Colm chuckled, the rumble reverberating through the cavern of his chest, along his ribs and into her cheek.One of his small hands tweaked her nose.
‘Studying me like a First Folk artifact,’ he said.
Heat blossomed in her face at the accusation, however playful.She nestled into him, prying her gaze away from his miraculous healing to refocus on the deep amber of his eyes.‘I’ll admit it’s nice when my area of research and personal interests align.’
He barked a laugh, nearly bouncing her head off of his chest.‘Almost as nice, I wager, as meeting someone who didn’t cringe in fear at their first sight of me.Folk in Tarebach, Alberon and Salus see a seven-foot, four-armed monstrosity and piss themselves.It’s like their blood carries their ancestors’ memories of the Warborn and the days after the Vanishing.’
‘Are there many people like you?’Fola asked, thrilled, and trying not to overly show it.Until now, she’d accepted his hesitancy to broach the subject, but… Well, Arno used to say she had a tendency to shove her fingers into conversational cracks and pry for any titbit she found interesting.She would tread carefully here, not only to prove Arno’s characterisation wrong, but because she genuinely didn’t want to upset Colm.
After a thoughtful minute, he shrugged—still a gesture that fascinated and stirred her, with all its complexity of musculature.‘It was just my mother and me, growing up.I’ve told you a bit about her already.We had a farm outside this little town called Ereba.She liked growing things.The smell of wet soil.Earth on her hands.And she was good at it.Northern Tarebach is no easy country to farm.Hard ground, not enough rain.But she provided for us, and then some.Enough for us to buy nice things from town.Tools.Plenty of livestock—even a little dog who helped with the sheep a bit, but was mostly my companion.Good clothes, when we could afford them.’
Pain crept in and left him silent for a moment.He took a long breath and gently squeezed her shoulder.‘A few hundred years ago, the churchmen fought a war against themselves.Their way of answering a handful of questions, I guess, once they got sick of arguing.One of those questions was about people like me—or like Llewyn and Siwan.About anyone touched by the First Folk, or the fae, or what have you.Until then, the Church believed it was their holy duty to kill anyone like us they could find.
‘The churchmen who won the war disagreed—and good for them, but winning a war doesn’t scour away long-held hatreds, does it?The church can change its teachings, but if your da, and his da, and his da all believed and lived by something different, it might not matter much.Even though my mother hung the triangle and the nine-pointed star over our door, even though we went to receive blessings of the Agion at the temple in Ereba on midsummer and wintersnight, plenty of folk still thought of us as monsters.One day they decided to act on those thoughts.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Fola said.The afterglow had well and truly faded.‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘It’s fine.’Colm’s other small arm scratched at his chin.‘She was no fighter, but she took plenty of them with her.I ran away after that.Leaned into what they thought of me.Learned violence.Sold it.Fantasised about going back for my revenge.’He scoffed.‘Never really did except, I guess, in that clearing where I found you.Got a taste of it there.Maybe I’ll get another taste before we’re done, what with those templars hanging around the royal court.’
For all the humiliation Fola had suffered, and all the isolation that had followed, her life in the City had been a frolic in paradise compared to what so many people beyond its walls endured.Llewyn and Siwan had been transformed by uncaring fae and fiends, used as little more than currency by those who should have protected them.The actor Jareth had been born into misfortune and killed in a chance encounter on the road.Now Colm, orphaned by old prejudices that those in power would rather pretend had been eradicated.
Arno’s warnings had prepared her to witness cruelty, poverty, even starvation—but so much of it fell on children.These stories would haunt her, she knew, long after she returned to the City.She would carry the beauty of the wider world with her.Among the relics and natural wonders, the kindness and strength of its people.The way the troupers formed a nest of protection around Siwan, and the girl’s bravery in the face of the horrors that dogged her.But that beauty carried traces of hurt—could not, in some cases, exist except in response to it.
