“Wil?”
Dallin’s voice, dark eyes peering back at him. Wil didn’t know if he was relieved or embarrassed that his acute discomfort had been spotted, recognized, and the confusion only ramped up his agitation. He merely stared, letting Dallin read what he would, until it hit Wil—
This, right here… this was why Dallin thought it best to keep things from Wil. This was why an otherwise painfully honest man had stood in front of Wil just this morning, and again mere moments ago, looked him in the eye, and said it was “best” if Wil didn’t ask about his own fate. Because if someone was perpetually asking you for rescue, how much faith could you have that they might dredge up the will to rescue themselves if they had to?
When had Wil crossed the line from accepting help when he really needed it to taking the easy way every time it was offered? And it was an offer, each and every time, Dallin always asked, he’d never forced rescue on Wil. Yet how many times had Wil actually refused? He couldn’t remember a single instance.
…when you expect nothing but complete and total submission to your will from me.
Except was Wil submitting to Dallin’s will, or was Dallin submitting to Wil’s? If Wil twisted his mouth, furrowed his brow, Dallin would stalk through the crowding horde and whisk Wil away—because Wil asked him to. If Wil scowled and rolled his eyes, Dallin would leave Wil to it, and still be there, waiting, in case Wil changed his mind.
Wil knew these things—knew them because he’d lived both situations, and more than once. So who, in truth, was submitting to whom?
Blaming Dallin for a situation Wil himself had at least half helped to create.
Oh hell.
With effort, Wil lifted his chin. He even managed to dredge up a smile, though he wouldn’t lay bets on how convincing it was. He told Dallin “I’m fine” with a look, then turned toward the next hand that reached for him—reached back.
His hand was immediately enclosed in a wide, rough grip, so Wil swallowed the lump of gravel in his throat and reached with the other too. He made himself look up and say “Hullo” to an old woman, then a young man without really seeing either of them, a rigid smile stretched across his mouth in a mask of what he hoped at least somewhat resembled warmth.
Dallin was still watching, concerned, so Wil took a deep breath, looked at Dallin straight, and gave him a real smile—meant for Dallin and only Dallin, small and private in this sea of people. Perhaps not wholly convinced but willing to take his word for it, Dallin half smiled back, lifted an eyebrow, and shrugged. He shot a mild warning glance over Wil’s shoulder—presumably at Corliss—then started off again.
He really was a good man. And he really was an excellent Guardian.
And Wil really did want to have him by the river tonight.
“They’ve been waiting for you both.”
Wil hadn’t noticed until just that minute that Corliss’s hand had moved from the gentle but commanding push at the small of his back to a more comforting grip on his shoulder—not as wide and warm and comforting as Dallin’s, but….
Anyway, it wasn’t like these people were impeding Wil in any way. They were just… touching. No grabbing, no trying to take from him, nothing sinister or even truly demanding—just touching. It made Wil’s skin crawl, but it didn’t actually hurt.
“The past four days have been very… enlightening,” Corliss went on. “Most of them knew the legend, but none of them knew it was true. Word has been leaking back from your camp about how their Shaman was healing you, and then this morning—” She snorted. “Well, this morning for you—we didn’t hear about it ’til this afternoon.”
Wil grimaced. “The fires.”
“Aye, the fires.”
Wil nearly groaned. “The company that was with us—they hadn’t been told. They didn’t know what it meant.” He turned a hopefully amiable smile on a young… girl, he thought; it was so hard to tell with the younger ones. Nods all around to whomever, a clasping of hands and a few mumbled greetings, and they all backed off and made room for the next. It was sort of orderly, now that Wil was paying attention.
“Ha.” Corliss slanted a grin. “We didn’t have that problem here. As soon as they heard, they—All right, that’s a bit too close, lad, step back, there’s a good boy.”
This to a little boy who’d wrapped his arms briefly around Wil’s torso before obediently dropping away and melting back into the gathering, but with a shy grin up at Wil as he retreated.
