“You don’t,” Brayden says forcefully. “Fifty or more years of treachery, Wil. Fifty or more years of being lied to.”
It sounds so… easy. Wil would really like to believe it, except… “Oh,” he breathes, closes his eyes. “No wonder She hates me.”
“Hey.” Brayden’s hand tightens about Wil’s and squeezes hard. “If that were the case, would I be here?”
It would almost be easier if he weren’t. It would almost be easier if Wil had just died back there in Ríocht, never knowing any of this.
“Wil,” Brayden insists, “this isn’t yours.”
“How can it be anyone else’s?” he asks hoarsely. “He died because I wouldn’t hear him.”
“You wouldn’t hear him because you couldn’t; he died because he was just a second or two too slow.”
A wet, humorless snort wends from Wil. “And what of you, then?” he wants to know. “Do I get to watch it happen through my own eyes next time?”
“Maybe,” Brayden answers steadily. “But this is what I’ve chosen.”
Wil shakes his head. “You were dragged into it, you said it yourself, you had no more choice than—”
He stops short when Brayden lifts an eyebrow, a smile 146
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curling clever and knowing. “There it is,” he says softly.
“Don’t take on the choices of others. You’ll never get yourself from out that cage.”
Wil jolts a little, frowns and looks down. Thinks about cages and prisons and keys…
“C’mon, then,” Brayden says, softly cajoling. “I’ve brought you a present.”
The sound of running water sluices over Wil’s senses, soft and comforting. He peers up, a tired smile curling at his mouth, though there are tears on his cheeks—someone else’s grief, his own a paltry offering intertwined—so he leaves them there, unashamed.
“How did you do this?” he wants to know.
Brayden smiles, shrugs. “It’s a dream, innit?” he answers, as though that explains everything, follows Wil’s gaze. “The Flównysse. I’m not sure how precise it is. It’s been years, but this is how I remember it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
It is. The current flows clear and blue-green, rippling over stones smoothed by Time streaming over and past, ages of gentle destruction. Starlight sinks into its liquid furrows, placid breakers winking and swelling, then moving on, carrying a bit of night downstream.
He can hear the voices of the stars inside the flux and flow, humming along with the rush in almost perfect synchronicity to the tender breeze that lifts his fringe from his brow. The horror and sorrow of a moment ago is still thrumming beneath it all, coursing along as surely as the river runs, but its edges have stopped slicing into his heart. It allows him to look at it all with a mind as clear as the rippling water. He wonders if that’s why Brayden chose this place, and thinks yes, quite likely.
He turns his face up to the stars. “They kept the tale safe,” he murmurs, looking back at their faces reflected bright and soft on the water. “Their memories are long, 147
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but they never dream,” he tells Brayden. “There is so much more I would know from them.”
Brayden is silent for a moment, then: “You see why I had to show you.”
It isn’t a question, but it wants to be; the anxious curl of it is almost a plea for understanding and forgiveness.
“I see,” Wil answers slowly, turns to Brayden, finally pulls his hand free, but not for the sake of discomfort.
“I’m sorry.”
A long sigh winds from Brayden’s broad chest. “So ’m I,” he murmurs.
“I’m right to trust you.” Wil almost feels like a little boy looking for approval, but somehow, with Brayden, he can’t.
“I hope so,” Brayden returns, casts his glance out over the river. He looks sad. “Be careful of Calder. I don’t know why, but something…” He pauses, shakes his head, perplexed, maybe, but resolute. “Shaw seems all right.
If anything happens, you stay with him, you hear? If I can’t—”
“Shaw is not the Guardian,” Wil answers, pushing stern command into his tone. “You said you chose this—
well, I choose you. You’ve dragged me through weeks of trials and persuasions, and you can’t cut out on me just when you’ve managed to convince me you know what you’re doing.”
