The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  Over and done, and not in the middle of a brawl and with guns blazing, but trapped in a cell, cowering against the wall, his last meal dripping down his chest. He was going to die quietly and with his last shameful tears drying on his cheeks.

  “It… I tried not to let them, but I couldn’t stop them.” He sounded utterly pathetic, but he couldn’t feel the mortification that should have come with the shaky tone of the words—just a swelling sense of cold, empty nothing. “I couldn’t ever stop them. I didn’t want it—you have to believe I didn’t want it, and I don’t… I don’t even think I care anymore, but you… I’ll ask you not to make it… hurt.”

  He lifted his head, tried to find Brayden’s gaze and couldn’t. He was even more blind now, the tears queering even the small focus he’d managed before. After all this time, all the desperate damned running, and now he was begging pity in his last moment from someone who was made not to have it. Some part of him lamented at the pathetic thing he’d become—the greater part of him was bone-tired and more than done. What good had pride ever done him, anyway?

  He dragged in a long breath, firmed his aching jaw. “I just don’t want to hurt anymore. You know how… you could do that… right?”

  The silence stretched forever, the weight of Brayden’s hands on his shoulders pulling him down and down, expecting any moment for those hands to twitch, shift, then slide in, close around his throat. It was better this way. No long, inescapable torture in whatever hovel the Brethren chose; no last chuckle from Siofra echoing off the cavernous walls of the Guild and following him into darkness. He would die the way he was meant to die, at the hands of the man who was meant to kill him. It was oddly fitting, in a way he’d refused to look at before.

  It was, beyond all sense, a relief.

  There was a welcome in his heart he’d never have believed five minutes ago, weary anticipation that was almost exquisite in its profound lack of sensation. A blissful numb that dulled all sense; the peace was sudden, absolute and unnervingly intense.

  And then Brayden let go, backed away until he was hovering on the edge of the little cot. “Mother’s Tits,” he breathed. “What happened to you?” A warm, broad hand closed over Wil’s left wrist, fingertips pressing into the lumpy scar. “How did you get this?” Brayden asked softly. “Was it the Guild?”

  Wil closed his eyes, gave a slow shake of his head. It was like he was an entirely different person. He didn’t care what he told this man anymore, didn’t care about the wrong words or the right lies. He didn’t even feel the need to tug his hand from the surprisingly gentle grip.

  “All right,” Brayden said slowly, blew out a deep breath in a long, noisy hiss. “All right.” He set Wil’s hand in his lap and pulled away. “I’m somehow ‘meant’ to kill you, is that what you think?”

  Something like a weary chuckle puffed out from Wil’s throat, and he closed his eyes, let his head fall back to the wall. He wondered abstractly if he was deliberately exposing his throat or if it was just an unthinking accident. More games, perhaps, but the question didn’t have the feel of it. He could play along, prolong the inevitable, or he could give in to the exhaustion, the pain, the relief, and direct his own suicide. Because how many times could a person be forced to stare his own mortality in the eye before he finally blinked?

  “You still don’t know what you are, do you?” he whispered.

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Guardian.” Wil smiled a little, shook his head. “Watcher, Hunter, Sentinel, Spy. Righteous Protector; Remorseless Avenger.” Eyes slitted, he peered up through his lashes. “How many more names would you like?” His lip curled back in a small, resentful snarl. “You’ve so many names and I haven’t a one.” He leveled a fuzzy glare in what he hoped was the constable’s general direction. “I’ve always thought that terribly unfair.”

  Brayden didn’t answer at first, only sat where he was, a great, dark blur on the edge of the cot. The blur shifted with the sound of a rough hand scraping over a stubbled chin.

  “And what am I meant to guard against?” he asked quietly.

  Wil sighed, drew himself in again, ran a hand through his hair then rested his head in his palm. “Me, of course,” was all he said.

  The silence this time wasn’t tense or weighted, merely long—perhaps because Wil had stopped caring what waited at the end of it. Brayden broke it with a small growl then the cot shifted abruptly as he stood, said, “Right,” and made a business of retrieving the spilt tray and empty bowl. “You’ve been reading the wrong faerie tales, I think,” he replied tightly. “Get out of those wet clothes, I’ve got a change here for you. Might as well leave your shirt off, I’m going to send for the healer and order your bath.”

  And then he was gone, closing the door of the cell brusquely behind him then barreling out the office without another word. Wil blinked into the stillness, tried to understand how he’d gone from an almost-eagerness to have an end, to an unexpected and not-wholly-welcome reprieve.

  And why did the fact that he wasn’t dead make him so all-fired furious?

  “I’ve been reading the wrong faerie tales,” he rasped, laughed a little. “That might have been terribly clever if I could read!” he shouted at the door, slumped back and rubbed lightly at his forehead, then flipped an obscene gesture at the door for good measure. It was… decidedly unsatisfying. Tried to figure out what the knot in his chest was…

  Odd. It had the feel of loss.

  “Maybe I do have a death wish,” he muttered.

