5. Leadership #2
“Skalterra needs architects too. And you need a friend.” The glow in his eyes dimmed, revealing Liam’s warm gaze.
“You’re not my friend.”
“Maybe not, but I’m sworn to your service until death, which, given who you are as a person, might be the closest thing you’re going to get. And if that means fighting my way to Keldori and back, then I’ll do it.” The orange light in his eyes returned, and steely resolve churned my stomach.
I finally squeezed his hand back, and his face fell at the sight of the grin forcing its way across my face as I remembered one crucial weapon I still hadn’t used.
He was sworn to my service.
“In that case, Ciarán Grimguard, take me with you. I demand it.”
The night was coldest as dawn approached, and I pulled my travel cloak tighter around my shoulders.
The leather armor strung tight over my tattered hoodie at least felt like it was holding me in one piece, and I tried to imagine my ribs regrowing along the healing matrix Sorcha had been tending to only a few hours ago.
The hovel had never looked so inviting, with its few windows glowing a warm orange in the gloom of early, early morning. The voices of Darragh’s Watch still sang their song, and its haunting melody floated on the bitter winds that snagged at my cloak.
“How long do they sing for?” Orla asked softly.
“It’s a farewell song.” Ciarán jostled against my shoulder as his aunt, Odharnait, messed with the pack on his back, adding provisions and tightening its straps. “They’ll sing until we’re gone.”
“They’ve already been singing near an hour,” Orla said.
“The day Daithi and Ciarán left Darragh’s Watch,” Odharnait murmured, “we sang for four, because Daithi took so long with his goodbyes.”
“Oh.” Orla pulled her hood up over her freshly trimmed pixie cut. “Do you suppose that’s why Sabrina is taking so long? She’s trying to match that? Because if she is, there’s no use in us waiting out here in the cold.”
I frowned at the hovel. Sabrina was definitely taking her time but didn’t strike me as someone prone to lengthy goodbyes.
“Or,” I suggested, “she’s in there trying to convince Sorcha to make me stay. She’s not exactly a huge fan.”
“She’ll warm up to you! Everyone always does,” Orla promised me.
“No, they don’t,” I said in tandem with Ciarán. The contours of his cowl twisted in a hidden smirk, and Odharnait clicked her tongue at him in disapproval.
The music swelled as the hovel door swung open. Flickering light spilled from the doorway only to immediately be occluded by Sabrina’s stomping silhouette.
I staggered backwards, and she marched through a cloud of my breath where it crystalized on the freezing air, stopping only when we were nose to nose.
“Tell them you changed your mind!” Sabrina poked me hard in my chest armor. Ciarán moved to get between us, but I put my hand up to stop him. “You can’t go with us. Tell them!”
“I’m going,” I said.
“You’ll slow us down, or worse, get us killed!” She spun around, and her strawberry curls whipped across my face. “Sorcha! Make her stay!”
Sorcha hobbled down the icy path toward us. Fana chased after her with a bulging pack clutched against her chest and her too-long cloak billowing behind her. Curious villagers tip-toed out into the snow to watch the commotion, still carrying their song in halting, unsure voices.
“Unfortunately, the Lady Saergrim makes the rules.” Sorcha narrowed her eyes at me. “If you don’t want to listen to her, you shouldn’t have volunteered to be a Grimguard.”
Sabrina’s nostrils flared. “She can hardly walk, let alone fight! What happens if Ferrin sends men after us? She can’t defend herself!”
“I’m surprised. You’ve never shied away from a challenge before.”
“She isn’t a challenge, she’s a death sentence!” Sabrina turned to face the gathered villagers and raised her voice for them all to hear. “To all of us!”
“Sabrina.” Ciarán pulled his cowl down around his neck. “Wren is weak, and I know you don’t like her, but we swore to serve her.”
“You deserve better than a selfish Sovereign, and so do I.” Sabrina whipped back around to size me up. She scanned me from the toes of the boots Aoife had given me all the way up to the blue hood I had pulled over my hair. “You got Daithi killed. Ciarán deserves better than you.”
“Sabrina!” Odharnait hissed, and Ciarán stepped between the women.
