Providence. Fate. Dallin didn’t believe in any of it, never had. Circumstance and coincidence, and a young man who’d followed a lead that led him toward what he sought. It was more than it seemed anyone in this whole sorry scenario had possessed the brains to do.
“So, since this break,” Dallin said slowly, thinking, “the Brethren have been a sort of… crazier version of the Guild, and you’ve managed to keep the Aisling from both of them.” He paused as Calder nodded. “And it never occurred to any of you to put spies on the Guild when Wil went missing?”
“Our spies infest Ríocht, and we do not cringe at acquiring information through blood. The Chosen had been a fraud for centuries. We did not guess the Guild would be bold enough to present the true Aisling as the impostor. We did not guess that if they had the true Aisling, they would not have shown their hand and wiped us from the world with his glance.” Again, Calder turned to Wil, hand over his heart. “They hid you before our eyes. There is no apology that would be abject enough.”
Wil was just sitting there, staring. Dallin couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Wil’s face was a blank mask until Dallin leaned in, nudged Wil a bit with his elbow, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “All right?”
A grim little snort puffed out of Wil, and he closed his eyes. “Can we be done?”
Dallin would rather not—he’d rather get it done all to the once—but apparently it was hitting Wil pretty hard, hard enough to begin a slide into withdrawal, and that would be damned inconvenient right now. Still, Wil was a lot tougher than he looked.
“Can you stand one more?”
Wil shrugged. “I expect that will depend upon the answer.”
“Right.” Dallin sighed. “Sorry.” He turned to Calder. “Why Lind? What’s there for him?”
Calder’s eyebrows shot up. Dallin thought it had likely never even crossed Calder’s mind that, now they were being more or less welcomed, they might decide not to accept.
“Protection.” Calder shifted his glance to Wil, softening it just the smallest bit. “Rebirth. An awakening to your Self. Your design.” He tempered his rough voice to a tone that was kind and likely as near to gentle as it got. “One cannot be reborn without returning to the Womb.”
Wil jolted and breathed a throttled gasp. He was pale, wide-eyed, but his gaze was pointed toward the floor, unseeing. What Calder had said meant very little to Dallin, but it apparently meant an awful lot to Wil.
“All right.” Dallin laid his hand to Wil’s shoulder. “Sorry. We’re done now.” He shot a pointed glance to Calder. “Thank you. Give us the night, would you? We’ll pick it up again in the morning.”
Calder peered at Wil with something close to worry, then at Dallin with a slight touch of suspicion in his faded gaze. He didn’t argue, merely nodded at Dallin, then dipped a bow to Wil. “Tomorrow, then” was all he said before he turned and quit the room.
Dallin turned immediately to Wil. “What is it? You’ve gone nearly white.”
“Have I?” Wil leaned over, propping an elbow to his knee and dropping his head into his hand. “Just… I mean, Father… He says these things to me, and they make no sense—and I think about them, all the time, I can’t stop thinking about them, trying to understand, but I never can. And then he just….” Wil’s free hand came up to wave toward the door. “He just opens his mouth and it falls out, and suddenly it almost makes sense, I almost know what it means, but… but….” Wil looked at Dallin, clearly and unashamedly distressed. “But there’s the Cradle—‘caught and caged,’ right?—and I don’t know if I want to understand it.”
Dallin could only shake his head. “I’m not sure I know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying that I’m beginning to think all of this has been a waste of time. Why did I even bother—?” Wil’s jaw clenched tight, and he shook his head. “I’m beginning to think that no matter how I interpret any prophecy, no matter where it came from or who spoke it, whether they were lying or telling the truth, they all come down to the same bloody thing, and there’s no getting away from it.”
Dallin frowned.
The interesting thing about Wil…. All right, there were many interesting things about Wil, but the most interesting thing was how he believed in bloody everything. For all Wil had lived through, for all the surface cynicism, he talked about things Dallin had always thought of as myth and legend as though there was no question whatsoever. Even having seen and spoken to the Mother Herself hadn’t depleted Dallin’s healthy doubt and—he’d like to think—his reasoning. Wil had been given every reason in the world, and then some, to distrust magic, and yet here he was, accepting the words of a shaman he’d never met before and erstwhile prophecies spoken by, for all they knew, ancient lunatics.