  He didn’t know how long Brayden left him sitting there, alone, pondering this newest turn and trying to wrap his mind around what it might mean. The wrong faerie tales—except they weren’t faerie tales. They were Doctrine, Canon, passed down from the Hand of the Father and directly to the Guild. If anyone had got it wrong, it had to be Brayden, a man who’d been torn from his people before he’d been ordained, before he’d been told what he was and what his purpose was—a man who’d made his purpose the law, protecting the weak and victimized. Should it be a wonder that, when Fate finally showed him his purpose, he’d be conflicted?

  Except Fate was Fate, Destiny was Destiny—you couldn’t escape it, you couldn’t outrun it. It was possible that every kind gesture, every expression of concern from Brayden had been sincere, possible that he really did have the best of intentions, but none of that could stand against Fate. Perhaps when Destiny finally did take over, Wil would end up dead by Brayden’s hand purely accidentally, and Brayden might even feel bad about it, might even mourn a little… but it couldn’t change the inevitable outcome.

  Wil shook his head—cautiously, because fucking ow—reached up and unlaced the soggy strings of his tunic. The fabric was cold and heavy against his chest, and he carefully peeled it off and over his head with a grimace of both disgust and mild pain. He had to wrestle the sleeve over the lump of linen that was his right hand. With several bouts of cursing interspersed with wincing and hissing, he got loose of the shirt. There was cold soup all over his lap, but he left his trousers on, removed his stockings, the cool of the stone floor against his bare feet sending a pleasant shock up his calves and thighs. He stumbled about for bit, aiming for the gray blob he was pretty sure was the bucket, and finally had his piss, thinking how mundane and ordinary his actions were, considering he’d been staring at Death with a welcoming smile only a short while ago.

  He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. After all, could a person totter on the edge his whole life, fighting the inevitable with every breath, kicking and spitting defiance, and then go back to that angry rebellion after it had finally been beaten out of him? Once he’d let it go, gone so far as to embrace his end, was there such a thing as will left?

  Although… perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d been thinking before that dying by Brayden’s hand, however it might happen, was the better alternative—the kinder alternative, perhaps; nothing since then had changed his mind.

  He refastened his trousers, noting wi
th a bit of wry amusement that his belt was missing, vaguely disturbed that someone—likely Brayden—had removed it from his person and he’d slept right through it. He’d been on a hair-trigger for so long, and had got used to jumping awake at the chirp of a cricket—he must have really been out.

  He found the cup of cider on the floor next the cot where Brayden had left it; thankfully, it hadn’t spilt in the scuffle. Wil retrieved it and gulped the rest of it down, the warmth of the spice and liquor soothing his raw throat and blooming in his belly. He wondered if there was enough in it to get him drunk—perhaps he could sleep away the rest of the headache, and the muddled confusion in the bargain.

  The sun had lost its brighter edges by the time Brayden returned, the light more sullen than hard, and slanting a wider swath across the stretch of floor Wil could see in front of the sheriff’s desk. He stood at the bars as Brayden approached, his vision slightly less blurry, enough that he could see the relaxed set of the shoulders, the lack of tension in the set of the spine—he must be the sort who walked off anger.

  Brayden stood in front of him on the other side of the bars for a moment, just looking. Wil looked back, didn’t try to put on any face or mask, and he had no real idea what he was feeling, so he didn’t know what his expression was showing Brayden. And didn’t necessarily care.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Wil thought about it, decided he was and nodded.

  “We’ve still the eggs and some bread,” Brayden said. Wil tried to detect hostility in his tone and couldn’t. “D’you want it now, or would you like your bath first?”

  He thought about that, too, answered, “Bath,” then paused, asked, “Why are you being so nice to me? Why are you… why aren’t you…?” He shook his head, brought his good hand up to grip one of the bars, leaned in until his brow was pressed to the cool metal, and blinked furiously, trying to clear his focus so that he could see the expression on Brayden’s face.

  Brayden merely sighed, reached out and opened the cell’s door. “Because I’m not what you think I am,” was all he said.

  It wasn’t until Wil had been guided out of the sheriff’s office and over to the kitchen door of the hostel that he realized he hadn’t heard a rattle of keys when the constable had let him out—the cell hadn’t been locked.

  Huh.

  ***

  “Turn your head to the left, now.”

  Wil obeyed, allowed the woman to prod at his throat until a bony finger pressed too hard at an especially tender spot; he hissed a little, reflexively pulling back. The bath had made him feel worlds better, and a full belly hadn’t hurt. His head was starting to feel less like a giant lump of ‘ow,’ and he’d even been able to chew the bread and eggs the constable had given him after they’d returned from the hostel.

  “All right, then,” the healer said, leaned back and helped him get his shirt back on and laced. “Besides the hand, there’s plenty bruised, but nothing broken. I don’t like that big one across your middle, but there’s no swelling, so you’ve not ruptured anything. Likely bruised a kidney. Have ye been pissing blood?”

