How hard could it be?
Daunted, Bannan went in search of Tir. Hopefully using a scythe would prove easier than writing.
There had to be something she could do.
Jenn scuffed her bare feet on the road. But what?
Her Uncle Horst had changed again, which went to prove how little she must know of her elders. Not to forget Riss, who’d promised, before she left, to tell her more stories of her mother.
And asked her, poignantly, not to tell anyone about her and Sennic and their years of secret love.
Secrets weren’t comfortable. This one felt like wearing shoes; it pinched and the world tilted intolerably. Riss and Uncle Horst deserved to be happy. If she had her way, they’d marry on the Ancestors’ Golden Day too. The more weddings shared the dance, the better the dancing would be.
Another of their aunt’s sayings, less happy, came to mind. The older the knot, the harder to undo. It applied to secrets, Jenn realized glumly, as well as to rope. She couldn’t see how to undo this secret, or where to even start.
Bees droned past. Wainn’s old pony nickered hungrily from the commons; someone must be picking apples. Marrowdell remained the same, regardless of secrets, and gave her advice.
It wasn’t up to her to change things. Jenn firmed her chin. She’d promised to keep silent and she would. Any undoing must be up to Riss and Uncle Horst. All she could do was hope for the best.
Feeling a little better, she headed for the mill.
“Hello, Poppa,” Jenn called as she came through the large open doors, blinking as her eyes adjusted. On spotting Uncle Horst, she almost missed a step.
He’d changed into his riding leathers and stood near the open mill casing. Radd and Tir were turning the crane on its pivot to bring it above the first millstone, the huge metal arms ready to take hold and lift.
“Hello,” her father greeted, eyes on his task. “How was your mother?”
Tir looked mildly curious. Uncle Horst’s face was set and expressionless, until their eyes met and she saw a plea in their depths. She gave the tiniest of nods. Lips pressed tight, he nodded back.
“Peaceful,” Jenn assured her father. For Uncle Horst’s sake, she added, “I prefer the Midwinter Beholding, though. Sharing faults feels more virtuous when I’m up to my knees in snow and half-frozen.”
Her father chuckled, recognizing one of his sister’s sayings. “You’re in time to help the stones go in,” he said, patting the crane’s wooden upright. “Jenn’s done that since she was taller than the case,” to Tir.
Jenn smiled her delight. The millstones were almost as wide as she was tall, and two handspans thick. She loved how the crane floated them into place; how a finger’s touch could spin them upright or flat. Their own magic.
Except, setting the stones brought summer to an end; it meant the harvest was nigh and so was everything else.
Uncle Horst gave a brusque nod. “I’ll be on my way, then. The mist will be off the valleys by now. Anything more you want from Endshere?”
“No, no. What’s on the list will do. Mind you leave the bandits in peace,” her father grinned.
“They’d best leave me that way,” Uncle Horst replied. It was an old joke; bandits on the Northward knew better than to ambush armed men on horseback.
But this time, there was something different in the old soldier’s voice, something hard and almost hopeful.
They all stared at his stiffly straight, leather-clad back as he left. “What’s got into him?” her father murmured.
Tir lifted his mask to spit to one side. “Sure he’s coming back?”
When her father didn’t answer right away, Jenn said, “Of course he is!” more sharply than she’d intended. “Uncle Horst belongs here.”
“He’ll be back with the livestock,” her father agreed, which wasn’t the same nor reassuring, not when his eyes remained fixed on the empty doorway and troubled. “Let’s set the stones,” he ordered, turning back to the crane. “The gears need greasing next, and there’s oil to go on the leathers. Ancestors Witness, harvest’s not going to wait for us.”
Uncle Horst would be back, Jenn told herself. He’d be back to stay, and be married to Riss, and be happy all of his days.
She couldn’t imagine Marrowdell without him.
She wouldn’t.
He’d come for supper, not this.
Wyll regarded the envelope on his empty plate with dismay. The last such had sent him rushing to the Nalynns, which had been wrong, according to Jenn Nalynn, yet resulted in right, according to her father and aunt.