Wil was—incredibly, implausibly, and against all sense and reason—an idealist. With the widest, most contrary streak of fatalism Dallin had ever witnessed. An idealistic fatalist—what the hell was Dallin supposed to do with that?
He scratched at his chin. “I’ve no idea where this came from.” He gave Wil’s shoulder a light squeeze. “But in my experience, the truth of a prophecy is in direct proportion to the sanity of the one who believes it. Anything can be twisted about to mean something if you try hard enough.”
“And what if I gave you a prophecy? Would you believe it?”
Dallin paused. Yes, he probably would, in fact, but now was not the time for such an admission.
“Is this about what that man said in Dudley? ‘Caught and caged’? Did something Calder said remind you?” Dallin waited, but Wil didn’t answer. “All right, think about it, then. Hasn’t that one already come to pass? I did throw you in a cell, after all. But let’s don’t forget I let you out. So that one’s over and done, yeah?”
It made perfect sense to Dallin—so much, in fact, that he was rather proud of himself for thinking of it so quickly.
But Wil’s eyes squeezed shut, and he rubbed at his forehead.
“You’re to be my end, you know.”
It was said so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that Dallin had to repeat it to himself a few times before it would make sense. And then he couldn’t help the flare of old rage. He shoved it back, let his hand slip from Wil’s shoulder, and made himself respond with unruffled patience.
“We’ve been through this. I refuse to be what—”
“I’ve seen it! Did you think you scared me close to pissing my pants back in Putnam merely because of your size?” Wil shook his head, mouth turning down into a bitter grimace. “I recognized you. And I don’t just mean that you looked like a Watcher should look—I recognized you.”
Dallin opened his mouth to object, but Wil cut him off.
“You know it’s true. You know it, because I saw you recognize me too. And then I saw you bury it. I saw you willfully disbelieve it, and you’ve been willfully disbelieving it ever since.” All the fire went out of Wil. He sagged. “I thought I could use it, use you, until you finally let yourself see it—and I reckoned you would see it eventually, because… well, because that’s how prophecies go. I thought I’d use you to get away from those men, and then I’d get away from you.”
Dallin thought about that at some length, didn’t bother trying to deny it—not even to himself. He had recognized Wil the moment he’d seen him. He hadn’t known what to make of it then, so he’d brushed it off, attributed it to salacious tricks, to Wil’s eyes, to Dallin’s own strange fascination….
Wil looked away, eyes glistening but still somehow dull and tired. “None of it matters now.”
Dallin thought about that too, thought about making calm arguments, offering objective logic. But what came out was a low growl between his teeth—“The fuck it doesn’t!”
Absurdly, Wil chuckled—something dark and dry and utterly devoid of humor. “I’m sorry.” He scrubbed both hands roughly over his face, then blinked over at Dallin. “I know how all of this sounds, and I’m only making it worse. But when I say it doesn’t matter…. It doesn
’t matter in the same way anymore.” He frowned sharply. “I meant it when I said I trust you. And I know when you give your word, you keep it. So I’ll ask for it in this last thing—don’t leave me alive inside a cage.”
Again, Dallin had to think about the words, analyze them, fit them into shapes in his mind that made sense. It only took a second this time before the anger snapped all through him, swiffing across a network of nerves like the crack of a whip, twanging every last one of them.
What the fuck? Just what the fuck?
He stood slowly, then just as slowly paced the width of the small room, pausing to stare at the wall for a moment, trying to breathe evenly. His fist came up, slamming at the stone, before he even realized he was moving. He wheeled about and turned on Wil.
“You son of a bitch.”
“I’ve no one else to ask!” Wil cried. “What if it’s all some trick? What if the Cradle is the trap Síofra always said it was? According to Calder, a whole bloody lot of what Síofra said was true. For that matter, what if we never even get there at all? What if Síofra or the Brethren catch us first? Is that how you’d see me live?”
It hit Dallin like a punch in the gut, leaving him winded. “What the hell is this? How did we get from nonsense prophecies to… here?—and in the space of thirty bloody seconds!”