Corliss shook her head, but it was fond. “It was like they’d got proof they hadn’t known they wanted. You’ve no idea how… hm.” A small smirk lifted her mouth. “I was going to say you’ve no idea how popular you are here, but….” Her glance shifted over the crowd, then wryly back to Wil.
Wil couldn’t help the snort. “‘Popular’ is—” He blew out a long breath. “‘Popular’ is new.” And not wholly welcome.
“Mm, well, I think I’d prefer your version of it rather than Brayden’s.” Corliss watched Dallin make his way to the edges of the gathering, hailing the man he’d called Woodrow as he neared what Wil was sure now was a guardhouse—had to be, with that turret atop it. “Not much of a glad-hander,” Corliss went on. “He’d much prefer they were all lined up and saluting, than… well, this. And at least they’re not afraid to look you in the eye.”
Wil kept nodding his head, kept smiling, kept touching and letting himself be touched as he followed Corliss’s gaze, noting the bowed heads, the bit of a berth these people all gave Dallin as he bulled his way through. Yes, that would bother someone as straightforward as Dallin. He’d constantly be wondering what was behind the gazes they wouldn’t let him see. Respect, Dallin knew what to do with; awe made him twitchy and angry.
Wil couldn’t help but feel sorry for these people. They knew what they’d been taught, and they’d obviously been taught the Shaman was a man to be feared and obeyed, a man of great magic and skill to be revered and held apart from “normal” people. Obeyed blindly. Nothing to prove to these people, except perhaps that he wasn’t a god, he wasn’t all-knowing, he could be hurt, he could be killed.
“They expect him to be perfect.” Wil frowned, surprised by the twist it gave him.
“Mm.” Corliss pursed her mouth. “Doesn’t leave much room for being a real person, does it?”
Wil peered back over his shoulder toward the slope where the Old Ones stood, apart from it all and watching. From here they all looked cold and remote—not at all the friendly old men who’d greeted Wil and given him gifts, but calculating and removed from the people they were supposed to guide and protect. The people gave the Old Ones as wide a berth as they were giving Dallin. Wil remembered his first impressions of Calder, how he’d seemed like a force of nature, swatting aside obstacles without prejudice or compassion only because they’d somehow managed to blunder onto a path that crossed his purpose. Now Wil could hardly pick Calder out among them—Calder fit in as though he still belonged there.
How many of them had been here when Dallin was chosen? Some, most, all?
“Most” seemed the likeliest answer. They were extraordinarily long-lived, but Wil supposed it wasn’t entirely logical to assume at least one or two hadn’t popped off in the more than twenty years since Devon had called Dallin’s name with his last breath. And now, for the first time, it occurred to Wil that it was quite conceivable that Calder had been one of them then.
It made Wil pause. People were still tugging at him, murmuring to him, but he no longer registered their existence.
He couldn’t get it out of his head. They’d known the raid was coming. Just as they knew the Brethren were here before Dallin told them. They’d known Dallin as a boy, all of them, and Dallin didn’t remember it, but they did, and yet they pretended otherwise. Why? What were they hiding from their Shaman?
“Wil?”
Wil peered over at Corliss, pensive. He opened his mouth before he realized he had nothing to say that would sound sane, at least not to her. Perhaps not even to D
allin, now that Wil considered, but Dallin would find the sanity in it eventually. He always did.
“Wil! Thank the Mother.” Hunter was plowing through the thinning crowd, face so set with imperious authority that Wil almost snorted. “Back away, go on, give the man room to breathe. Léah, leave off, then, don’t cling so.”
Wil smiled at the young woman Hunter had apparently been chiding, because the light grip he hadn’t even really noticed suddenly let go. She backed away a step or two, answering Wil’s smile with one of her own, considerably less shy than most of the others. Not quite as stunningly beautiful as Thistle, but quite pretty and fit. For the first time, it occurred to Wil that, had he been paying attention, he might have caught more meaningful gazes during all the ruckus than Léah’s, and he wondered how many of these people would let him bed them if he wanted to. Knowing what he was, not trying to dig into him to sate a hunger they didn’t know they had, but trying instead to snatch a piece of what they knew him to be. All this want, all this belief, all this faith.