This was likely as fraught with expectation and possible failure.
Supper waited. He could smell it. He’d missed lunch and midafternoon tea. And snacks. He approved of snacks, which came at pleasantly unpredictable intervals, like successful hunts.
But first . . .
“It’s from Jenn,” Bannan explained, adding lightly, “I received one too.”
Refusing to snarl at this, Wyll pried open the seal, as the old villager had shown him, and pulled out the part to be read. As he’d feared, it was in script, rather than the clear print of books. He worked his way, slowly, through the words.
Dearest Wyll. I must call you that, for who I see is different from Wisp, my meadow friend, though you’re the same, of course, and I can’t say I saw much of you as Wisp at all. Does this confuse you too? I’m very sorry if it does. I didn’t mean for you to be hurt or unhappy. I asked the toad to tell you so. I thought only of myself and shouldn’t have. I promise to do better in every way.
For a start, let me explain why I left the farm and why I won’t see you for the next few days. There’s so much to do for the weddings, although I think some of it is a little silly, which I would never say to Aunt Sybb because she wants everything to be perfect and proper for us. Tomorrow Poppa will set the millstones, which you know means the harvest is almost here and there’s much to do for that as well. Roche’s being broody and not helping, so Uncle Horst’s taking him along to Endshere to fetch the mail and meet the twins. I love it when the livestock comes back. They pretend to be wild and snort, but they want petting.
I will write to you every day. You must write to me.
Jenn
“There’s more on the back,” Tir pointed out, and Wyll anxiously turned the paper over to read.
I meant to start replanting Night’s Edge as a surprise, but I can’t do anything about it now and the sooner we start, the sooner it will be back as it was. Would you please spread any wildflower seeds you can find over our meadow? Asters would be especially nice. I’ll collect what I can here.
Thank you for the rose.
The rose had given itself.
The seeds?
She meant well; he doubted restoring Night’s Edge would be so simple.
Nor was Jenn Nalynn’s other request. “She asks that I write,” Wyll said, trying not to sound desperate.
“If you pen your passion quick enough, I’ll take it with Bannan’s tonight,” offered the warrior, his eyes lively with mischief.
The man was writing too? Disconcerted, Wyll frowned. In the stories the girl liked best, letters were vital, as often as not leading to unforeseen conclusions. Unforeseen to him, at least; she’d sigh happily. “You wrote of passion?”
“Pardon?”
“Fair question, sir.” Tir appeared vastly entertained. “Coming from a dragon.”
“It’s nothing of the sort.” A sequence of expressions flickered across Bannan’s face, none easily identifiable. Finally, “I’ll answer this once. No.”
“Good.” Wyll put the letter and envelope aside. “I’m ready for supper.” Still, this matter of letters was troubling. “I need paper.”
“Just paper?”
“And supper.”
Tir leaned back, hands behind his head. “Ancestors Famished and Faint, we’d have that by now, but someone won’t share his fancy stove.”
Bannan laughed and rose. “You can try it tomorrow,” he
said cheerfully. “Today’s a celebration. Care for wine, friend dragon? I can’t offer a glass, but I found cups.”
Tir looked at Wyll and jerked a thumb at the truthseer. “He’s in a rare fine mood for a man who can’t cut grass to save himself.”
“Who wouldn’t be? Good company—” Hands protected by rags, Bannan pulled a crockery pot from within the stove, aromatic steam rising as he removed the lid. “—good food, and nothing but good in our futures.”
Had he ever been this young? Wyll wondered.
Sausage stew in their bowls, wine in their cups, the three sat to eat. “Hearts of our Ancestors,” Bannan commenced.
Wyll resigned himself to the delay.
“We are Beholden for this food, for it will give us the strength to improve ourselves in your eyes. We are Beholden for the chance to make our homes, for it gives promise to our lives.” The truthseer smiled before saying, “We are Beholden for the kindness of Jenn Nalynn and others, for their help and encouragement—”
What had been in his letter from the girl?
