by T. A. White
“What are they?”
“Bugs, as near as I can figure it. The locals call them fairy lights. They’re nocturnal and reside in the flowers during the day, using its cover as protection against predators. At night, when the flowers open, they wake up and come out.”
Fallon caught one, gently cupping his hands around it. He held his hand out between them and unfurled his fist in a slow movement. In his palm, no bigger than Shea’s thumbnail was a miniature figure, almost humanlike with a head and arms and legs but no features, and wings that closed and opened in a lightning fast movement. As they watched, its wings flickered, creating the glow they’d been watching.
“How does it create light?” Fallon’s face was intent as he tilted the fairy light in his hands, this way and that as if he could find the mechanism it used just by observation.
Shea shook her head, the movement visible by the fairy light. “The villagers don’t know, and my people haven’t spent enough time in this area to study it. There’s a story the villagers tell about a race of people so tiny that they are almost invisible to the eye unless you look very closely. That the race was once so plentiful throughout these lands until the cataclysm, which forced them to retreat into obscurity to avoid annihilation. The fairy lights only come out at night when they feel safe, chancing the light only when predators or enemies aren’t close.”
Fallon looked up for a moment, the fairy light’s wings opening and closing, its light turning off and on with each movement.
“Watch.” Shea lifted her hands and clapped once, the sound a crack in the night. The lights closest to them winked off, including the one in Fallon’s hands.
“It reacts to danger.”
“Yes, which means the light can be controlled. Its reaction to threat is to hide, using the natural camouflage of the night as protection.”
When Shea made no other movements, the fairy lights gradually drifted closer again in a slow meandering movement. Fallon slowly lowered his cupped hand when it became clear that the light he’d held was no longer there.
“The villagers harvest the fairy lights’ waste to create artwork and ceremonial dress. For the summer solstice, they always have a celebration that they call the Joy of Light. It looks like a dance of the sun. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shea said.
Fallon’s hand covered hers on the blanket. “I would like to see that someday.”
Shea leaned her head against his shoulder as they watched the fairy lights move in swooping patterns over the pond, its water reflecting their light.
“When we have children, I’d like to bring them here,” Fallon said, his statement startling in the quiet.
Shea lifted her head. “We’re to have children, are we?”
“Of course. I must have someone to pass what I’ve created to—someone to take up the legacy and make something better, something stronger out of it. I’ll sit them down here and tell them the story of how we met, how you exploded onto that platform like a goddess of old, like the stories my grandmother told me when I was a child.”
“What if I don’t want children?”
His shoulder shifted as he peered down at her. “Do you want children?”
Shea rubbed her chin against his shoulder and sighed. “Truthfully, I’ve never thought about it. I’ve been so focused on making a place for myself—and then when the Trateri caught me, on surviving—that the thought never crossed my mind.”
“I think you would make a good mother, teaching our children how to read the trails and track beasts.”
“Like my mother taught me.”
“Not your father?” Fallon voice curious. “You so rarely talk about them.”
Shea was quiet a long moment. Her first instinct was to clam up, to ignore the question and make it clear there were some things she didn’t want to discuss. It’s what she would have done not so long ago.
“My father did teach me some, but he was gone so often. He’s a pathfinder; my mother is too, but her duties required her presence at the Keep more often.”
“Was that difficult?”
She’d never thought of it in terms of difficulty or not. It simply was the way things were. “No, our family was happy. My father brought me trinkets from his trips, and my mother was the firm hand of discipline, teaching me the skills she thought I’d need when I took my place as a pathfinder. Turned out it was a good thing as it gave me an advantage over other initiates when I began my formal training.”
“You speak as if they’re dead.”
She sighed. “They’re very much alive, though they probably wish I’d done them the service of dying in the course my duties.”
“That sounds harsh.” There was no judgment in his voice. He was simply making an observation.
Her laugh was rough and ugly, hurting her throat as it left. “To them I’m a disappointment. Long before I was captured by the Trateri, I knew I hadn’t lived up to their expectations. Now, I doubt they would want me to darken their doorstep. I’m the round peg among a world of square ones. I never quite fit, and once that cost the lives of other pathfinders, they made it clear I wasn’t welcome.”
Some of the peaceful feeling she’d had after viewing the night sky and seeing the fairy lights threatened to dissipate. She wasn’t ready for that, wanting to hold on to the good while she still could.
“And you, what was your childhood like?” she asked, wanting off the subject of her past.
Fallon laid back, pulling her down so her cheek rested on his chest and his arms wrapped around her. It made her feel safe and comforted.
“You know some of it,” he told her, staring up at the stars. “My father was a great man, grandson of the man who first united the clans. When I was a child, I would watch him fight. He was fierce; no man could beat him in a fair fight. He was able to take on five men, and they couldn’t even land a single blow.”
Shea was quiet, knowing that his father had not had a happy ending. She rested a hand on his chest, her fingers rubbing lightly along his pectoral muscle in a soothing caress.