Brayden rubs at his brow, frustrated. “But I don’t
know what I’m doing, that’s the point. I’ve been guessing, stumbling blind, and now look where it’s got us—got you —I almost got you killed, and I don’t know if I’m going to—”
He pauses, chokes out a shaky sigh. He doesn’t have to finish. Wil knows what he was going to say, and he has to keep himself from growling derision at Brayden and rolling his eyes at the stubborn insistence on standing on 148
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ground he can see.
Wil sets his shoulders, determined. Brayden’s talking about dying, like he’s already accepting it, and it pisses Wil off. “Men died because I wouldn’t see,” he tells Brayden. “If you won’t, it may be me next time.”
Brayden shakes his head. “I don’t know what that means.”
Wil considers for a moment. Brayden will keep refusing if this isn’t handled just right. And Wil really needs Brayden to stop refusing. He needs the Guardian, he knows that now. He needs this Guardian—Wæpenbora, shaman, healer—who’s preparing to die because he won’t see what he is.
“Heal my hand.” Wil holds up his right hand—there were no bandages around it only a moment ago, but there are now because he willed it so. He deliberately draws the knife from his boot to slice away dirty linen, pulls it back to reveal fingers that are no longer fat and tight, but still somewhat bruised, and from the looks of them, permanently crooked. His wrist is ringed black and green with smudges of blue and yellow blooming up his forearm.
Brayden takes it all in with a frown. “What are you talking about?” he wants to know.
Wil takes hold of Brayden’s hand, turns it palm-up and lays his own atop it. “It’s a dream, innit?”
“Wil…” Brayden sighs, a little impatiently. “I don’t have magic. I can’t heal. I’m sorry.”
“You can conjure a river, but you can’t do me this kindness?”
“It isn’t the same thing. This…” Brayden waves his hand about, growls a little. “It’s just a dream.”
Wil thinks for a moment, alters his approach: “If you could do anything, would you heal my hand?”
Brayden rolls his eyes, snaps, “Of course.”
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“Then do it,” Wil insists. “It’s just a dream, right? You can have magic in a dream. Anyone can have magic in a dream. Pretend you can do anything. We’ll try flying next.” Brayden’s scowling, his mouth twisting tight. Wil steps in close, looks up, encouraging. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he says quietly. “It’s just a dream. Just try.”
Brayden is still reluctant, his face pale even here, so Wil knows the pain is leaking through. Wil would like to spare Brayden the reluctant knowing that has to come, but Brayden may well be his own only chance. “Take the pain away,” Wil demands, insistent now. “Heal me.”
Another roll of the eyes, but Brayden doesn’t look like he doesn’t believe—he looks like he doesn’t want to believe, so he hesitates. Wil thinks that if he’d instructed Brayden to heal himself, Wil would still be cajoling; the fact that it’s someone else in pain is what moves the man to peer sideways at the Guardian he doesn’t want to know he is. Wil can actually see it happening, see the wheels turning, and he hides a small smirk in his collar.
He’s surprised that it happens so fast; he’s downright shocked at the level of intimacy—not only that Brayden initiates it, but that Wil allows it. Wil hadn’t even been completely sure that he’d convinced Brayden, hadn’t been sure Brayden would actually try on his first go.
And yet, one moment Brayden’s hand holds Wil’s loosely in his palm, and the next, long fingers are clamping about, sending stinging bolts of pure energy throbbing through muscle and bone. A jarring welter of primal power jolts up from Wil’s fingers and all through his hand and arm, then striates throughout his whole body.And then it just… settles over him, tender and bracing, all at once, like a comforting hold—asking.
Wil can feel Brayden touching his soul, actually feel it.
And doesn’t want it to ever stop. Warm and bursting with reverberant serenity. It does more than heal Wil’s hand; it 150
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rocks his body and spirit in contented quietude.
It’s almost orgasmic in its amity and intimacy.
It’s better than leaf. Better than anything. Ever.
Wil takes a long, deep breath, unashamed that he leans into Brayden’s chest until he finds his balance. He lingers perhaps a few seconds longer than he needs to before he pulls back again.
