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“Sorry.” He wilted the tiniest fraction, and Numair twisted in the saddle to ruffle his hair. “Tomlin, this is Clare, Clare this is Tomlin.”
“Hi Clare! It’s nice to meet you.” The kid said everything with an abundance of enthusiasm, as if he’d never been hurt in his life.
She…didn’t know what to do with it. At court, most of the nobility’s children were kept out of sight, the responsibility of nursemaids and tutors. She hadn’t truly interacted with someone so young since she’d left Renault County. And no one was actually young in Renault County.
The kid—Tomlin—stared at her expectantly. She swallowed, but her throat was stuck. This wasn’t... What was she supposed to do? She looked at Numair helplessly, certain that her confusion and terror was, for once, written all over her face.
The joy in his eyes dimmed as he registered that something about this was causing her stress. She hated the disappointment in his eyes. She knew it wasn’t disappointment in her. It was disappointment in himself, in thinking he’d done something wrong, but she was the one there was something wrong with. He’d been so excited to bring her here and now she was struck incapable of speech because a child was happy, and she’d never seen that before.
Talk. Open your mouth and speak words, Clare, it isn’t that difficult.
But it was. More so the longer she was silent.
Tomlin squirmed again, looking up at Numair. “Did I say it wrong? I’ve been practicing my Common like you said, but it’s harder than I thought.”
“You didn’t say it wrong.” There. She had managed words. But the kid was still staring at her expectantly.
He blinked. “Oh, are you—what’s the word?” He launched a rapid sequence of syllables at Numair that Clare didn’t understand. Numair answered in the same language and the kid turned back to her. “Shy. Are you shy? It’s okay if you are, my friend Elsie is too.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, her tension finally easing. This child was strange and foreign to her with his openness and his happy nature, and she was half-convinced he couldn’t be real, but it was impossible not to be put at ease by him. “Yes, I suppose you could say I am.”
Tomlin gave a serious nod. “Numair’s good with shy people. He lets Elsie follow him around even though she never says anything. Do you follow him around?”
She arched an eyebrow at Numair. He just grinned back at her, a little color rising in his cheeks. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she told Tomlin, her voice dropping into a confidential tone. “Most of the time, Numair follows me around.”
Tomlin’s eyes widened. “He does?” He turned back to Numair and went to talking at rapid speed again in his native tongue.
The color in Numair’s cheeks deepened and he shook his head, breaking back into Common. “Let’s go before your mother accuses me of not coming to see her quickly enough.”
“Can we gallop?” Tomlin bounced up and down excitedly.
“What did I tell you last time about bouncing on horses?”
Tomlin sighed, stilling himself with visible effort. “Not to do it because it’s bad for their backs.”
“No more bouncing and we can canter.”
“Gallop?” he asked again hopefully.
“Canter,” Numair said firmly.
“Okay.” He drew the word out in obvious disappointment and wrapped his arms around Numair’s waist. His mood improved immediately when Numair kissed to Hellack, and he let out a whoop of happiness as the horse glided into a gentle lope.
Kialla blew out a breath and twitched her ear back at Clare, as if to say, “Are we really getting involved in this?”
Clare stroked her neck. “It’s two days, girl. Surely we can approximate normal that long.” She squeezed her legs and Kialla leapt into the gallop Tomlin had wanted, her long legs eating up the ground between them and Numair. She reached Hellack’s side as the road reached the first buildings, and the sound of thundering hooves drew attention from the village’s inhabitants.
Clare eased Kialla to a walk as Numair did the same with Hellack. The stallion acquiesced without the fit of crow-hopping Kialla engaged in, the mare clearly unhappy to have her run cut so short. She nearly bolted a second later when a gaggle of screaming children came running around one of the buildings, shouting Numair’s name. Her head was high in the air, nostrils flared, the line of her body one tense muscle.
“Me too, girl,” Clare murmured. “Me too.” She backed the mare up a few paces, leaving Numair to the mob. He helped Tomlin down, then slid off Hellack with a flashy leap he would never do at court, but which was good for another round of shrieking and laughter from the children. They swarmed, clambering over him like he was a climbing tree. He ended up with one on each hip, one clinging to his back, and the rest darting around him in circles.
None of them paid Clare the slightest bit of attention, which she appreciated. It occurred to her, as she watched, that no one in Veralna City would let children this age anywhere near Numair. In Veralna, he was a drunk and a debaucher. Certainly no one who could be trusted not to harm a child from inattention or ineptitude.
She didn’t yet know how he was connected to this place, but she did know why he’d brought her. Because she’d been seeing too much of the side of himself he had never wanted her to see, and here he was a version of himself he was never otherwise allowed to be. Here he was…happy.
The realization sparked something uncomfortable inside her. Something that made her want to shrink into herself, to turn Kialla and leave before he noticed, because he might belong here, but she didn’t. She would never smile like he did now. She would never be able to forget the darkness in her life, even temporarily, the way he seemed able to forget his here. Hers was too much a part of her, the way the Song was.
It felt her discomfort and her instinctual desire to run, and it whispered its encouragement that she should. That if she stayed, Numair would realize that she might be a good enough friend for the dark prince no one respected, but she was no fit company for the man before her now. That he needed her there, but he didn’t need her here.
