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“No, just…” Em made a grumbling sound, a fairy-kitten aware of electricity under his fur and cranky about it. “Maybe you should’ve asked. I don’t know. I like that shape too, it’s not as if I don’t, it’s just…”
“Knowing you signed a contract to stay in it, when you’re on duty. And you can’t be you. All of you.” Aric touched the elf-point of that ear, did not ask Em to look up, only held him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve made you do this.”
“As if you could,” Emrys said, moving to look at him. Both ears were pointed now, like that delicate chin, like the edge of something less earth-bound in Em’s cheekbones, smile, glinting eyes. “As much as I adore you. No, I agreed, too. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. I can be whatever I feel like on my own time, it’s one job, and I’ve got you, and you know me, you see me, and it’s not really a problem, it’s only…”
“Prickly.”
“Yes.”
“The offer’s open,” Aric said, after a moment, “if you do want to just stand up in Starlight’s saddle and be exactly whatever you need, on the spot, with fireworks, and we can just leave Caris and her cloth wagons in the forest…”
Em began laughing, delighted; kissed his shoulder, and said, “Oh, Aric. My hero. Thank you.”
“It’ll be three more days to Sudgarth.”
“Only three,” Em murmured, and kissed him again. “We’ll manage.”
They would; Aric nodded. He held Em closer, as the light went out; he managed to not kick the side of the tent while adjusting position. They needed the rest, since they’d be up at dawn.
The rain pattered, loosened, wandered away. The forest made hushed forest-sounds: night-swoops, leaf-rustles, drips from branches. Emrys had gone to sleep, a practical dark punctuation-note of fairy-magic and honed muscles tucked up against Aric’s warmth.
Three more days. Not forever. And Em would tell him if the discomfort became unbearable; Aric trusted that.
He wished he could go back in time and talk them both out of accepting this job. But even Em’s magic couldn’t do that.
On top of that—and despite his own offer, which was genuine—he didn’t like the idea of breaking a contract. It would matter, as a sword-for-hire. Maybe not as much for him and Emrys as for some others—he’d built a solid reputation, one which’d only grown with Em at his side, and they could stand on that—but potential employers would consider strength, skill, and whether or not he’d once left a client stranded in a wet forest.
Even more, his family wouldn’t’ve approved. They’d been traders, clever but honest; his parents and grandmother, not to mention all the ancestors, would rise from stones to shout at him if he went back on his word to someone paying good money.
He saluted his family mentally, half-ironically, at that recognition; and rested his face in Em’s fluffy hair, in the dark.
The unanswered question lingered like the drip of left-behind rainwater from boughs. Em had said it, and Aric pulled the words out and turned them over again, searching.
Why hire them in particular? Why hire the pair of them, notoriously including the famous or infamous Shadow, a good magician or a witch or something entirely other depending on the story, if Lady Caris did not want anyone—say, a half-fairy pint-sized knife-expert—to sense concealed magic?
What did she want from them, if it wasn’t simple?
Aric didn’t know. And he didn’t like not knowing. Jobs with secrets never ended well.
He’d ask Em for more detail tomorrow evening. Emrys would be paying attention now, he knew.
For now, this moment, there was nothing more he could do; following Em’s prudent example, Aric settled in and told himself to get some sleep, fairy-hair tickling his face, the murmur of the night a familiar refrain.
Chapter 2
Aric did not have much time to talk to Em the following day. Lady Caris wanted to start early, and therefore everyone got up at first light, professional and efficient: breaking down the camp, checking wagons and horses, preparing to leave the clearing. The morning held sharp outlines like icicles, washed by the night’s rain into glittering emerald and blue and bronze. Hot tea helped.
He caught Em’s hand when they were nearly ready, and tugged his other half in for a kiss. Emrys had put back on the more human features, along with petite curves, breasts, hips; she still looked like herself, because she always did. She had on worn dark riding leathers and at least six knives, and her hair was short and practical rather than jeweled or beribboned, and her eyes were the cool joyous grey of thunderclouds, not flat but alive and crackling, when they met Aric’s.
The kiss was deep and sweet and tea-flavored; Em put both arms around his neck, stretching up to reach. Aric’s body wanted to stay pressed up against hers, carrying the imprint forever.
One of Em’s fellow guards, tall and solid as a carved hunter-goddess, shouted over, “We’re getting paid to guard the caravan, not fuck each other behind the wagons!” She was grinning, though.
Em slid out of Aric’s arms to yell back, “Don’t worry, Rev, someday someone’ll explain kissing to you!” and caught Aric’s hand and squeezed it and let go. “I’ll see you later.”
Aric watched her cross the clearing, Starlight following like a flawlessly trained puppy in a filly’s shape; watched her pause by the side of a cloth wagon to talk to Revna and Asni, who’d appeared to join them: a lean brown spear of a woman who turned to wave at Aric, exaggerated flirtation that was only a joke; everyone knew he was Em’s, and that was that. Emrys, shorter than both of them, tipped her head back, said something friendly, made them laugh. A slant of sunlight limned her face.
Aric rested a hand on his own mare’s neck. Ginger whickered softly, a reassurance.