He’d been a fool to ever think this man duplicitous or wicked. Nothing like this could have come from the heart of malevolence.
Wil shakes his head, turns his hand over then holds it up in front of Brayden. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to—all the bruising is gone, all the swelling, and the bones are as straight as they’ve ever been. A smile spreads slowly, fingers flexing, and he peers up into Brayden’s skeptical face, smirks.
“Remember this,” is all he says.
Opens his eyes.
Brayden was already staring at him, that familiar disbelief shining over-bright in his bleary, pain-filled eyes.
Wil didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. He shucked the bandaging quickly, impatiently, eager not just for the proof it would grant, but to finally be rid of the dirty, bulky thing. He grinned when he got a look at his knuckles: not swollen, slightly twisted knobs of bone and flesh, but straight and bending only where they were supposed to. He held his hand down where Brayden could see it, wriggled his fingers.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Wil told him, nearly smug.
Brayden stared at it for quite some time, eyes narrowed. His hand ventured out from his side, reached.
Wil slid from the chair, crouched down next the bed, 151
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dipped his head and allowed Brayden to slide rough, cold fingers over his cheekbone. Even went so far as to guide Brayden’s fingertips to trace the sockets of his eyes, still tender and no doubt as green-black as the fingers had been.
The euphoric peace took him again, wound through him, and Wil came back to himself with his forehead pressed to the thick blanket beside Brayden’s arm, clumsy, callused fingertips pressing into his scalp, unconsciously comforting. “Thank you,” Wil breathed, dragged himself up, took hold of Brayden’s hand, and tucked it up to rest on the hard, flat pillow. “Sleep now,” he whispered, adjusted the blanket, and drew back. “It’s your turn.” A slow smirk. “Impress me.”
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Chapter Four
Wil was sitting on the cold stone floor, back propped to the wall beside the cot, when Dallin opened his eyes. The ever-present rifle was braced barrel-up to Wil’s left, knife at work against a whetstone between his up-thrust knees. His feet were bare and he’d shed his coat. By the way his dark hair glistened in the lamplight, he must’ve had a bath. Dallin squinted a little, noted the clean clothes and confirmed his theory.
Good. At least someone had been taking care of him.
He closed his eyes again.
Mother—strange how the entreaty came to him so naturally— I’m sorry. I don’t think You’ve chosen very well.
He would’ve snorted and rolled his eyes at himself, but it all seemed like too much work. More than half a lifetime spent assuming it all faerie tales and legends to make old men feel better about death, and now…?
Well, now he was neck-deep in things he would have thought devotional dementia only several weeks ago. Had committed his word to protecting a man who seemed better able to take care of himself. What was Dallin doing here? What was he playing at? He could have got Wil killed in a grimy little back-alley smelling of piss and 153
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garbage, and not by Siofra or one of the Brethren, but by petty little men who liked to use their small authority to bully and intimidate.
The low ache of the wound pulsed a dull throb through Dallin’s awareness—noticeably there but not nearly as acute as he would’ve thought. The steady swiff, swiff, swiff of the blade against the stone whispered a mocking counterpoint.
Is this how your Guardian guards you?
Dallin lying here like a landed fish, and Wil armed and ever at the ready.
Dallin’s teeth clenched.
Yes, apparently it is. I’ve spent the last couple decades not learning whatever it is I need to know in order to do whatever job it is that’s expected of me, and what I have
learned isn’t nearly enough. Save me, I’m not ready for this.
Except there was no not ready—he was in it, up to his arse, and so was Wil. Dallin had loftily asserted that he was Wil’s best chance, had honestly thought he could think and batter their way out of this great stinking mess, and drag Cynewísan out of it with them. He almost laughed—in point of fact, he’d nearly forgotten about Cynewísan.
All right. So, I’m an arrogant ass.
Now what?
He thought about it. Thought about it hard.
Now, I suck it up and use every tool at my disposal to pull both of our stones out the fire.
