by R. Cooper
Delf halted before that gaze, watched it turn curious and then anxious before she could unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
“My lady,” Delf offered at last in greeting, though the echo of those words made her heart beat faster.
“Delflenor,” Prityal pronounced the name slowly in return, her hands clasped tight in her lap. “Have you come to join us?”
Jareth or Ran could have put Prityal up to that. Or she might have chosen those words herself.
Delf swallowed and then huffed. “I am not certain that is my place. It might have been—would have been,” she added, softer though the others still likely heard her. “But not any longer.”
“Even those knights who have left the barracks and the field are welcome to sit in the high circle when they visit,” Tay remarked, speaking for the room to hear.
Ran cackled. It was a gleeful sound. “We are celebrating a new chevetein. It seems only right that you join us. A chevetein from these very barracks, and a hero as well. The wine will flow until well after midnight, I am sure.”
Delf’s breath caught. “How is it that I am a hero to you?” She glanced over the others, then stared searchingly at Tay, who hid his face behind his cup.
“Delf of the Seat, who carried Prityal the Just through Oryl Wood, who offered herself to save Prityal from a curse. Did that not happen?” Ran inquired innocently.
Delf shot another look over the gathered crowd, her mouth moving but no sounds emerging for several moments. “Who told them all of that?”
“I did.” Prityal met Delf’s stare boldly.
“I did not tell it in such a way.” Delf nearly whispered it, skin prickling beneath her clothes.
“But I lived it in such a way,” Prityal countered, ruthless and gentle. “It was easy for them to believe. They know you well.”
Delf shut her eyes and breathed, in and out. “I would do it again,” she confessed, and felt no less terrified than she had the night before in Prityal’s bed. She looked up, beyond Prityal to the fireplace, and the rafters that held no spying birds, but perhaps a spider or two. She looked down, back to Prityal. “It seems that is the sort of chevetein I will be.”
“My champion?” asked Prityal, with her hands still locked together in her lap, her fear on display for anyone to see, not that many would look for it.
The area before the fire was a mere one or two steps higher, depending on which side of the dais one approached. It was a half-circle, not a circle, and barely counted as high, but the nickname was old and its origins forgotten. Delf still felt strange walking there, pausing once she realized there was an empty chair next to Prityal. She suspected Ranalaut was responsible for it, but sat, gingerly, without a word.
“It is easier,” Prityal spoke in a voice that would not carry, “to sit when you must be seen but you have no strength. And, up here, there is less of a need to carry on conversations, if you are tired.”
Someone, a begley, held up a cup of wine, and Delf took it and held it blankly, staring over the room from this entirely new place. She nodded to show she had heard and understood the lesson.
“It is important to be seen, at times,” Prityal commented, still low and quiet, for Delf alone. “They’re happy that it’s you.”
“Ah,” Delf said weakly, and drank some of the wine though it would go to her head almost immediately. “My devotion pleases?”
“Yes.” Prityal watched her steadily until Delf looked over. “You did not style your hair this morning, of all mornings.” Her tone was more warm than her words suggested.
“I was tired,” Delf argued without ire. “And I was looking for you, and we are among friends.”
Prityal’s smile was careful. “But you will allow me, later?”
“I will allow you most anything, my lady,” Delf answered truthfully, while whispers began to carry through the room, and laughter and more gasps. “Which was common knowledge in these barracks before, and now, perhaps, in all of Ainle.” She would consider whether to fret over that later. “But it will not be long before I am captured by serious priests and forced to also be serious.”
“They cannot, if you are already full of wine,” Prityal leaned in to reply, nearly bowing their heads together as if they shared a secret. “The Three did give us wine, as someone wise once reminded me. They might approve.”
Delf found herself once again momentarily speechless. “So They did. As well as the headaches the next day, and all the work of producing the drink itself. To teach us something, I suppose. But no one will want a drunken chevet—”
Prityal kissed her, her lips closed but soft against Delf’s, her skin smelling of soap and a bit of ale. The hall was utterly silent, and then, as Prityal inched back, abruptly noisy again.
“I have often wondered how it felt to sit here as Ran and Jareth do, with the one I want close,” Prityal explained breathlessly, with Delf blinking at her. “With you,” she added, as if she suspected that Delf did not completely follow her meaning.
She was right to think that.
Nonetheless, Delf managed to keep that to herself.
“They are cheering,” Delf said instead, nodding vaguely toward the rest of the hall. “Am I to be the chevetein with messy hair, who kisses their Champion, and will likely fall asleep again before the sun has set? Is that to be my first step?”
Prityal, as always, took her seriously. “You are to be Delflenor, who shows her heart bravely for all to see. They believe you will do the same for them, Delflenor of Ainle. As do I.”
Delf darted out her tongue to wet her lips. She had felt more helpless only while watching Prityal fall to the floor in front of her. “Then that is what I will do. I love you.” It slipped from her in a sigh and sent a flutter through Prityal, who flexed her hands in her lap and glanced around them almost wildly before smiling like the sun.
There were those in the hall who might see that smile and pine. Delf could not fault for them for it. She sighed once more but it ended abruptly when she was kissed again.
Someone not very far from them whistled. Somehow, Delf did not suspect Ran.
She blinked slowly as Prityal pulled back, looking at once both pleased and sheepish. Still helpless, happy to be, Delf took Prityal’s wrist to bring Prityal’s hand to her mouth. She pressed a kiss to Prityal’s callused palm, and to her knuckles, and then turned Prityal’s hand over once again to kiss the inside of her wrist where her blood flowed.
Prityal looked over their audience and smiled for what she saw. But her glance to Delf was shyly questioning. “You finally reach for me?”
Delf nodded, and felt as wise as Prityal had called her, if only for a moment, when Prityal left their hands clasped and fairly glowed with pleasure.
“A fool’s plan,” Delf whispered, to herself and any spirits who were listening, but her lips were curved in a smile, and she gazed at Prityal in wonder for one moment longer before she turned her attention to the hall still filling with people. They were smiling, too.
But perhaps a good plan, Delf added for the spirits alone.
She did not glimpse a flutter of wings among the rafters, but thought an answer enough was to be found in wine and bread and friends and love. And thought, more firmly this time, that this was who she would be.
The End
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More books by R. Cooper:
Taji From Beyond the Rings
The Familiar Spirits series
Being(s) in Love
About R. Cooper
R. Cooper is a somewhat absentminded writer of queer romance, probably most known for the Being(s) in Love series. She lives among the coastal redwoods of Northern California in a tiny house with two greedy black cats and one possible ghost. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or subscribe to her newsletter.
www.riscooper.com