“Oh, is that what it was?” said Kako, sauntering in their direction. Rafiq followed her closely, his stride just a little too stilted. “Well, we’d better get a move on, then. We can walk from here: there’s a nice place in Lo’him where we can get food and beds...and hot baths,” she added, for Carmine’s benefit.
“Should we–” Dion started, then stopped. She didn’t really expect anyone to pay attention, but both Barric and Padraig were looking at her expectantly, and Kako said: “Go on, then.”
“Well, I’ve just thought of something,” she said slowly. “The shards are attracted to each other.”
“I suspected so right away,” said Carmine immediately.
Dion couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, all right, we all know it. But I’ve been wondering if we should be staying somewhere that’s as full of Fae as a Shinpoan town. That Fae back at the border– why did he have one of the shards? What if more of them have shards?”
“What if they do?” Padraig said. “I feel nothing when I hold the shard. The magic is not for Fae.”
“No,” said Kako, her dark eyes thoughtful. She exchanged a worried look with Dion. “But what if the Fae found out about it? They already know we’re trying to collect the shards: it strikes me that it’s a very handy way of finding out where we are. Or of predicting where we’ll be.”
“Let them come,” said Rafiq, with a rather heated smile that alarmed Dion. “Fae are just as deliciously chewable as humans.”
“Even if they did find out,” said Fancy. “Would it matter? I mean, they’d know about it, but they couldn’t use it. The shard wouldn’t let them.”
“I don’t know,” Dion said. “That’s why I’m worried.”
Barric’s eyes flitted from Kako to Dion. “Has the next shard moved at all?”
“No,” said Kako, while Dion shook her head.
“Then on to baths and beds,” said Carmine firmly. “I refuse to spend a night in the straw for a threat that may not exist.”
Barric hesitated, his eyes still on Dion. She, unwilling to annoy the rest of the company for a fear so unfounded, said quickly: “We might as well. Kako’s right: the shard hasn’t moved.”
“Then we’d best be moving,” said Barric, after another brief pause. “We’ve already lost the light. Will they let us in after dark?”
“They’re used to us arriving at odd hours,” said Kako cheerfully. “Send out that little glow-light of yours, Carmine. We’re going to need it.”
Dion was beginning to feel the dampness of a dewy morning by the time they found themselves on the rutted main road of Lo’him. She was feeling decidedly refreshed thanks to her dragon-back sleep, her mind far too busy with thoughts of Aerwn and the finding of the next shard to welcome the idea of sleep. Padraig wasn’t so fortunate: his yawns were many and contagious, and even Barric was stifling a yawn while Kako bargained with an inn-keeper for the use of half the inn. As she had promised, the keeper didn’t seem to find it unusual to receive guests in the early hours of the morning, and it wasn’t long before they had commandeered a small common-room upstairs with a shared bathing chamber opening into it, one small dining room downstairs, and two double-rooms beside that.
Padraig said: “Looks like we’ll be sharing,” and wriggled his eyebrows at Dion. Barric bore him off by the neck like a recalcitrant puppy with barely a twitch of his scar, leaving Carmine to do his own eyebrow wriggling at Fancy until she shooed him away as well.
There was already breakfast laid out in the dining room when Dion rose the next morning. None of the other women were awake, so she left their bedroom quietly without doing more than dressing in her clothes from yesterday. Despite the earliness of the hour, someone had already cleaned them, and Dion was equally charmed to see the breakfast laid when she briefly put her head around the dining room door. She took her time in the washing chamber: it was small, but equipped with very decent magic-assisted plumbing, a pleasure she hadn’t enjoyed since she left Harlech. Besides, it unlikely that anyone besides Barric would also be up this early to interrupt her. Secure in that knowledge, Dion was therefore very much surprised to find Padraig already in the dining room when she returned thither, her stomach growling.
“Top of the morning to you, cherry,” he said, his chair propped on its two back legs. “I wouldn’t be putting your pretty head out of doors this morning if I were you: the streets are crawling with Fae. It’s a nasty sight this early in the morning, to be sure.”
