“Aye,” Shrike admitted, and hurried to turn their talk toward supper.
The end of the se’en-night saw Shrike’s mask almost complete. The delicate tooled veins threading throughout the leather oak leaves only awaited a coat of deep green stain—and Wren’s promised sigil nestled in the centre of the mask’s brow.
Shrike sat back at his bench to admire his own handiwork whilst he awaited Wren’s arrival. Soon, no doubt, as the sun’s glow had already begun to fade from gold to plum though the branches over Blackthorn.
The growth in his antlers had slowed over the past few days, and the ache in his head had ebbed along with it, leaving him with a mere twinge to grit his teeth through. However, without his work to distract him, he found his antlers itched. He’d avoided touching them as they grew, finding the merest pressure redoubled his agonies. Now he laid his fingertips gingerly on the points that most troubled him. The velvet proved soft as its namesake. The twinge in his brow seemed no worse for the touch. He dared to scratch. The itch abated.
And the velvet came away on his fingertips.
Shrike stared down at the scrap of skin in his hand. He supposed he ought to have expected as much and cast it aside into the fireplace.
No sooner had he satisfied the first itch than another sprang up in its wake. Shrike resigned himself to an evening of shedding. He gave thanks he had hands, at least, and needn’t scrape his antlers against tree trunks as a wild stag must.
“How’s your head?”
Shrike glanced up to find Wren standing on the cottage threshold. He’d been so occupied with his own head that even his keen ears hadn’t caught wind of Wren’s footsteps.
Wren stared back at him with an uneasy expression.
“Better,” Shrike replied, though the sudden strain in Wren’s aspect made him wary. “What troubles you?”
Wren continued staring at him. “There’s a lot of blood.”
“What?” Shrike bolted upright. He saw no blood upon Wren’s person, but Wren wore enough layers of dark wool to disguise a great deal of it. A single stride closed the distance between them. Shrike slipped a hand beneath the lapel of Wren’s frock coat, swift yet gentle, and drew it away from his body to better see what damage might lie beneath. No gash in fabric or flesh appeared, nor any dark stain spreading through his waistcoat. Still, the wound might lie deeper yet. “How are you hurt?”
Wren answered him with silence. Shrike glanced up to find him looking no less bewildered than alarmed.
“I’m not hurt,” Wren said at last, and Shrike realized his gaze had fixed above his head. “I meant—”
Following Wren’s gaze, Shrike reached up to his antlers and found a palm-sized scrap of velvet dangling by a thread of sinew. He tore it away with a wince, the cold blood smearing across his fingers.
“Is thatnormal?” Wren asked as Shrike cast the scrap into the fire.
“Aye,” Shrike answered him. When Wren’s shocked expression changed not a whit, he added, “Have you never seen a buck shed his velvet afore?”
“No,” said Wren.
“Oh.” Upon reflection, Shrike supposed it must prove an alarming sight to one unaccustomed. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to affright you.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Wren replied almost before Shrike had finished. “Just so long as you’re not hurt.”
“Not hurt,” Shrike assured him, and continued on to the hollowed stump. The copper tap swiftly washed the crimson stain from his hands. “The blood will cease when the velvet is gone. Naught but bone remains.”
“Comforting,” Wren said dryly, but Shrike turned to find him wearing a wry half-smile.
Shrike retrieved his almost-finished mask from his work-bench and held it out to Wren for his approval.
“Marvellous,” Wren murmured as he took the mask with greater reverence than Shrike thought it deserved. His fingertip ghosted over the barren field of its brow. “Is this where the sigil will go?”
“Aye.”
Wren returned the mask to Shrike’s keeping and delved into his satchel for his gyrdel-book. “I have some designs worked out if you’d like to see.”
Shrike liked nothing better, and said so.
Wren flipped through the vellum leaves. Many beautiful and arcane sketches fluttered past like so many moth-wings in the moonlight. He halted on a particular page and held it out for Shrike’s inspection.
Amidst a multitude of glyphs, one caught Shrike’s eye—a crest of antlers bound in spiderweb knots.
