AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ollie knocked his chair over, shooting to his feet. “Of course come here I can help please lean on me—”
“I didn’t mean you had to assault the staff with your furniture,” Tir said. “Sorry about that.” This last was addressed to Ben, the closest server, who grinned, set down a tray of alarmingly elaborate parsnips, manhandled Ollie’s chair back to its feet, and tossed back, “No worries, sir, you just get well, we can handle the home furnishings, go on and rest.”
“Tir,” Ollie pleaded.
“We’re going,” Tir said, and caught Cedric’s eye; the youngest prince promptly launched into a dramatic story about a production of The Bride of the Opera House Ghost that’d suffered every theatre curse and malady imaginable, and captivated the banquet hall.
The mothers, not so easily distracted, eyed Oliver and Tir; Tir lifted a hand in reassurance, and Ollie tried his best to convey we’re okay, I’ll take care of him, I’ve got him with a look.
Out in the hall cooler air hit like a wave, night-scented and bracing. Ollie had a hand under Tir’s elbow for support; that arm shifted suddenly, and he panicked, but Tirian hadn’t collapsed onto the floor, only moved to sit down.
Tir’s chosen bench stretched out under one of the bigger stained-glass windows, and held burgeoning anxiety with stoic strength. The windowpane displayed a centuries-old coronation in amber and topaz and cerulean: a happy marriage, a King and Queen.
Heart in his throat at this glasswork commentary, Ollie sank down on plush upholstery beside his fairy. Held out hands for the taking. “Are you—”
“I’m not going to faint into your arms. Don’t worry.” Tir put one hand into his, turning to face him, curling up one long leg on bench-cushions; but rubbed at a visibly aching temple with the other. He looked pale, but he’d also looked worse.
Far worse. Oliver shoved down images of black ash and dragon fire.
Tir shrugged, half dismissive of his own exhaustion, half deliberate consolation, and squeezed his hand. Taking care of Ollie; taking care of them both. “I’m fine, I promise. Or at least it’s not anything out of the ordinary. I’d tell you. I only…I couldn’t listen to that. Not more of it.”
“To people saying nice things about you? Yeah, sure, come on, I say nice things about you all the time.” He squeezed back. Gilded figures beamed benevolently above their heads. “Want to talk? Or we can go to bed. If you’re tired. Either way. I mean you don’t have to talk. If you don’t want to.”
“I thought they’d hate me,” Tir whispered. The words cut the night like unexpected glass, broken and painful. “I thought—I’d’ve understood. That much. If. If I’m human and I’ve not been back since I was twelve, I’m not one of them, and how can I be any kind of heir to the throne of Fairy if—I don’t know what to do.”
Oh. Oh, no; and the evening went cold despite wafting aromas of mulled cider and roasted pheasant and fresh-baked iced buns. Icy. Unstable. Shifting ground.
Tir always knew, or had known, what to do. Tirian had been Oliver’s constant, his companion, the person who’d saved him. Over and over. And over.
But that was then. And this was now, and Tir’s prophecy had ended, and it was about time Ollie stopped taking that quiet competence for granted. They needed each other; right now Tir needed him. He said, holding chilly fingers in his, “You think you need to do anything about it?”
“Don’t I? I’m not one of them. I’m not one of you, either. I’m not—they don’t know me.”
“They know you,” Ollie corrected. He was working this out while talking, if talking was the word. Flailing, more accurately. Lunging for handholds. “Not like I know you—”
“I should hope not.”
Sarcasm; well, that was a good sign. “—but they know you were their prince, and you left home to save them. You went into the strange confusing human kingdom to the South, you know, that place where nobody can talk to flowers or breathe underwater, and you did that for them. They know you’re that kind of person.” Softly, because he couldn’t not: “The kind of person who saves people.”
Who dies to save people, he didn’t say. Who gives up everything, who gives himself, to rescue someone else. Time and time again.
Tir started to say something, shook his head, and sighed. Both his shoulders slumped, but that smile reappeared, wan but trying hard, and his fingers laced themselves through Ollie’s. “You know the words to all those ballads, don’t you?”
“Only one,” Ollie said. “Your favorite cousin sang it at me yesterday. Menacingly. You’ll be a good king. I know you will be. When we get there. In the future. Can I help? Right now?”
“You’re only saying I save people because I saved you,” Tir said.
Oliver, horrified, blurted out, “I am not, how can you think—” and then saw the amusement. “Oh, okay, that was a joke…thank you for that, it wasn’t funny…”
“Mostly a joke. I can see how—how people would think those things. About me. They need stories. Heroes. Songs to sing.” Tir scrunched up that nose at him. Ollie decided this was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, but then everything his fairy did was. “I never thought I’d be around to hear them.”
“I’m glad you are,” Oliver said, and meant it.
“Yes. Well.” Tir, under stained-glass winter light, smiled: resurfacing, as rain tumbled in. “So am I. Which one did she sing for you? Not the one in which I’m twelve years old and fight off thirty bandits the second I cross the border, because that’s what humans do, attack in packs, like wolves…”
“You never went on a hunting party with the older Lord Grummond, did you? No, it was the one with the sentimental chorus about how innocent and selfless and pure of heart you are, and something about flowers blooming along your path.”
“Oh no.”