Fallon continued without prompting. “He couldn’t be defeated in a fair fight so when it looked like he might succeed in reuniting the clans, his uncle resorted to trickery to stop him. My father’s allies used deceit and false promises to lure him from his stronghold. They attacked him with over thirty men, and even then lost two thirds to his blade, before several archers were able to put ten arrows in his body.”
Shea’s fingers stilled, and she closed her eyes at the pain in his voice. Her family might have its problems, but her childhood was nearly idyllic. Or as idyllic as a childhood in the Highlands could be. It was only because of her own mistakes that the divisions in their family took hold.
“My mother was forced to flee and take shelter with Henry’s clan. He was one of the few who did not take part in the betrayal.”
That must have been when she met Cale’s father. Shea didn’t bring his name up, knowing Fallon still regretted the necessity of executing his half-brother.
“Henry’s the one who helped me track the men who killed my father. He helped finish the training my father started. When he deemed me ready, he put a blade in my hand, gave me a horse and told me to avenge my father.”
Shea lifted her head and looked up at his shadowed face. “And did you?”
His face shifted down until he was staring at her. There was a dark pleasure in his voice as he said, “Every last one. Trateri across our plains heard what I’d done and began to gather. From there, I hunted down the clans that had betrayed my father and destroyed them—wiped their names from our history and made sure they could never recover.”
Fallon fell silent after that, and Shea was content to let him. She pressed her hand flat against his chest and smoothed it across the hard ridges of his body.
“Is that why you’re so stubborn when it comes to me being a scout?” Her question was soft. She almost lost her courage at the slight tension in his body, but forced herself to stay the course. If
they had any chance of lasting, they needed to be able to communicate—even about the hard things. Shea knew deep in her bones, she couldn’t go on as she had over the last few months. It would slowly destroy anything they attempted to build.
“Is that why you brought me up here?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble against her ear.
Yes. And no. She knew they needed time to themselves, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t have an ulterior motive. How to put that into words, though?
She hesitated too long, and he took her silence as answer enough.
The moment shifted. He withdrew from her without ever moving a muscle. It was almost a physical feeling.
“No, that came later.” The answer came after a long moment, one where she thought he was going to ignore her question.
She lifted her head and looked up at him, holding her breath. He’d shared some things, but only in passing. She knew most of his family was dead, but not how, or why it affected the present.
He fell silent again. Shea didn’t push even though she wanted to. She had a feeling that the wrong words right now would cause him to close down and shut her out again.
“My mother was a lot like you,” he said. “She was strong and brave and not diplomatic in the least.”
She pinched him in retaliation for that last statement.
“She was a Lowlander?”
He made a ‘hm’ sound of agreement. “My father used to say that he was struck dumb the first time he saw her. She was standing in the door of her family home with an arrow aimed directly at his heart.”
His father sounded like he had an odd sense of the mating dance. She could imagine being struck dumb at the sight of someone pointing a weapon in your direction, but not then wanting them as your telroi.
“She sounds like my kind of woman.”
“She would have approved of you. She wouldn’t have let you know that, but she would have.” His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers smoothing through her hair. “You know that my people have the custom of kidnapping our telrois from other clans or Lowland villages. She’s one of the few that came willingly. She gave up her family and life because she saw something in him that called to her. When he died, something broke inside her. She was not the same for a very long time. Some days I don’t think she ever got back to the person she was.”
Grief will do that. It was like a many-headed beast; every time you chopped off one, two more heads sprung up to bite you in the ass. Left unattended, it could reach deep inside, ripping out the vital parts that made up a person.
“She met Cale’s father in that time. Everyone knew the two of them were not a good match. He was ambitious but lacked the discipline to make his ambitions a reality. He latched onto her because she was the former wife of the Hawkvale and thought she would bring him the acclaim and recognition he craved.”
Shea leaned against Fallon harder, letting him take more of her weight—wishing that she could prevent the ugliness that was coming.
“When that didn’t happen, he changed, taking his frustration out on her. And me sometimes. Back then, I was small. He would taunt me about my inability to protect her. He did that until I was finally big enough and well-trained enough to put a stop to it. I took my mother and Cale and we left him. Henry helped with that too.” His voice was hoarse by then. Shea’s eyes smarted though all this happened years before she met Fallon. “I thought it was over then. My mother gradually became the woman I remembered. In the end I was wrong, that man was simply biding his time. Waiting until I was off getting our revenge before striking. He snuck into our tent one day and killed her and two others. He tried to kill Cale too, but Henry managed to get there in time to save him.”
Fallon fell silent after that. Shea rubbed her chin against his shoulder, trying to give him wordless comfort. It was a poor offering, given what he’d shared.
“I understand your desire to cling to this notion that you can keep me safe,” Shea finally said. She lifted her head to look up at him in the poor light. “It is a noble feeling, but you must understand that it is not possible to wrap me in swaddling to protect me from what’s out there. Just look at what happened earlier with the mist. There are no guarantees in the Broken Lands.”