“Thirty seconds for you.” Wil’s tone had turned derisive. “C’mon, Constable, you’re the detective, you’re the one with your feet locked in your quickmud. Look at me and tell me you’re as shocked as all that. D’you think this is a new thought for me? Except before, I had no one I could trust enough to ask, no one who… who cared. I’ve been looking at you over my shoulder all my life, waiting for it. I’m not asking you for anything you’re not bound to give.”
The warble of Wil’s voice, the grayness of his face—it should have made Dallin stop, calm himself, think it through, but he was too caught up in his own indignant outrage.
“How many times—” Dallin had to pause for a second, because he was actually snarling. “How many times do I have to prove I’m no danger to you? It was lies, all of it. Those things Calder said—don’t you know what it means? Síofra knew about Lind, he knew about me. He never needed you to find me—he had you do it because he knew it would make you afraid of me. There is no reason—”
“That isn’t what—!” Wil bent over his knees and took several long breaths. Slowly, as though the entire world had just been set on his shoulders, he got up, stepped over, and stood in front of Dallin. His gaze was steady.
“I’m not accusing you of murder.” Wil’s eyes were brilliant and glittering—bleakly despairing but far too composed. “I’m asking you for a mercy.” He stooped down, and pulled the knife from his boot. “Here. If there is no other way, you’ll put this blade through my heart and twist, or even put your hands round my throat if it comes to it, snap my neck—”
“Stop!”
Dallin’s arm shot out, knocking away Wil’s hand. The knife went clattering and skidding across the stone floor. Dallin just watched it for a moment, marking the flash of golden lamplight on honed steel as it fetched up against a corner of the doorframe. It was too far away, the lettering much too small, but Dallin would swear he could read the blessing etched on its blade as though it were written in fire. He looked away, let his head fall back, staring at the ceiling and trying to slow his breathing. He hadn’t realized his back was to the wall, hadn’t realized he’d retreated as Wil had advanced. There were very few things to which Dallin had ever given ground in fear, but this… this was making him recoil and almost cower.
Wil meant it—every word. He was, in all sincerity, asking Dallin to be his suicide—
No. Not asking. Wil just said he’d seen it, knew it would happen anyway. He wasn’t asking for something he was sure was already coming—he was absolving Dallin before it came.
It should have been darkly touching. It was, after all, probably the most profound show of trust and regard possible, and from someone who almost never showed either. It was, instead, enraging.
“I should hate you for this.” Dallin was seething. “Did you have no thought for me once your corpse dangled at the ends of my hands?”
And what of that? Why, when that particular image rippled in his mind’s eye, did Dallin suddenly feel like he might drop to his knees and weep? When had Wil gone from a pain-in-the-arse renegade to someone Dallin would sincerely mourn if he were suddenly not here anymore? Damn it, had Dallin gone and gotten attached to a man who suffered no attachments?
Fucking sentiment. It really was going to be the end of Dallin one day.
Wil was silent for a long time before he finally cleared his throat. “No.” And again. “No. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Well, you ought to be.” The anger was subsiding to a low simmer in the shadow of Wil’s subdued sadness. Dallin took hold of Wil’s arms, shook lightly. “I’ve seen you give up before. But you only give up until you realize you can’t give up, and then the badger shows its teeth. Whatever this is….” Dallin’s hands tightened unintentionally, and he had to willfully relax his grip. “Wil, I understand what you’re saying, I do, but it isn’t the time for this. You haven’t even lived a real life yet.”
“I’m not even sure I want a life anymore.” That exhausted defeat Dallin had seen back in Putnam was creeping into Wil’s dull gaze, the slump of his shoulders. “I can’t stand the…. It hurts, I can’t…. It’s all full of knives, knives everywhere, and they’ll never let me live it.”
Dallin blinked to keep the sudden flare of emotion from leaking out his eyes. “A month ago you said you had a life wish as deep as the sea.”