Dion, who had been helping herself liberally from one of the hot dishes, frowned. “Why? This is such a small town: I thought we’d manage to avoid that sort of thing until we were further into Shinpo.”
“Aye, but it’s near enough to the border,” said Padraig. “Could be they’ve heard rumours of an uprising in Llassar and want to strengthen their borders.”
“So long as they don’t cross it to help the Fae in Llassar,” Dion said, her breakfast losing all appeal.
“It’ll not come to that,” Padraig said comfortably, setting his chair back on all four legs. “Don’t shake your curls at me, cherry. Shinpoan Fae may have nudged across the border to snabble us, but they’re not likely to cross the border in numbers. If there’s one thing I know, it’s the Fae; selfish, inward-looking bunch that we are. We divide naturally into cantons and factions, each of us wanting to be lord of our own domain and unwilling to give way to the others. It’s why we need the Guardians, think on. We none of us love them, but we do need them.”
“The Guardians are a sort of Watch, then?” Dion said doubtfully. She would have sat down a few seats away if Padraig, leaning forward, hadn’t tugged at the hem of her jerkin and made her sit down rather suddenly beside him, her plate tilting dangerously.
“No need to be stand-offish, cherry,” he said, resting his arm along the back of her chair. “Aye, it could be said that the Guardians are a kind of Watch: they keep us from being too much at each other’s throats and stop us when we step beyond our bounds. It’s as if when the races were made, the Seelie and Unseelie were made for all uncaring lightness, and the Guardians all staidness and responsibility.”
“Then why–” Dion stopped, aware that her question could be construed as ungrateful. Padraig raised his brows encouragingly, and she went on: “Then why is Barric the only one helping us?”
“That’s the thing, now,” said Padraig. “They’re a small, lonely race, the Guardians. I know of no more than five of them: all big brutes like Barric, and mighty long-lived, even for Fae. They move in shadows and prophecy. No doubt they’ve been looking and planning and waiting for you ever since you were a gleam in your father’s eye. They move mountains on the wing of the butterfly; here a little, there a little, always unseen until the whole crumbles all at once.”
“That’s exactly what it was like!” Dion said. “A flutter here and there, and suddenly, an avalanche.” She ate in silence for a few minutes, very much aware of Padraig twining his fingers in the corkscrew ends of her curls; then turned her face toward him. “Do you ever wonder if you’ll get it right? The reforging, I mean?”
“Oh, I know well enough what needs to be done,” said Padraig, with a smile. “’Tis the simplest and most difficult thing in the world. What of you, cherry? Was the big man’s teaching inadequate?”
“Of course not!”
“Softly, cherry,” murmured Padraig, his eyes laughing at her. “I’m not criticising the big man: it occurred to me that you’re not so sure of your own part.”
“I am,” said Dion uncertainly; “and I’m not. Barric couldn’t teach me exactly what to do because no one knows exactly what needs to be done.”
“He’s been turning up in your mirror for the last ten years to teach you nothing in particular? I fully understand the urge to keep visiting you, cherry, but that strikes me as a little odd.”
“He didn’t teach me nothing!” said Dion. She found that she had leaned forward in her indignation, and that Padraig was also leaning in, his lips curving. She sat back rather
hurriedly. “He taught me magic. Not so much spells and workings, but magic itself. How it moves and behaves, how it joins together, and why it does what it does. He told me from the beginning that he wouldn’t be able to teach me just what to do.”
Padraig seemed to sober, but there was still a suggestion of laughter to his eyes. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know,” said Dion. “That’s why I can’t stop thinking about the Binding. What if I get it wrong?”
“Tell me something, cherry,” Padraig said, leaning forward again. “For such a faunish little thing, I’ve not yet seen you shy away from the prophecy. Are you really not afraid to die?”
“That’s the easy bit,” said Dion, uncomfortable at the implied praise. “I don’t have to worry about doing it the wrong way. I’m afraid of failing almost everything else, but I know I can do that. I’m not brave, Padraig: I never have been. I’ve been a coward for as long as I can remember.”