Her power depends on her people lending her the strength of their belief.
And what you do, take that want and use it….
Yes. Lind was a very powerful place indeed. Wil wondered if Dallin suspected just exactly how powerful.
Then again, of course he did. Why else would the idea of Fæðme and what it held frighten Dallin enough that he’d actually try lying his way around it?
“Apologies, Wil.” Hunter dropped a small bow. “I warned them as the Shaman instructed, but by the time I—”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Wil told him vaguely, eyes moving thoughtfully between the people still hovering and the Old Ones standing up on the rise and watching. He shook his head and turned to Hunter. “I expect you were given an impossible task, and you can’t be blamed. Anyway, it isn’t so bad.”
Wil’s skin was still crawling, and his heart was still rabbiting, but nothing more. He was whole and more or less unmolested, and he hadn’t cowered and cringed within the circle of his Guardian’s arm throughout, so all in all, it was rather a success. He tipped his head toward Corliss.
“This is a friend of the Shaman’s. Corliss….” He paused.
“Stierne.” Corliss finally released her hold on Wil’s shoulder, and offered her hand. “Constable Corliss Stierne. And you are…?”
Hunter took Corliss’s hand automatically, shook it, then bowed over it before releasing it. “Hunter Calder. I am… uh.” He frowned, obviously lost for a way to explain to an outlander exactly what he was—though clearly it involved some sort of possessiveness, because Hunter eyed Corliss with a guarded gaze and took a step in Wil’s direction.
“Hunter has kindly agreed to babysit me.” Wil smirked as Hunter sputtered. “Dallin has assigned him as my bodyguard for those times when he can’t do it himself.”
“Ah.” Corliss smiled at Hunter. “And a fine bodyguard I’m sure you make.” She nodded toward where Dallin appeared to be in the process of introductions with five men in the livery of Commonwealth soldiers. Wil realized with a bit of a start that these men must be the very ones who’d had their guns trained between Dallin’s eyes as they’d stood in Chester’s square. “Why don’t you see if you can clear a path for us over there without snapping at these lovely folk who’ve come to honor their Aisling? I’m sure Wil would appreciate being included in the conversation, since I’ve no doubt it will have something to do with him.”
The “Yes, ma’am” Hunter smartly snapped out almost made Wil laugh, but he merely kept smiling at those lingering around them, nodding his head and offering vague greetings when it seemed appropriate.
…she’s got this… mother thing about her, Dallin had told Wil fondly. People listen—they can’t help themselves.
Wil could see why. Corliss had laid a loaded gun at his Guardian’s nape the last time Wil had encountered her and had appeared to have every intention of using it. And yet here Wil was, allowing her to prod him through the rest of the crowd toward a palaver he’d had no real intention of joining, and hoping she hadn’t forgotten about the feeding-him part.
Good job she hadn’t been the one assigned him back in Putnam, Wil thought as he followed in Hunter’s wake. Wil likely would have spilled everything at the mere prospect of succumbing to her caretaking nature—seduction by mothering, ha!—and spilling everything to anyone but his Guardian would have been disastrous. No flight to Lind with Corliss—more like a quick trip back to the Guild with Síofra. She never would have believed Wil the way Dallin had done, regardless of any benevolent nature. Corliss would have thought Wil mad and sent him back “for his own good”—and lived the rest of her life believing she’d done right by him.
Wil shuddered. He couldn’t quite help it.
“…did you end up in the infantry?” Dallin was saying when they reached him. He was smiling more broadly than Wil would have credited, considering who these men were and what their intentions had been only days ago. Apparently Dallin didn’t carry grudges.
