”

  “That’s not a fair thing to say.” I furrowed my brows, shocked he would make such a horrible accusation. “Your mother went to amazing lengths to take care of the three of you.”

  “She got sick ’cause of it,” he said through his teeth.

  I turned to Bromly for confirmation, and he nodded. “That’s when Darric started traveling. He felt responsible. He swore he would find a way to make money so she wouldn’t have to sell herself anymore. We were all against it, so he ran away in the middle of the night while we were asleep.”

  My anticipation grew. I’d forgotten about my tea and clutched the cold cup.

  “He was gone almost a year, but he did come home. Sort of in one piece. And with money, a lot of it.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “He wouldn’t tell us how he’d acquired so much coin. He said we’d have a hard time with the truth. But mother knew with one look at him. She begged him not to go back. It went on that way for years. Darric became someone we rarely saw, but he always returned. Always with money, but not always without injury. Sometimes he was hurt significantly. Our mother continued to oppose him leaving, but she didn’t have to work anymore, so Darric never listened.”

  “What was he doing?” I leaned forwards, ready for anything. After witnessing Darric kill our intruders so mercilessly, there wasn’t much I could imagine that would be worse. But Bromly shook his head, filling me with disappointment. Humbled by his dedication to keeping his brother’s secrets, I accepted his silence. “So, Darric has your best interests at heart.”

  “Indeed.” He half smiled but seemed troubled by the old memories.

  “Psh.” Flin
t sneered. “Darric didn’t consider anyone’s interest when he brought us into the mountains to live like criminals.”

  Bromly’s upper lip twitched.

  “If you hated the idea so much, then why did you come here?” I asked.

  “Mother eventually took a turn for the worse,” Bromly provided. “Darric almost missed her. He arrived home the night she passed. He disappeared for a long time after that. We weren’t sure he was going to come back at all.”

  “An’ when he did randomly reappear, he took one look at our situation an’ decided it was best to bring us up here.” Flint fluttered his hand in the air, indicating the Hovel.

  Bromly slowly shook his head, silently telling his brother to be mindful.

  “I was handlin’ it just fine,” he spat in return. “I had a plan.”

  “Flint was not fond of the idea that we would live as nomads, cutting off most of our connection to society and visiting towns only when we needed to sell wares,” Bromly added before Flint could say more. “It’s not all bad. The time Darric spent on his own taught him a great deal about living off the land and what dangers to avoid.”

  “It is beautiful here,” I admitted. When they weren’t killing wayward travelers.

  “It’s home.” Bromly yawned, lifting his arms high above his head. “It’s late, and it’s been a terrible day. I need rest. We all do.”

  “I’m not tired one bit!” Flint proclaimed and leaned closer to me so he could snake his arm around my lower back.

  “Well, I am.” Bromly took to his feet. “Don’t stay up much later. We have to finish sewing those hides before the bears wake up.”

  “I know, I know.” Flint waved him off.

  Bromly eased the kettle out of the coals with his boot. Giving a slight nod, he slipped behind the center fur door and left me alone with Flint, who suddenly had a devious smile radiating into his emerald eyes.

  “You should go to bed too.” I set my teacup on the ground beside my foot.

  “Oh . . .” His smile faded. “Are ya tired?”

  No, I haven’t slept since I woke up from being poisoned.

  I shook my head. “I’m still pretty shaken.”

  “I’ll stay up with ya. I don’t mind. I don’t want ya to be afraid. Or if ya want, ya can sleep in my room with me.” He winked, his hand cupping my hip.

  “No, thank you.” The temperature of my blood spiked at his forward invitation. “Go to bed,” I hissed, scooting away from him and thus pushing the cat off the bench. She shook her head, stunned by the disappearance of her bed.

  Flint’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t be that ignorant. “Oh, but I thought you an’ I could . . .” His hand slid over my knee. Not ignorant. “If ya wanted . . . I saved a few coppers. We definitely could—”

  “Goodnight,” I snapped, folding my arms over my chest and crossing my legs so his hand fell off me.

  Flint’s head drooped, and he rose from his seat. He scuffled to the fur door at the far end of the room, chewing his bottom lip. “I saw that goin’ differently in my head. Figured you’d be open to it,” he admitted, confused, and closed the fur behind him.

  I buried my face in my hands and groaned. I was absolutely disgusted by the amount of men who kept gawking at me as if I was a piece of meat, something to be claimed and possessed. Princes, bandits, nomads—it didn’t matter; they were all the same. At least I could count on Bromly to be civil, since he only had eyes for some woman in Burge.

  And Darric hated me.

  The Hovel’s quiet was broken only by the soft crackle of dying embers. Bromly and Flint slept soundly in their beds, with an occasional snore to remind me of their presence. For the first time, I sat by the fire instead of cowering in Darric’s room trying to make the others believe I slept regularly. Eventually, I would need to find something to do.

  The palace was always active. The kitchen never closed, and court entertainment often continued until dawn. There were books to read and Elizabetta to act as my companion. Even the things that used to be so deathly boring would be welcomed now that I was faced with a substantial lack of activity. Being at the Hovel had given me a better appreciation for the extravagant life I’d lived before Ambrosia cured my perpetual boredom.