“It’s an odd thing,” Padraig said thoughtfully. “Just when I think it’s not possible to be any more in love with you than I am, you say something that makes me love you even more.”
Dion said faintly: “Love?”
“Are you done with your breakfast, cherry?” Padraig took the fork from her nerveless fingers and put it across her unfinished meal. “Wonderful. I’ve been wanting to do this for weeks now.”
If Dion hadn’t been frozen in her seat, she could probably have avoided the kiss. It wasn’t a cheeky thing like the one he had given Dion before she left him in Harlech, or the smothering thing that had happened in Bithywis: it came softly and gently, almost inevitably. Padraig pulled her to the edge of her seat, one hand at the small of her back and the other cupping her cheek, and Dion felt her heart start again with a shock. When he let her go, polished wood screeched against polished wood as she stood abruptly, knocking her chair back across the floor.
“Cherry,” said Padraig, his hands out to his sides as if calming a skittish horse. “Now cherry, don’t–”
Dion turned and whipped out of the room, hear heart pounding in her ears. She was halfway up the stairs before she realised that the common-room wasn’t the most private place in which to retreat; but much to her relief, Barric was the only one there. He saw her face and was on his feet in a moment. “What is it?”
Dion turned her face away, but she could no more lie to Barric now than she could when she was a child. “It’s nothing– I, um– Padraig kissed me.”
Barric’s dagger snicked back into its sheath with an ominously loud snap. “I’ll go have a word with the Unseelie scab.”
“No!” said Dion quickly, snatching at his arm. And if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t really the kiss that had overthrown her so. What had overthrown her were the words that had come before. Her face was still hot and red, but she looked up at Barric properly anyway. He gazed down at her in surprise, and the smallest twitch of a smile came and went on his face.
“Did you run away?”
“Not really,” Dion said. “Oh, I suppose so. I don’t know what to do when he– oh, and what’s the use, Barric? I’ll be dead soon. What will happen to Padraig then?”
“Padraig can look after himself,” said Barric. “He makes his own decisions– and he seems very determined about this one.”
“Yes,” said Dion feelingly. “Very determined.”
“Is he making a nuisance of himself?”
“No!”
Again, Barric’s scar pulled upward in a brief smile. “Then there’s nothing to fuss about.”
“No,” said Dion again, more doubtfully. “Oh, bother. I have to go back.” She heard a deep rumble and realised with some surprise that Barric was laughing. She didn’t remember him laughing before. “It’s all very funny now,” she said, unable to stop the smile that sprang into being. “But just wait until you’re in love and you don’t know what to do about it.”
The smile faded from Barric’s lips, though his eyes still seemed to smile. “That won’t be a problem,” he said. “Go and talk to your Unseelie Fae. I have blades to clean.”
“You always have blades to clean,” said Dion; but she hugged him and left him to his knives anyway. Once outside the door, she took a deep breath and made herself walk back downstairs, anticipation and anxiety fluttering in her stomach. She almost abandoned her purpose with her fingers on the doorknob itself; but while she hesitated, Padraig’s voice said softly from the other side of the boards: “I can hear you dithering, cherry. Am I to come out and fetch you?”
Dion froze; then, with an uncharacteristic burst of bravery, opened the door and slipped back in. Padraig was close enough both to her and the door that when he reached around her to close it, it left him with his arms around her. That, Dion was very well aware, was exactly how he wanted it, because he was smiling at her with a provocative amusement in his eyes.
“I’m sorry I ran away,” she said, flushing under the constancy of that gaze. “I didn’t mean– it’s just that you keep taking me by surprise.”
“Such a flatterer as you are, cherry! Are my kisses so dreadful?”
“No!’ said Dion. “I v-very much enjoy them!”
“Oh, in that case–” Padraig took a swift step closer, cupping his hands around her face, and pressed a soft, warm kiss on her lips.
