by A J Gala
“The healing is a little ahead of schedule.”
Kenway folded his arms. “So what’s going on? You’re quiet. You’re never quiet during recovery. I expected you to be—” he started to shrug defensively, “—well, honestly, I expected you to be wasted. So what’s bothering you? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. If it were nothing, a boar wouldn’t have sent you flying six feet into the air.”
“Do we really have to do this?”
“Yes, we do.”
Aleth grumbled and hunched over the bar. “It’s Tizzy. She’s… I don’t know. I guess she’s driving me crazy.”
“What? Really?”
Aleth rubbed his forehead, searching for the right words, trying to avoid the ones that might actually set him free. “I’m worried about her. And lately, it feels like all she ever wants to talk about is me and what I’ve been through, and how I’ve changed, and if I’m okay—”
“All of those are important conversations.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk about it!” When he raised his voice, the sickness of worry was immediately consumed. “It makes it really hard to move on when everyone keeps bringing this stuff up! I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to think about it—none of this is stuff that’s going to suddenly get better because I’ve discussed it a hundred times! Instead of everyone dragging it out and making me live through it again, how about we all just forget about it and let me bring it up when I’m ready?”
Kenway stood with his hands neatly behind his back. He nodded through the tirade and even grinned when Aleth grumbled an apology.
“It’s alright. Is this about you running away from the Convent in the middle of that storm that you definitely should have waited out? If it’s that hard to talk about, why not tell her to leave you alone?”
Truthfully, it was a bit about running from Torah and the Convent, a bit about the vision, a bit about Maran, and it was a bit about Tizzy catching onto his fears. He had too many things chasing him.
He glared at Kenway. “You want me to tell her to leave me alone? You do that and tell me how it goes.”
“Come on, is she really that bad?”
“If I tell her to leave me alone, no matter how I phrase it, she’s going to think something is wrong, and then it’ll be the end of the world.”
“But something is wrong.”
“No, it’s not. I’m fine. I just need her to talk about something else long enough for me to feel like myself again. I don’t want to talk about things that happened to me at the Convent. Or anywhere else.”
Kenway patted his shoulder again. “If you say so. You did a good job out there, all things considered. Let me know if you want to go on another hunt. A little bit of mortal danger always seems to do you well.”
He walked off down one of the halls, and Aleth was alone again. He lamented having nothing to do to keep him busy, but he knew Naia wouldn’t give him any work until his wound had healed. He had just barely healed from the last one before getting roughed up again and was surprised she hadn’t come around to say something about it.
He could hear so much going on behind him. A few patrons remarked on the state of the public baths, though he knew for a fact that Mayriel and Velana had cleaned them in the morning before he’d left for the hunt. Naia and Yasuo gossiped at the front door for all of two seconds before Tizzy interrupted them, asking why the woodpile was so low.
The conversation was a back and forth of Naia and Tizzy complaining about something, but he was pulled away from it when Maran set a glass down in front of him. He hadn’t even noticed her step behind the bar to start serving. He looked at the smoky amber liquor inside and the deep red pool at the bottom and fought the urge to scowl.
“Is this the only way anyone knows how to appease me?”
She rubbed her bandaged wrist with shame. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”
He picked the glass up, swirled it, and took a hefty sip. He held it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing, trying to get a taste for her blood, then set the glass down. Hers had been the blood added to Troll Daughter’s concoction.
“You couldn’t offend me if there wasn’t some truth to it.”
He watched her closely. She kept her eyes down and her posture small and demure. He didn’t know her, but he wasn’t buying it.
“I don’t wish to be a wedge between the two of you,” she finally said.
“But you are.”
She was desperate for words, but then a patron asked for a drink. She left to oblige, and when she came back, she was as apprehensive as ever.
“Why must it be that way?” she asked him as though their conversation hadn’t missed a beat. “Don’t we all have goals that benefit one another?”
“No.” He drank again. He could feel that Naia was watching him from the front desk.
“We don’t?”
“No. But what I want has never mattered anyway.”
“Why shouldn’t it? What do you want?”
He sat up straight and folded his arms. “I want out. Of this life.”
And there it was. For just a split second, he saw what he knew was there. A fierceness in her fired up and then died just as fast. She leaned in close enough to whisper.
“Then we must do this together! Neither of us wants our roles in this dark world we’re stuck in, so isn’t your goal ultimately the same as mine?”
He scoffed and shook his head. “I should have known. She’s just the means to an end for you, isn’t she?”
“As am I to her! If you want out, you’ve got to fight the ones keeping you in, so let me help! This works in my favor just as much as it does yours! We must work together!”
He hadn’t meant to entertain the thought, but his mind suddenly ran. If there was one person he could entrust with his vision, could it be her? But she would grow feeble in Tizzy’s shadow, just as everything else would, and she’d let it slip. And what if that was the thing that set everything into motion?
He raised the glass. “Sure. Why the fuck not?” He took another drink. “I’m sick of trying to do the right thing when all anyone ever does is try to talk me out of it. Fighting with everyone has clearly gotten me nowhere. Clearly, the only choice I have is to give in to what I am.” He locked eyes with her and stared into her sad, soulful face. “But nothing good is at the end of this path, Maran. You have to know that.”