  Wil flushed a little, shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see very well right now.”

  “Hm,” said the healer. “Has it got worse or better since you’ve been up?”

  “Better,” Wil told her. It was: he could actually tell that her hair was a light mousey-brown and her eyes were blue. He could even vaguely make out the angles of her face.

  “Good. Then it’ll keep getting better. Should clear up tomorrow or the next day. Everything else will just take a little time to heal. You’re lucky you got away with no sutures, so infection won’t be a worry.” She peered over her shoulder at Brayden, leaning back into the bars by the cell door, arms crossed over his chest. “He’s to rest for a few days. If I’m called back here to tend to any more injuries, I’ll be filing a complaint with Sheriff Locke.”

  Brayden’s wide form shifted a little, but didn’t move toward them. “Mistress Slade,” he said slowly, “I didn’t do this, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like I’m some kind of fiend.”

  Ah. That explained the coldness Wil had been feeling from the healer toward Brayden since she’d arrived—quite a different sort of feeling than he’d got from Miss Jillian at the hostel, who’d seemed like all she needed was one encouraging word, and she’d start disrobing in the yard. The healer must’ve had a look at Wil while he’d been sleeping, and since he didn’t think the constable would have been forthcoming with explanations, she’d probably formed her own opinions. After all, Brayden was huge and Wil probably looked like hell. It wouldn’t be a colossal leap of speculation: big, giant lawman versus skinny, little criminal—typical, really.

  “He didn’t,” Wil volunteered quietly, not at all sure why he’d even opened his mouth. “It happened before.”

  “Hm,” she said again, and then didn’t say anything else. She patted at the fresh bandaging around his hand, checking her work, then stood, a puff of antiseptic and hazel flowing from her like a cloud of perfume. “Keep on with the boneset and willowbark as ye’ve been,” she told Wil. “Take the mæting at night to help you sleep, but watch the dose—too much can be dangerous, and I’ve only left enough for two days. I don’t want you taking it longer than that. The stuff’s made slaves of many a good man.”

  Wil gave a little shudder, but otherwise kept still and silent.

  “He doesn’t want the mæting.” Brayden’s voice held only calm fact, with no judgment Wil could detect. “Have you got anything else?—something, perhaps, less likely to… enslave?”

  The tone was direct, too understanding; Wil’s cheeks flamed beneath it, hot resentment flaring in his chest. Damn it, Brayden was bulky and handsome and looked like he should have muscle where his brain should be—why did he have to be so bloody shrewd? Wil dipped his head down, closed his eyes. He couldn’t feel the stare of the healer, but he assumed it was leveled at him, measuring.

  “All right, then,” she said finally. “I’ll send Mal over with some meadowsweet and skullcap. You can mix it into a tea in the evening. Give him half and then leave the other half in case he wakes in the night.”

  Just like that, she’d gone from speaking directly to him like he was a normal person, to speaking over him like he wouldn’t be able to understand the simplest instructions. He would’ve clenched his teeth, but his jaw was more sore now than it had been when he’d woken up.

  He listened while Brayden offered thanks, listened as he led the healer to the door, listened as she murmured things he couldn’t hear, and then listened as Brayden murmured back and shut the door behind her. Heavy footsteps crossed the floor again, and Wil continued to listen as the chair was once again plopped to the side of the cot and Brayden once again lowered himself into it. He even listened to the silence as Brayden sat and stared at him.

  “D’you need anything?” Brayden finally asked. “There’s more of that cider in the kettle keeping warm.”

  Wil shook his head, abstractly pleased it didn’t thump when he did it.

  “All right, then,” Brayden continued. “We’ve a little more time before Locke gets back, and I intend to use it to get a few things straight. I need you to listen to me, and I really need you to hear me—I am not your enemy.”

  A slow nod from Wil, and a heavy shrug. “All right,” was all he said.

  “No, I won’t have you pulling that meek-and-agreeable routine on me. You don’t believe me, then have the brass to say you don’t believe me, tell me why you don’t believe me, but I won’t have you putting on faces for me anymore—we can’t afford it, there’s too much going on and too many ways it can all go very wrong.”

  Slowly, Wil opened his eyes, lifted his head, focused as best he could until Brayden’s face shimmered into something close to clarity. There was what looked like a bruise around the right eye, and if he stared long enough, he could make out how a hank of wispy gold strayed down to curl over the left eyebrow, how shadows
darkened Brayden’s face around the chin and upper-lip, as though he’d not shaved lately. How the look in the eyes was hard and determined but sincere.

  “All right,” Wil said again, firmer this time. “I believe that you believe what you’re saying. I believe you intend nothing but good and right… or at least what you think is right. I believe that if you… hurt me, it will be because it is something you cannot prevent or to which you can see no other alternative.”

  Brayden was silent for a moment, then: “But you’ve been told you should fear me and you think I’ve not killed you yet because I’ve no idea what you are. You think that as soon as I find out what you are, I’ll change my mind and do you in.”