“You cannot argue that the danger you are in increases every time you go outside the camp.”
“That is true, but your enemies are more likely to do me in, than anything out there. You know this or else you wouldn’t have put as many guards as you could spare on me.”
She could tell by the loaded silence he didn’t want to concede that point. Seeing a chink, she pushed on, “Fallon, you can’t make me into something I’m not. I’ll never be a pretty trinket on your arm or a ball of fluff sitting by your side. I deserve more; I am more.”
The shadow of his head dipped in the dark and Shea got the sense his intense eyes were focused on her.
“What is it that you like about being a pathfinder?”
Shea drummed her fingers against his chest. She’d never really thought about it before. It was just the world she was raised in—the world she was born into.
He didn’t wait for her answer. “Because from where I sit, you don’t appear to like it.”
Shea reared back. How could he say that? Yes, she might not be able to quantify what she liked about it, why it drew her, but that didn’t make it less the case.
“How can you say that? I’m a damn fine pathfinder.”
“Are you now?”
Shea opened her mouth to say yes, then shut it.
Sensing he’d scored a point, Fallon pushed his agenda, “You forget, my love, I talked with Eamon and your men before we ever began. I spoke with every one of my units that you led or worked with. I know what makes you tick, and you were one of the worst soldiers or scouts in my army.”
Shea opened her mouth to protest; a warm palm covered her lips before she could.
“Not in skill. There you were better than any man in the clans. But there is more to being a scout, and I’d wager a pathfinder, than skill. From what I heard from both Eamon and others, you flirted with the edge of insubordination more than once. That if you hadn’t been so damned talented, they would have had you strung up and whipped as punishment.”
Damn Eamon and his big mouth. She knew exactly what incident had been at the forefront of his mind when he’d told Fallon that.
Her sigh was angry. There was little argument she could present. What Fallon said was true.
“I loathe stupidity,” Shea finally muttered.
Fallon’s chest moved under her as he chuckled. “I am well aware, as is anybody you worked with during your time as a scout.” He settled under her. “I’m not just doing this because I want you safe. It’s a big part, but not the only part. You’re too good and too smart to be a follower, and at the end of the day that’s all a scout is. They follow orders about where to go and sometimes how to get there. You’re meant for more. I don’t want a pretty trinket; I want a strong and powerful partner capable of ruling by my side.”
“Shouldn’t this be my decision?”
“No, not in this. I am the Warlord, and if I say you won’t be a scout, you won’t be a scout.”
She sat up. This, this was what drove her crazy. They were having a reasonable conversation and now he was back to being an autocratic ass.
“I hate when you pull that card.”
His arms came up to yank her back down. “I know. Why do you think I do it?”
She pushed against him, his strength no longer as amusing as it was earlier. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to say something and then have it your way.”
His sigh was heavy and frustrated. He rolled over, pinning her wriggling body under his. “We haven’t seen each other in months. Do you really want to fight? Whatever our thoughts, this issue will not be solved tonight.”
He pressed a few kisses along her jaw and one on her nose.
“Fine. For now. We’ll pick this up at a later ti
me.”
He pressed another kiss against her neck and collar bone. She shivered.
“And in the meantime, can you at least try to find something meaningful that takes advantage of your unique skills here?”
Her silence was stony.
“Shea?” He kissed lower, using his chin to drag her shirt down until he was kissing the tops of her breasts.
She wriggled again, testing his grip but getting nowhere. “Fine, I’ll look, but I make no promises.”
She felt rather than saw his smile against her skin. “That’s all I ask.”
He resumed kissing her, sliding until he nuzzled the valley between her breasts.
“Really, again?”
A hand sliding under her shirt was her only response.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“WARLORD.”
The hushed whisper woke Shea from where she’d nestled into Fallon, her body seeking his warmth in the cold of the night. Her back was pressed against his side and her head was pillowed on his bicep while both hands clasped his wrist.
Shea came to the realization that she was naked, never having put her clothes on after the last time she and Fallon coupled. She lay unmoving, playing possum and praying that the interloper would go away without noticing her.
“What is it, Caden?”
“There is a situation in camp that requires your attention.”
There was a heavy sigh that held a hint of a growl. “Understood. We’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Yes, Warlord.”
Shea didn’t even hear the man leave, his stealthy movements would have made any assassin proud.
Fallon moved beside her, briefly spooning her from behind. He kissed her hair and then said into her ear, “I know you’re awake.”
Shea grunted, not quite past the mortification of being naked in front of Caden, a man she was pretty sure only tolerated her presence under duress.
“Dress, it’s time to face the world again.”
Shea sighed and rolled over to face him. Over Fallon’s shoulder she saw Caden and two other men with their backs to them.
“How did they find us?” Shea wasn’t sure how she felt about being awoken to three of Fallon’s Anateri keeping watch.