AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He said. “You?”
“One more step. Thank you. Thank whatever gods exist, plural, yours and mine.” Em exhaled. They’d made it to the center of the path, at the curve of the mountain. “That was…maybe the worst minute of my life.”
Good.
Your life, your existence…what do you think that’s worth?
Never wanted, never loved…surrounded by those who feared you, when they knew who you were…
Surrounded by the stories they tell of you, the Shadow, only ever the Shadow, not the hero…
You could never be the hero.
If they all knew who you were, little elf-child, if they knew…
You know, don’t you? You know the danger you put him in, the man you love…
You know you shouldn’t.
Selfish little elf-child.
What will your father say?
Cool fingers skimmed Aric’s neck, hair, bare skin where his hood had fallen. Emrys didn’t answer.
He said, “Em, you said you wouldn’t listen.” His voice rasped; the cold had gotten in there.
Em was looking at the ravine. Those fairy eyes, pewter and silver and enchanted, did not lift away.
Aric said, “Em. Please.”
And Em blinked, did a small all-over shiver, looked up. “Don’t worry.”
“I love you. They’re fucking wrong.”
“I know. It’s all right.” Em bit a lip, left tiny sharp indents, let go. “Come here.”
Aric leaned in, folded arms around him, attempted with every piece of himself to be an anchor. Em got up on tiptoes, and Aric tried to get even closer, but then Em’s whisper brushed his ear. “I need stones. Pebbles. Some sort of circle.”
“Em—”
“Small. It’ll be enough. Not with us in it.”
Aric wanted to say so much more, to hold Em, to never let go; but Emrys had a plan, and that felt closer to normal, that felt right, if right was possible. The world found some level of balance.
Em let go of him. Swung to face the wind, the whispers. “You really don’t know me. Or him. All you can know are the shadows. What you see, through the mists.”
We see enough.
We see you.
“No,” Em said. “If you did you’d know my choices. Why I’m here. And you’d know that everything you said was wrong.”
Wrong? A scream of wind, ice, hail, screeched form the dark. Battered, half-blinded, Aric found a pebble with his boot. Another. Nudged into a shape. A circle, Em had said. Small would be enough. How long could Em be a distraction? Holding spectral attention with pure confidence?
“I’m not alone,” Em said. “And I’m loved—and I love him. And even his idiot friends sometimes want to flirt with me. And my mother loved me, as much as she could, before she died. Enough to sing me songs and tell me stories. And my father—well, he certainly wants me. Even if it’s not love, it’s usefulness. So there’s that.”
You are dangerous.