Was it even worth trying to put things right here in Parwys?The sins of the kingdom’s past had clawed free of the grave.Let them have their justice.Let them tear down what had been built on a foundation of blood and bone.Lives would be lost—many innocent—but maybe Arno was right.Maybe she had let herself become too involved.In Ulun, she had nearly spent her life to dismantle an engine of horror and degradation that no half-decent person could tolerate.Here… would it really be wrong to let Ynyr and his wraiths have their vengeance?Thus far, they had not hurt any but those who had profited from the injustices against them, even if at a remove of generations.
The thought of it left a hard pit in her stomach.A nausea like she had felt after shattering that templar’s skull in the clearing.No matter that it had been an act of self-defence; that Colm would have died if she had done nothing.
But what could she do?Lead folk to the City?Thaumedony’s gates stood open to all, but half of those she told of its wonders refused to believe her.Enduring the pressures and deprivations of the wider world created space for great compassion, but also hardened people and made it impossible to imagine that life might be lived any other way.
‘Come back to the City with me,’ she said, the words bursting out of her.I may not be able to save everyone, but bleed it, I will save everyone I can.
Colm grinned, showing his shovel-shaped teeth.‘I figured that was already the plan.’He held up his severed arm.‘After this, nothing less would feel like enough compensation.’
A crass joke, but one that nonetheless sent a wash of relief through her like a spray of mist tamping down a fire.
But the fire still burned.
* * *
It was nearly noon by the time Fola and Colm descended to the hall of Glascoed keep.On their way, they heard the clack of practice swords through the window from the courtyard below.Llewyn was putting Damon through his paces, continuing the training Colm had begun the day before.Fola wondered whether this was Llewyn’s idea or Damon’s—in either case, such maniacal dedication to martial training arose from a misguided desire to protect Siwan.That gave it a certain charm, even if the girl wasn’t in the sort of danger that swords could defend against.And if it were that sort of danger, a few days of practice wouldn’t make Damon any use as her guardian.
The hall itself was lit by vast windows, their shutters open to the late morning sun.Faded cooking smells of meat and spices told of a meal just served.Fola’s stomach rumbled after quite an active morning, and she hoped the kitchen still had a few portions left.A long table ran the length of the hall, with benches to either side.Siwan, Harwick and Spil sat at one end in quiet conversation, Spil with one of Harwick’s shirts spread out for mending.Siwan spotted Fola and Colm arriving together and waggled her eyebrows with a knowing smile.At the other end of the table, Ifan played host to four strangers, all dressed more for hunting—or for war—than for court.
As they entered, Ifan stood and waved Fola over.Colm gave the count and his company one look, squeezed Fola’s shoulder, then made for a seat across from Harwick.Much as she would have preferred to get a meal and a cup or two of tea in her first, Fola went to join the count.Working on an empty stomach would be the consequence for that morning’s indulgences.
‘I trust you slept well?’Ifan said.Though his face showed the bags and creases of fatigue, his eyes were alert as ever.Like a fox in flight from baying hounds.
‘Yes, thank you.’Fola took a seat on the bench near him.She noted, with interest, that he sat alongside these other folk rather than at the head of the table, as nobles tended to.‘Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?’
‘Is it true you came from the City of the Wise?’blurted out a young woman seated to Ifan’s left—slight and mouse-coloured, with open, enthusiastic features.
Fola fixed Ifan with a searching look, then turned back to the young woman.‘I am, yes.I see Ifan has heralded my appearance.’
The young woman shook her head and leaned back in her seat, visibly as astonished by Fola’s answer as Fola had been by the enthusiasm of the question.
Ifan cleared his throat, then gestured to the man across from him—thin, black-and-silver-haired, with a thick wash of stubble on his chin and a well-lined face that told of hard living.‘Fola, this is Gavron Feld,’ he said.‘You’ll not have heard his name, but he has done more for our cause than anyone.’
Gavron dipped his head.‘It is an honour, Fola… Do you have some patronym, or moniker?Or is it simply Fola, and the City has no need for such things?’