“She was there when they killed your son!” Sabrina pushed Ciarán out of her way. “And she let them do it!”
“If you want to be angry at someone for that, be angry at me!” Orla stepped forward with a hand on her chest. “My uncle is the one who killed Daithi while I stood by. Wren didn’t even know what was happening!”
“You’re doing what you can to make it right,” Sabrina scoffed. “Wren just wants us to take her home, even if it means we fail.”
“I’m trying to help!” I insisted.
“Then stay out of our way!”
Sorcha cleared her throat to reclaim Sabrina’s attention. “As a Grimguard, you are sworn to obey—”
“Then I’m not a Grimguard any longer.” Sabrina faced the gathered villagers outside the hovel. “Does everyone hear that? I will not serve a Saergrim who cares more about herself than us! None of us should!”
The final remaining singing voices lurched to a halt, and the bluff fell silent. Siobhan broke from the ranks of villagers to approach her daughter.
“Think about what you’re doing,” she hissed. “In four hundred years, no Grimguard has ever abandoned their duty.”
“Then I guess I’m the first.”
“Only if Wren allows it.” Sorcha gestured to me with a sweeping gesture.
Sabrina’s face flushed, the first rays of the rising sun highlighting the freckles that stood out against the red of her cheeks. She regarded me with wide, angry eyes.
She was strong. As awful as her attitude was, she would’ve been helpful on the journey ahead. However, I couldn’t bring myself to force her to come with us. Not if she hated me.
Still, my own cheeks burned with shame and embarrassment.
I’d been a Saergrim for a week, and the people who’d been so loyal to my grandmother for centuries were already seeing me for the fraud I was.
Sabrina may have been the first Grimguard to quit in four hundred years, but I was the first Saergrim to make that happen.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Sure.”
Her tight lips twisted into a sneer, and she gave me an ostentatious bow that felt more like ridicule than respect.
“Thank you, my Lady. May you find your way back home and never bother us again.” She turned on her heel and stalked back towards her people. Siobhan went to meet her, but Sabrina shouldered past and disappeared into the hovel.
Wind whistled through the silence that followed, and shame rose in my gut.
I was selfish, and I was a false god. Granted, I’d done my best to make that clear, but none of them had listened. Maybe this, maybe Sabrina, would finally convince them I wasn’t who any of them believed me to be.
Odharnait’s voice rose in a quivering note, and she took the farewell song back up. The people of Darragh’s Watch joined in, and the eerie melody somehow made me feel worse.
Ciarán bowed his head to his aunt in thanks, and she brushed hair back from his face to kiss his forehead.
Something about the interaction made him look more like Liam, but then he stepped away and his cold, glowing eyes met mine.
He pulled his black cowl up over his nose, and the Grimguard took the place of my friend.
Sorcha surveyed me with her hands on her hips.
“Sabrina’s right, of course,” she said. “You’ll be a liability.”
The festering guilt and Sorcha’s words almost changed my mind, but Orla grabbed me around the elbow and stepped closer. At least one person here was on my side.
“I have to go home,” I said. “You know I can’t stay here.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Sorcha sighed then glanced around. “Where’s the small one gone?”
Fana poked her head around Sorcha’s cloaks, still holding her over-stuffed bag. “Here!”
Sorcha flinched away, and Fana flashed us a panicked smile. I frowned at her, wondering if the prospect of another cross-continent journey was what had her so nervous, and she looked away, her dark cheeks turning darker with blush.
“Right.” Sorcha clapped her hands together. “Not much left to say. The rest of us leave soon for the Eastern Pass, but you’re headed straight into the mountains, so say your goodbyes if you haven’t.”
“We’re ready,” Ciarán assured her, and Odharnait stepped away to join the rest of the villagers, her song melting into the collective voice of Darragh’s Watch.
Sorcha nodded.
“Then that’s that. The fate of two worlds rests on…” Sorcha trailed off and grimaced. “Well. Good luck to us all, I suppose. And if you do make it all the way to Ethel, tell her she owes me a pillow free of cat pee.”
Ciarán nodded, then turned to lead the way into the mountains with the farewell song rising at our backs to spur us towards whatever danger waited ahead.