“It was made clear to me several years ago that the cavalry is now considered a young man’s vocation,” the captain said, civilly enough, Wil supposed, but Wil still couldn’t help the way his mouth tightened. “When I reached my fifteen-year service mark, I was ‘offered’ either retirement or a commission training snipers, and, well.” The captain shrugged. “The army is all I know.” He shifted a bit. “I must say, when I was finally told what our assignment was and who we were meant to arrest—” The captain looked away quickly, then back up to Dallin again. “It didn’t seem right from the beginning. And ordering us to take along Dominion scum—”
Corliss loudly cleared her throat, lifted her eyebrow at the captain, and shot a meaningful glance toward Wil. The captain reddened slightly but merely closed his mouth. If there were any apologies behind his teeth, Wil would never hear them. The captain had spent too many years fighting “Dominion scum,” and it would take more than Wil’s presence to dispel the epithet.
Dallin, smirking—because he just would—took up the sudden silence. “Captain Wisena, may I present to you my companion, Wil.” He paused for a moment, flipping Wil an asking glance, then went on, “The Aisling. I know Corliss has informed you as to what that name means.”
The captain nodded. “Indeed.” The look he shot Wil was skeptical. He seemed caught between a bow and a salute, and not really wanting to offer either.
Wil decided to cut through both. He put out his hand. “Captain.”
Wisena took Wil’s offered hand and shook it, his grip almost reluctant. “Aisling.” He was trying not to give anything away, but he wasn’t quite as good at it as Dallin—even as Wisena said the word, his mouth turned down in a sour line.
“I’d prefer Wil, if you don’t mind.” With a smile he hoped was cool and confident, Wil withdrew his hand and peered between Wisena and Dallin. “Do you two know each other?”
“I served under Captain Brayden on the northern border.” A different sort of awe was in Wisena’s eyes and voice than those here in Lind, but Wil could tell Wisena had admired Dallin back then and had likely learned a lot from him. Good. This sort of respect Dallin didn’t mind and knew what to do with. Wisena looked back at Wil, gaze going slightly tight again, skeptical and trying not to show it. “I was glad and relieved to hear there was a different reason for his… actions than what we’d been told.”
Wil supposed he could substitute “treachery” for “actions” and be closer to what Wisena couldn’t quite bring himself to say. And clearly Wisena blamed Wil for the besmirching of his former captain’s character and reputation among those Commonwealth troops who’d been told the same story Wisena had been told by Síofra.
Wisena looked Wil over critically—not quite the way men usually looked Wil over, but close enough—as though Wisena was trying to decide if what Wil apparently had to offer the noble former Captain Brayden could possibly be worth what Dallin had given up to become the little catamite’s Guardian.
I know
what I look like, Wil had told Brayden once. This was how he knew.
“You’ll understand why I’ve asked Cap—” Wisena cut himself off. “You’ll understand why I’ve asked Brayden if it might be possible to provide some sort of… proof of your claims.” Wisena dipped his head, not even close to apology, and opened a hand. “Between Chester and Constable Stierne, I’ve seen and heard enough to make me believe it wise to hesitate before following my orders. But only hesitate.” He smiled, and not terribly kindly. “Orders, after all, are orders.”
Proof. Interesting. Just what exactly was Wisena expecting Wil to do? Wasn’t Chester proof enough?
Dallin’s mouth had gone tight. “As I’ve already told the captain,” he said, speaking to Wil but burning holes in Wisena with his sharp gaze, “this is not a matter of performing magic tricks to satisfy his curiosity.” He turned to Wil, gaze gone softer, with no small amount of warning inside it. “It’s too dangerous. You’ve nothing to prove.”
Perhaps not to Dallin, or even the whole of Lind. But to this man…?
Dallin needed Wisena, Lind needed him, and for all his priggish doubt about Wil himself, Wisena really was sincerely caught between faith and duty. More than Dallin had been all those weeks ago, because Dallin hadn’t had much in the way of faith until it had walked up to him and bashed him upside his head. But Wisena stood on the border between risking his country and risking his soul—and he didn’t have the consolation of direct orders from the Mother Herself, only the word of someone he used to love and respect but whom he’d been told was a traitor under the spell of a mad Dominionite who’d run away from home and caused a schism in delicate negotiations that could mean the difference between peace and war. And if even Corliss—who Dallin had apparently known for quite some time, and who seemed to genuinely love and respect him as well—if even she had believed what they’d told her, enough to put a gun on her friend….
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