“However far we are apart,” Bannan finished, “Keep Us Close.”
Tir echoed the words; Wyll didn’t bother. He didn’t care what she’d written to anyone else. “She will live with me.”
Bannan lifted his cup and tilted his head. “We’ll see.”
Letters and a challenge.
Unknowing the stakes, they played their games. Like the toads and ylings, they built and created and believed themselves safe.
That nothing terrible and swift could happen, to sweep it all away.
“What I see are fools!” Wyll shoved himself from the table, the force rattling the dishes, and lurched to his feet. “For the girl’s sake, I’ve warned you. Hide what you are from the turn-born. Be on guard as the Great Turn approaches, for others come to Marrowdell.” He snarled. “Why do I bother? You are weak, weak and helpless. How dare you love her?”
The truthseer rose as well, his face gone pale.
“So it’s love now?” Tir asked with a grin.
Wyll turned away and left, uninterested in the answer.
Hungry and furious, he made his way to Night’s Edge to discharge his first duty. With its tall grass cut and raked, the farmyard was easier walking and fragrant. He didn’t care, sending breezes to topple the piles. Seeds gathered like an angry swarm of bees behind him, and followed him to the ruin of their meadow and his content.
Wyll stopped at the path’s end. The seeds roared past and flung themselves on the ground.
To wink into ash.
What had he expected? He wasn’t turn-born, to will the course of nature this way or that. Just as well, the dragon growled to himself, wishing instead for claws and something to rend.
The turn would come soon, bringing the damp and the dark. Dragging his useless leg through rot and ash, Wyll hurried as best he could across Night’s Edge, intent on his second duty, to write back to Jenn Nalynn.
Not that he knew how to write.
A powerful gust rocked him to one side. ~ WE TRIED! ~ A wail from the sky.
They dared much, crossing back so soon.
~ We failed! ~ from the other. ~ Why didn’t you help? ~ from below.
As if he could do what they could not.
Last night, the girl had twisted the edge itself, yet remained innocent of her power.
Not so his peers. Having tasted that terror, now they sought his council. Swift to condemn him, smug at his penance. How quickly need renewed respect.
Fools.
Struck by a broomstick. Had he claws, he’d score their hides for that carelessness. Ignoring them, Wyll kept on his way. They crowded close, heedless and desperate, wingbeats raising choking clouds of dead meadow as they wailed like those already lost. ~ What can we DO?! ~
~ Can you write a letter? ~ he asked. Their confused silence amused him, but only for a moment. ~ THEN YOU’RE OF NO USE! ~
Ash darkened the sky as they scattered, to fall like gray snow.
Peace at last.
But no solution. Wyll snarled. To keep Jenn Nalynn safe and prevent disaster, he needed to be a man, not a dragon, and write a letter.
How?
He worried at the question within the shade of the neyet and as he made his slow way home through the hidden meadow. He pondered as flowers and grasses wiped ash from his shoes and pant cuffs, breezes doing the rest, but nothing came to mind.
Once home, removing the comb from his pocket, Wyll let a breeze tidy and fold his clothes. The comb he’d taken; let Bannan find another. The regard for hair and clothing he’d discovered, having observed Bannan with his own.
He’d taken something else, too.
A book.
Bannan kept the volume by his mattress; they’d been watching him leave, not what followed out a window.
The books Jenn Nalynn brought to their meadow were nicer and better treated than this old and tattered thing, but it was paper and held words.
Words were a start.
He sat within his home, this sun’s final light breaking through crystal and the remains of neyet, and used teeth and his good hand to rip the book apart, pages scattering on the moss like moth wings.
That was satisfying.
With more care, he let breezes shred each page until words and phrases drifted around him, tipped this way and that like flower petals. “Ands” and “thes.” “Hes” and “shes.” “Swords” and “heroes.” “Forevers” and “never agains.”
A few escaped through the open doorway.
With rare patience, Wyll picked through the words, arranging those he wanted, just so, on a bare piece of crystal.