“This is the only path I have.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “If I let myself believe what you say, then what’s the point? Of anything? Of living? I don’t have it like you do. You can choose to stand up and fight or back down whenever you want, but I don’t. If I stand up and fight, we all know what happens to me. So, I have to see something bright in the bleakness ahead, or I’ll have nothing.”
Her words were the heaviest thing in the room. He felt them with a sigh and leaned on the bar top. Bloodslaves weren’t known for their fulfilling futures or longevity. He remembered the stories he’d heard at the Convent, including one from an old nightwalker who used to have one of his own. His bloodslave had met her end when a vampire hunted her down. The nightwalker didn’t want him to have her, but he was losing the fight against the vampire and let the bloodslave bleed out from a fatal wound right in the heat of battle.
The same nightwalker had his head bashed in only days after he’d told the story. In an argument with Lilu. Aleth had been fifteen when he’d watched it happen. He rubbed his temples of the memory and finished the drink in front of him.
“I know when Tizzy puts you up to these things,” he told Maran. “I know when you’re saying her words, and the ones you just said to me have been the only ones of your own you’ve said to me since we met.”
She caught a chill and rubbed her arms. “I have said more than just that. It’s true that I don’t wish to push you two away from each other.”
“You just want us both protecting you. Doubles your chances, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I won’t die a husk by the hands of a gl
utton like so many others of my kind have.”
“Are you at least afraid of her?” He cocked his head. “You’re certainly not afraid of me.”
“I used to fear her.” Maran glanced up, and her lips tried to turn up into a grin but didn’t quite make it. “After getting to know her more, I feel safer with her than I have with the others. And you, of course I don’t fear you. My very existence puts you on edge. You are the one who fears me.”
“I fear what you’ll turn us into.”
“Believe me.” Her voice was nearly a whisper. “I don’t want that to happen either.”
“Hey!” Naia barked from the front counter, waving her arm in the air. “Maran, come here for a minute!”
Maran heeded the call, and Yasuo came to run the bar. Aleth slipped back into the kitchen, feeling worse than when he’d left. Fortunately, Troll Daughter was back at her station, hacking away at the boar carcass. He started picking through the basket of goods he’d helped sniff out during the hunt, and the greenkind handed him a bowl of water and a clean rag.
She was excited about all the things she could make with the wild onions and asked where he had found all of them.
“You know the big walnut tree at the end of the ridge going toward Sheerspine River?” he asked.
She asked if it was the one with the blackberry bushes.
“Yeah.” He picked at a clump of dirt clinging to the roots of a handful of greens. “I always thought the ridge dropped off after the bushes, but if you can squeeze past them, there’s a patch full of wild onions.”
Troll Daughter growled with laughter for his good fortune and made more small talk about the things he had found. He sat on the rug by the fire to work, setting the basket in his lap, and let his shoulders relax.
Neither Aleth nor Troll Daughter realized they were not alone as they talked.
Tizzy was there with an armload of wood, just on the other side of the kitchen door, holding in a breath as she debated going back in. She had heard most of Aleth’s conversation with Kenway, and then she’d heard most of his conversation with Maran. Both had left her heartbroken. She leaned against the door, listening to the laughter inside. She didn’t want to ruin it.
“I don’t get it,” she whispered to herself. Even when talking to Kenway and Maran, he had been so skittish to speak his mind. Though when he did, the problem was clearly with her. “But I can fix it. I can fix this.” She took a deep breath and walked in.
“Hey!” She was beaming. “Wow, Doddie.” She was a little taken back by the increase in gore at the greenkind’s chopping block but didn’t stop grinning. “You have done an excellent job processing that boar.”
“Panks.”
Tizzy assumed she had just been thanked for the compliment. Casually, she approached Aleth by the fire and started piling up the wood next to him. She didn’t say anything but gazed up at him with a blush across her cheeks.
“What is it?” He was hesitant to ask.
“I was just thinking that I wish we had been able to go to Davrkton, after all.” She had dreamed up a whole day for them and thought back on it, back when they had thought of going just after she’d been brought back to the Convent for the first time. “It would have been fun.”
The relief he felt almost showed on his face. “I would have preferred that a thousand times over what actually happened that day.” He was able to keep a “Fuck Rhett,” under his breath.
“An understatement.” She huffed an uneasy little laugh and sat down with a knife to strip the bark. With each pass of the blade, she could feel the scratching of the dirt and the debris beneath her as the Hunters had dragged her away in the middle of the night. The cold splash of water that had roused her to their encounter with Rhett and the Hunters invaded her. She shook the memories from her mind and tried to refocus.
“So how are you feeling?” she asked, clearing her throat. “You look a lot better than you did when Kenway brought you back, that’s for sure.”
“Almost whole again.” He had control of the conversation. He could keep it from going the route it had been going so long as he chose his words carefully. Convince her you’re fine. “The worst part, really, was how frustrated Kenway got with me for not shifting back when the boar got me. I couldn’t! I had to wait till we came back so I could put my clothes back on.”