  My grandmother had roamed the countryside for weeks before worrying soldiers would look for her. Being the Spare had benefits in that regard. Unlike future monarchs, our appearance remained unknown to the public. It was supposed to be a safety precaution, but it didn’t stop stories. I’d heard rumors I was known as beautiful—up for interpretation—but impertinent and arrogant—not so unverified—so my elegance accounted for little.

  If Darric made up his mind to kill me, I would have to reveal the Mandala to save my neck. Until then, it was best I pretend to be ignorant of the royals or risk becoming a hostage.

  The cat purred on the bench beside me, curled into a tiny sleeping ball of burgundy. “I will have to think of a name for you.”

  She opened her wide amber eyes as if she’d never been asleep, stretching into a long arch and clawing the wood.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  She cocked her head to the side with an intelligent gaze full of wonder.

  “Granted, I’ve never met another cat, but why should they be so different from horses or birds? What if cats are no different? What if it’s just you?”

  She meowed and commenced licking her paw, smashing the wet fur into her cheek.

  “Are you . . . are you deliberately ignoring me?”

  The discourteous feline sat perfectly still, tufts of fur on her face feathered in disarray from where she had abruptly abandoned her cleansing.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You can talk, and you are choosing not to.” How dare she not let me in? What would a feral cat have to hide?

  She yawned, plopped onto her belly, and shut her eyes.

  I scoffed. Pest of a feline. “You can forget me giving you a name.”

  Her whiskers twitched upwards, as if she laughed at the idea.

  The front door swished open, and my heart leaped into my throat. I lost my balance and toppled onto the bear rug, spilling my leftover tea.

  Darric stood in the doorway, looking at the sprawled mess of me lying on the ground. He stepped over me and placed his haversack on the workbench to begin untying his cloak. Being alone with him wasn’t any better than if a fifth bandit had entered the Hovel.

  “You scared me.” I lifted myself back onto the bench.

  “Good.”

  Insulting swordsman.

  He uncorked a brown glass bottle from his pack and chugged a monstrous gulp. His hands were coated in dried blood and his bracers splattered with red. I shuddered, unnerved that he kept such an impressive physique in constant dishevelment, yet the blood suited him somehow.

  After talking to Bromly and Flint, I perceived Darric differently. Violence defined him. Even the vast destructive force of a hurricane can be beautiful. Maybe we weren’t so different. I felt like a trapped tornado. It made me wonder if I could kill too.

  Thinking about death brought back the images of his blade disemboweling a bandit, and I massaged my temples with my fingers.

  Darric casually approached my bench. “You look like you could use a drink.” He offered me the decanter. The smell of red wine hit my nose.

  “Are you serious.” My question came out as a statement. “So, you’re trying to poison me now?”

  He furrowed his brows. “What about me saying I don’t condone suffering didn’t you understand?”

  I accepted the bottle from him and took several long swigs.

  “Don’t treat it like the water I gave you before.” He half grinned and tugged the wine away from my mouth. I swallowed quickly, catching leftover drops on my sleeve. “You’re a bit of a lush, aren’t you?”

  Elizabetta always said the same thing.

  I wiped my lips, savoring the flavor. The wine was not fine, cheap and possibly old, but I appreciated the gesture. “Where did you
get that?” Spirits were not common among nomadic peasants.

  He suddenly became more aware of the blood on his bracers and set down the bottle to wipe his palms on his drab leather pants. It did little to remove the staining. “Don’t worry about it. Restless night?” He took a seat on the end of the bench, leaving the cat between us.

  I nodded. “Most are these days.”

  The cat hissed at him, and he coupled a smile with a laugh. “I hate your cat.” He took another sip of his wine.

  “She is not my cat.”

  He reoffered the bottle, and I kept my gulping to a minimum. When I handed back the decanter, a faint glimmer of red smeared off onto my hands. I discreetly tried to wipe it on my dress.

  “She follows you everywhere,” he said, watching my fingers clutch the fabric.

  “That doesn’t mean I own her. She does what she wants. Apparently, that is following me around.”

  “And you have no idea why, do you?” he prodded, making me believe he knew something about this burgundy feline that I did not. “She’s not that different from you. She follows an enigmatic girl through the woods who pursues even stranger men to their homes.”

  “Again with this denial,” I huffed. “I tried to stop following you in that forest. You would think you’d admit the truth when we’re alone together, even if there is something you don’t want your brothers to know.”

  “What forest?” He grinned slyly, but taking heed of my disdain, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He looked queerly at his fingers afterwards, forgetting they had been coated in blood.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back until dawn?”

  “It is dawn,” he informed. “The inside of the Hovel tends to remain dark no matter what time of day it is. I would have thought you had noticed that with your lack of sleep and all.”

  His observation churned my stomach. “How did you know I haven’t been sleeping?”

  “I’m here a lot more than those two let on.” He recorked his bottle, nodding towards his brothers’ bedrooms. “It’s just easier to keep to myself.”

  The thought of Darric lingering just outside the cavern made me fidget with my dress sleeve. “Where were you?”