As soon as I figure out what my tools are. And how to use them. And where the fire’s coming from.
Willfully holding back a growl, Dallin opened his eyes again, focused on Wil’s hands, the right just a touch paler than the left, but there were no tells otherwise. His fingers moved with nimble grace, stopping every now and then 154
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to flick the pad of his thumb over the edge of the blade, checking its bite, then readjusting his grip with quick, agile movements.
Well, there’s that, Dallin told himself with some amount of disgust: if I manage to get him hurt, I could always heal him again. ‘Whoops, sorry, didn’t mean to let that one lop off your head, here, let me see if I can fix that for you.’
“Are you going to make a noise?” Wil asked quietly, hands still busy with knife and stone, “or are you going to just keep lying there, pretending you’re not awake?”
Dallin sighed, perversely glad when his back and side twinged heavily with the expansion of his chest. “How long?” he croaked.
Wil stopped, blew a small puff of breath over the blade’s edge, held it up to the light and tilted it, examining it closely. “You’ve been out for almost two days,” he answered, flicking a clever little glance at Dallin out the corner of his eyes. “But you knew that.”
He did, actually. Some part of Dallin had been aware of everything that had gone on while he slept, as though he’d kept an eye on Wil every moment. And oddly, Wil had let him.
“How are you feeling?” Wil asked.
Dallin thought about it. “Sore,” he admitted. “But…”
He rotated his shoulders and gave an experimental stretch, but truncated it when he felt the sutures pull. “I don’t feel like I was almost spitted. I feel like I got a good kick from an ill-tempered horse, but nothing more.”
“Hm,” Wil hummed, spat on the stone and swirled the knife’s tip in it.
No further comment; no smug told you so. Dallin was… grateful. It was hard enough to accept. And acceptance was fairly important in the application.
Healing. He’d never have believed it.
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“You were singing.” Dallin’s voice was rough and grainy, but he couldn’t make himself clear his throat yet.
Wil lowered the knife and let his hands dangle between his knees. His expression was candid and ope
n when he peered up at Dallin. He shrugged. “You asked me to.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
They’d been by the river again, when Dallin asked Wil to sing the songs that had been haunting him for too long.
Wil had complied, easily and with a small smile, sang the songs of the old gods, spinning the tale of how the Father had wooed the Mother with His music and fair looks, His passion and wildness; how She’d captivated Him with Her fierce beauty and elementary honor. How They’d joined Their separate Clans and marched on the old gods, Their Kindred, fought side-by-side—He with His sword; She with Her bow and quiver—took the powers away from the old gods and banished them, and led Their people out of bondage and fear. Showed them how to use the gifts of the world the gods had once wielded against them—earth, air, fire, and water—and taught them to live out from beneath the yoke of tyranny and oppression.
How the people had rejoiced and placed Them on Their thrones—Hers in rock and soil; His in sky and star.
Wil had sung the legends in a tenor that surprised Dallin in its depth and clarity. The story of ugliness and violence had unwound sonorous and dulcet inside the gentle tones, taking something that should have chilled Dallin’s bones and singing beauty into it. Dallin had almost wept.
“It’s Æledfýres,” he told Wil, watching the oily light stutter over the etchings on the blade that spelt his own name. “The fire god, the one who stole the babies and drank their blood, the one who thieved men’s bodies and walked around in them.” He let his gaze drift up, catch on Wil’s. “Whatever it was with that Watcher—the first 156
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one—and wherever the Brethren came from, it started with him.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “How can you know that?”
“Dunno,” Dallin muttered. “But it fits. Díepe and Célnes were Her sisters, yeah? Goddesses of water and air. That’s what the song said. And Eorðbúgigend and Æledfýres were His brothers. Gods of earth and fire.”
He paused, eyebrows drawing together in thought. “That dream I showed you, that man from the Brethren—he said the first Watcher had been a sacrifice to the Father, that the Father had been reawakened with the man’s blood.
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