She couldn’t steady the knife through her giggle. “He had to carry a dog, a dead boar, and a basket full of onions all by himself.”
“And he managed it just fine.” He smiled, wiping the dirt off the onion bulbs. “He should have been looking out for me better. He was the one with a weapon. I was just out there being a good dog.”
She was still laughing, trying very hard to keep her hand out of the way of the blade. Even after she stripped the bark, however, the wood she had scavenged was too wet to burn. She stacked it in a pile by the boar’s hide to dry.
“I um…” Tizzy paused and pursed her lips. “Something important happened, and I didn’t get the chance to tell you about it.”
As she was learning to expect, Aleth’s face showed suspicion. This time, he mimicked her own pursed lips.
“What happened?”
“My Ethereal form wandered off again! This time I saw Allanis!”
She didn’t hide how happy it had made her. Aleth listened, his chore slowing to a halt.
“It was so nice to see her again,” Tizzy said. “I miss her and Athen so much. She’s different now. It hasn’t been very long at all, and it’s already like she’s completely grown up. Really, she should have done it ages ago.” She giggled at the thought, then stopped. “What’s the matter?”
“What? Nothing.”
“You’re so quiet.”
He wasn’t really sure how else to be. “Do you, um…” He already wished he could take the question back, but the rosy smile on her face pulled it out of him. “Do you regret leaving with me?”
“No!” Her heart ached for him. “Aleth, I miss them, and yes, leaving was difficult and painful, but…”
Her words trailed off, and she stood behind him, leaning over enough to catch his eyesight.
“But I would leave them a thousand times over if it meant I could see you again.”
He reached for her arms and wrapped them around his shoulders. No matter how much she troubled him, her embrace always stilled him. There was nothing else like it.
“I thought one of the reasons you kept trying to get me to go back was because you regretted leaving with me.”
She tightened her hold and leaned into him. “I want to go back because I’m not ready to accept that I might have to choose between you and them.”
“What if you did? What would you choose?”
She rolled her eyes and kissed his forehead. “I made the choice once already, didn’t I?”
He turned his head down, hiding his impossible grin while she pulled away.
“Come on.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”
He looked back at Troll Daughter. “Tizzy, I don’t think you understand how a job works.”
She laughed. “Oh, it’ll be fine. Doddie, we’ll be back in a little bit!”
Reluctantly, Aleth stood and followed Tizzy. Troll Daughter grunted as they left the kitchen without any tasks completed, but in truth, she was pleased to have her space back to herself.
Tizzy led Aleth through the common room and up the stairs, not regarding Naia, Maran, or Yasuo for even a second. Aleth’s chest was tight as he followed her inside their room, but he wasn’t without hope. Maybe she understood more than he was giving her credit for. Maybe this wouldn’t turn into another probing conversation. Maybe it wouldn’t turn into another of her promises that she’d only be as much of an indulgent nightwalker as she had to be.
Maybe, just maybe, that conversation could reach its end.
“I brought Knight of the Red Castle with me,” she told him, shutting the door behind them. “I was thinking of doing some reading. It’ll be good to hide away for
a little while, right?”
“Are you going to read it with the voices?”
“I have to!”
He vowed to keep the mood light. “You missed your calling. You should’ve gone into theater. You would’ve been a great actress.”
“I’ve still got time, right?” She started pulling blankets off the bed. “Maybe once this is all over and some time has passed, I’ll start fresh somewhere. I could be an actress!”
The innocent thought warmed him. “You could.” He let himself smile and watched her curiously.
She lit a fire in the hearth with what little wood was left in their room, then bunched up the blankets, so they had a cozy space in front of it. She kicked off her boots and laid down with the book that had been placed neatly on the floor.
“Perfect!” She sighed. “I’ll fix it all later, I swear.”
He followed her lead and joined her. “No, you won’t.”
“I’ll fix it a little! Unless you want to just sleep like this. I think I could fall asleep.”
He shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable, but nothing felt right. He settled for sitting hunched over and picked at an out of place thread in the blanket.
“You fell asleep just fine in a bed of pine needles,” he said.
“I loved that. Camping out by the river before we went through with that horrible idea of traveling with the ley lines? That was nice. What if—” she bit her lip, “—what if we just left Maran here, ditched everything, and wandered the land? Maybe even leave the mainland completely?” She knew nothing would have made him happier. “Gods, I would love to be so irresponsible.”
“Tizzy.” This wasn’t working. He took the book out of her hands and set it down. He searched her face, the confusion in her brow and the waiting in her eyes. He whispered to her. “Convince me that I have nothing to worry about. Please.”
Tizzy sat up and turned away, looking into the fire. It cracked loudly as it struggled to come to life. What could she possibly say to Aleth? He was stuck on Maran. Again. Nothing that she was going to do would come as a comfort to him. She had to tiptoe the very line he begged her not to cross if she was ever going to stop the Hunters. She knew he would see things in her that he didn’t like, but what other choices were there? If she intended to save her family as well as herself, there were none.