Now what?
~ Attend me, little cousin, ~ the dragon demanded, well aware the creature crouched nearby. When the house toad appeared in his doorway, “fair” and “adamant” stuck on its warts, he pointed to what he’d made. ~ I’ve need of your tongue. ~
~ Elder brother? ~ It clamped its lipless mouth shut.
~ I will send these words, in this order, to Jenn Nalynn. Open your mouth and let me stick them to your tongue. You will then go to the village and show her. ~
The little cousins could change their appearance to better match their surroundings. This one went a sickly yellow and stood out. ~ I will do whatever you ask, elder brother, but are you sure about this? ~
~ Did you not boast she kissed you? ~
~ I may be wrong, elder brother, but I presumed that was more impulse than attraction. ~ It paused then said delicately, ~ There is also the girl’s lady aunt to consider. She makes a most unpleasant sound if she encounters us in the house. ~
Wyll shuddered. Offend Aunt Sybb?
As if sensing he wavered, the little cousin concluded briskly, ~ Might I suggest another means of sending these words? One more pleasing? ~ It stopped and blinked at him, an immovable lump of virtuous opinion, waiting to be asked.
There was a lower level to stoop than sei and fate had hitherto shown him.
The dragon spared a moment to be grateful his kind had left, and the old kruar remained in the village.
Ask indeed.
~ What . . . ~ he made himself say it ~ . . . other means, esteemed little cousin? ~
~ Wait here, elder brother! ~ With that joyous cry, the toad hopped from sight, “adamant” and “fair” flying free to lodge in a crack.
Helpless to do otherwise, Wyll bided his time letting breezes collect the unused words from the moss; the stories the girl enjoyed implied this exchange of letters was only the first, so he should be prepared. The resultant pile was larger than the book had been; perhaps the words, having escaped, relished their freedom from one another. He could understand that.
~ Elder brother. ~
The dragon sighed, very quietly, and turned.
The toad was not alone.
Two ylings hovered above it, slender limbs dangling. Outside the turn, their shapes flickered and fooled; sometimes leaf and sometimes other. These took pity on his man’s poorer sight, and ga
ve him their true selves: creatures of delicate beauty, with bright curious eyes and tufted ears. Their fine hair gathered and splintered sunlight, so sparks of red and yellow and green danced around them, and they wore short tunics the color of sun-touched bark. Their wings were gossamer and they had four arms and two legs, with strong little hands at the end of each. One yling bore a quiver filled with fearsome spears, each the length of a man’s finger; their barbed points poison-dipped. The other held a rolled bundle and a tiny basket.
Their cloaks, which took the seeming of leaves most of the time, were cunningly sewn of flower petals, spider silk, and seed fluff. The warrior’s was mostly brown and yellow, to blend with shadow and light. With a trill to his companion, he took hold of the top of Wyll’s doorway with one foot-hand and faced outward, spears at the ready.
In the Verge, ylings lived in cities suspended over calm lakes of mimrol, their snug buildings hung from threads that stretched from bank to bank, threads cleverly embedded with poisonous thorns to daunt even a careless dragon. At the turn, ylings would take flight to dance, dipping their thumbs in the silver liquid to weave ripples and rings. They were as lighthearted as their songs and feared no one.
Marrowdell’s ylings had learned distrust and terror. Trapped in a strange land, they’d survived by hiding within neyet, posting guards against what would climb and attack. Worse, they were again betrayed. When the turn-born expected certain neyet to sacrifice themselves as wood for a village, the ylings in their branches had been forced to flee, only to face hordes of waiting nyphrit.
Warriors like this had cast themselves into those hungry jaws, so the rest could escape.
Bravery had no one size or shape. Nor, Wyll thought with the old pain, had worth.
The warrior’s companion, cloaked in purple aster petals, floated downward to hover beside his rows of words. Her head tipped to one side, then the other as she examined them. All the while, her tall ears flicked nervously, as though she listened to something he couldn’t hear or was unsettled this close to a dragon.
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