The steward did not take well to defiance.
At first the steward simply said no. Then the steward yelled back that Celedin’s duty was to the Peak, to his position as the next steward, and that he must rearrange his priorities. “You are there making friends with city boys, all those nae Oir dandies, undoubtedly,” he said. “You are growing soft. I should yank you out of that school entirely.”
But when this did not silence Celedin, the steward struck him.
Celedin slunk out of his father’s study, his face pale, his lip bleeding, his eyes wide and horrified.
He picked a fight with Dathor later. It was about something ridiculous. He went out to the stables and said that Dathor had not saddled his horse correctly and Dathor would have none of it, and then Celedin shrieked thatDathor must respect him because he was his better. He was the next steward of the keep and he was an elf, and Dathor was of mixed blood and a bastard and sullen at that.
It was all an excuse to hit Dathor.
But Dathor hit back, and Dathor was stronger than Celedin. He let the elf rain blows down on him and then he balled up one burly orc fist and slammed an uppercut into Celedin’s chin, which sent the elf flying through the air to land hard on his back on the mud outside of the stables.
Dathor stood over him. “We’re not children anymore,” he said. “Let’s try to behave like it?” And then he walked off.
Celedin came back.
It was late, hours after dinner, when twilight was stealing over the rows of waving grasses and wildflowers and the cliffs and the hills around Foxglove Keep. He came back with two knives, small knives that he hid inside his sleeves, and he did not announce his attack, he simply leaped on Dathor and slashed and stabbed.
Dathor fought him off—would have, anyway, but Celedin shrieked at the driver who was getting ready to go home to his wife to hold the orc’s arms, and when the driver hesitated, Celedrin said, “Do not forget I will be the steward of this place, and I will be your master when my father is gone.”
Dathor had both of them to fight, then, and Celedin had knives, and it was grunts and sweat and blood flying in the air and she ran to get the steward, who came and put an end to it all.
He yanked Celedin off Dathor and sent the driver home. He took his son by the collar and said that he was a sorry excuse for an elf, that he simply enjoyed hurting things that were weaker than him and he hurled Celedin down on the ground and took his knives and put one under his chin.
“I wish you had not killed your mother coming out of her,” said the steward. “If you had not, perhaps I could have gotten a better son on her the next time. And if I had a better son, I could have smothered you to death one night and never regretted the loss of you.”
Celedin went entirely limp on the ground, gazing up at his father. Tears leaked out of his eyes.
The steward seemed to realize he’d gone too far. He stood up, running a hand through his long dark hair, his elvish features illuminated in the light of the rising moon. “Ah, I do not mean it, you know I do not. You vex me so.”
He had meant it, though, and everyone could tell that, everyone who had witnessed it.
One thing that Aerhril didn’t understand back then, however, was that people could mean things in the moment and then not mean them in the next. People thought that one moment was more real or true than another, but all the moments were equal.
When you loved a person, you hated them in some moments, too. It was the way love worked. Love teetered back and forth, an extreme emotion so intense that it must sometimes be something equally intense and negative, because nothing good could be eternal, nothing could beonlygood.
Celedin thought, though, that this was the truth of his father, that this was what he was underneath it all, that this momentary ugliness was straining to get out over a veneer his father smoothed over it each day.
Celedin was worse after that.
He ran off, wiping at his tears, and the steward called his name and then went after him, contrite.
The driver was gone.
It was only Dathor, standing in the near darkness, hair in his face, panting, shirt cut here and there, bloody in so very many places.
She went to him.
He put his hand on her cheek. Gentle. He traced the outline of her jaw and he looked at her with his stormy eyes and there was nothing but despair all over him. “Aerhril.”
“You need bandaging,” she said. “You’re bleeding all over. Let me see to you.”
“You’ll leave,” he said. “Less than six months now until you’re sixteen. My uncle will die. And then Celedin will killme.”
“No,” she said. “No, I cannot bear that. I will not let you die.”
“He’ll pay however many men he needs to hold me down and then he’ll cut my throat.”