Dion didn’t realise that tears had begun to glide down her cheeks until Padraig pulled back, smoothing them away with his thumbs. “Well now, what’s there to cry about?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” said Dion, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve. “You don’t– I’m going to die, Padraig.”
“Well, if it comes to that, so am I,” said Padraig, and kissed her again.
“It’s not the same! And there’s so little time left: the sooner I die, the better for Llassar and the rest of the world.”
“And can you,” murmured Padraig, kissing first her jaw, then her cheekbone, then her lips: “Can you think of a better way of spending your last weeks than to love and be loved? To what better use could those weeks be put, cherry? Would you worry them away?”
Dion looked into his bright, lively eyes, and for the first time in many years felt very sure of one thing. She said: “No. I can’t think of a better way to spend them.”
Then, because Padraig’s eyes were glowing down at her with an almost unbearable joy, she pulled his head back down and, for the first time, kissed him first.
“Carmine, I thought you wanted a bath.”
“I’ve had my bath,” said Carmine, stretching out luxuriously on one of the window-seats. His hair was still damp and artfully disarrayed, and Dion noticed in some amusement that his shirt was only half-laced.
Kako wrinkled her nose. “Then what’s that awful smell?”
“That, my Lady Dragon, is essence of violet,” Carmine said, entirely unembarrassed. “Fancy loves it, don’t you, Fancy?”
“Don’t pull me into this,” said Fancy.
“Try sleeping in the same room as that muck,” said Padraig, absorbed in wrapping Dion’s curls around his fingers. They had taken over the other window-seat, Dion leaning back into Padraig’s arms and watching the room through half-closed eyes. Padraig was as thoroughly relaxed as Carmine; and Dion, who had at first been embarrassed and stiff when he pulled her close in front of the entire room, had found herself growing steadily more comfortable. “It creeps in at your nostrils and clings like sticky-briar.”
“There’s a beautiful thought,” said Carmine lazily. “My Lady Dragon, you can’t sit on my lap: Fancy wouldn’t like it and she might hit me.”
“Shove over, then,” said Kako, her eyes on the street. Dion, watching them both with some amusement, thought that Kako must have quite a few siblings. “I don’t want to worry anyone, but I think that shard we’ve been following since yesterday started following us this morning.”
Dion sat straight up, her hand going instinctively to her shard. Kako was right: her shard was already hot to the touch. It probably had been for some time
while she was distracted– at first by the simple pleasure of a good bath and then by Padraig downstairs. She would have felt guiltier about that if Kako’s shard didn’t affect her own enough to make the warmth seem normal by now.
“We’ve got to stop carrying the shards separately,” she said. “It’s making it too hard to tell when another one’s getting nearer.”
“I second that,” said Kako. “Also, it might be a good idea to think about what we’re going to do if the Fae start using humans to track us with shards, because I think they already have. Started, that is. Look.”
Dion swivelled in dismay, her eyes darting to follow Kako’s. Between two alehouses further along, there was a definite stirring in the already busy street.
“Up!” snarled Barric, his own eyes also on the disturbance. Dion caught a brief glimpse of a young man looking down at something in his clasped hands, walking towards their inn at a swift pace. Behind him, glittering bright, was a company of well-armoured Fae. She was bundled away by Barric the next minute, hustled across the room to the windows on the other side. “Out.”
“It won’t do any good,” she protested, trying to fend off Barric on one side and Padraig on the other. “They’ll just follow us.”
“True enough, but we don’t choose to fight in close quarters,” said Padraig. “Cherry, I love you dearly, but I’ll not have you kicking me!”
“We can choose our ground outside,” said Barric.
“We wouldn’t make it further than the next street,” said Dion, still resisting but unable to prevent herself being shoved out the window. At the same time, Kako said: “What, the streets? How is that better? It might be more open, but if we’re brawling on the streets it will only be a matter of time before we’re bothered by more Fae.”
Padraig and Barric looked at each other. Barric gave a short, half nod. “All right,” said Padraig. “Close quarters it is. But you stay outside, cherry. We’ll barely have enough room for the three of us as it is.”
Shards of a Broken Sword Page 35