“A month, a year, a thousand years….” Wil laughed, hollow and humorless. “Well… I may have changed my mind.” He swiped tiredly at his eyes. There were tears on his cheeks. “Is it so cowardly?” The misery and pleading in Wil’s gaze made Dallin want to look away, but he didn’t. “I can’t go back, and I can’t go on to something that might be just as… I can’t.” He puffed out a small gasp through throttled tears, dazed and hopeless. “Save me, I can’t take more.”
He meant it. Dallin heard it in the threads of Wil’s ragged voice, saw it in the tears that still tracked from eyes gone desolate—saw the despair, the misery, plain and so real it thumped in Dallin’s own chest. Damn it, Wil had been so confident when he’d walked in with those packs, so proud. He’d been almost bloody shining, and now….
Again that silent, hollow cry of loss moved through Dallin, that image of Wil’s lifeless eyes staring at him from above Dallin’s own wide hands. Then the betrayed, agonized shrieks of one trapped in endless torment.
The treacherous knowledge of which would be worse.
“You’re not going back.” Dallin made it a vow, quietly fierce. “And if you want my word so badly, I’ll give it—I won’t see you caged. I won’t let it happen, and if it comes to it….”
He stopped, clenched his teeth, the quiet hope in Wil’s eyes almost more than Dallin could stand.
“If it comes to it…?”
Dallin shut his eyes. He pushed Wil back and let go of his arms.
“A bullet is faster. And less painful for us both.”
Long silence, thick and nearly choking, then Wil’s cold hand reached for Dallin’s, squeezed.
“Look at me,” Wil said softly, “and say it again.”
Mother save or damn him, Dallin did.
HE HADN’T thought he’d sleep, almost thinks he didn’t, but there’s the river, and there’s Wil standing over it, staring down into its rushing depths. Dallin wonders what he sees down there, wonders if Wil can hear the reflections of the stars as well as the stars themselves, and wonders if their songs are any different.
He remembers thinking Wil beautiful once as he’d stared, stock-still, into Wil’s eyes for the first time. Dallin allows himself to think it again now as he watches the breeze lift dark silk from a clear brow, watches peace spread over the face that had looked at him bef
ore with misery and asking. Wil should always wear that smile. Dallin wishes he could give it to him, wrap it up in a bow, offer it in the palm of his hand like a promise.
“You can’t give smiles,” someone had told Dallin once. He thinks it was Corliss. “You can only give reasons for them.”
He used to be surprised by how tall Wil is, but he isn’t anymore. Now he thinks Wil’s not nearly so tall as he ought to be, ought to tower over the world, though Dallin knows the strength and beauty on the inside don’t always manifest in the physical. Still, though… Dallin can’t really imagine Wil looking any other way. Can’t imagine he would want him to.
Dallin rubs at his eyes. He sighs and shakes his head.
Fucking sentiment.
“Weft and warp.” A whisper in a low tenor.
It might have startled him, coming from directly behind him like that, but the tone is dulcet and musical, soothing all by itself, like its own song, so Dallin only turns, curious. Several things at once occur to him:
He knows exactly who it is before whom he stands. Knows exactly where Wil got his dark hair and fair skin and that sad, tilted smile. Knows exactly where Wil got those eyes and the burning life inside them.
Huh, Dallin thinks abstractly as his glance takes in the smooth cheek, so that’s why he never has to shave. You made him in Your own image.
He is Wil refined, polished. Tall enough to touch the moon, and yet somehow Dallin looks Him in the eye. He is elegant twilight personified, with all the power and majesty of the stars. He is the perfect complement to His beloved. Night to Her day. Star to Her sun.
Only somehow, for all His beauty, Dallin thinks the bit of the Mother in Wil—that earthy humor in his eyes, the occasional winsome artlessness—is more beguiling. Dallin wonders without guilt if that’s sacrilegious.
He dips his head. Bowing and kneeling hadn’t seemed the way of it with the Mother, and it doesn’t seem to be the way of it now either, but respect is the way of it with Dallin, so he settles for the low nod.
“You’re dying.” Dallin hadn’t meant to say that—certainly not by way of greeting—hadn’t even really been aware he owned the knowledge until it tripped out his mouth. But now that he’s said it, he doesn’t really need confirmation. He knows it. He can smell it.
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