Chapter Fifteen Rock, Paper, Scissors
Chapter Fifteen
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Where Saeldian Knows a One-Bed Scheme, but Too Late
“I’m glad Lady Ilondrel welcomed you,” said the elf who had brought them to the center island.
She bowed, and as the hem of her veil fluttered away from her shoulders, a pendant of a silver rabbit, upright and alert, glinted on her breastbone.
“I am Helfyra. I’m sure you will find what you’re searching for here. ”
Everyone gave their names, and Helfyra repeated each one with a graceful nod. Saeldian went last and got the kindest, most soft-eyed smile of them all.
They were pitied here, then. Lovely.
Helfyra lifted her hand, and the burdens of their packs lightened. “You may rest as you wish. We serve meals as a group. You may ask anyone veiled like me for counsel, and you may stay as long as you need. But be prepared to attend Ilondrel on the evening of her vigil into winter.”
“When is that? Actually, what is that? The vigil into winter, I mean,” Jubilee asked.
“I will explain,” Helfyra said. “Come aboard, please.”
Helfyra stepped onto the same wide, shallow barge and waited for them to board.
Saeldian took up a place at the railing and stared out at the water, which was rippling with the wakes of all the other boats sailing toward the unblinking glow of lights shining on tiny docks along the shore.
Soft waves rocked the craft as everyone boarded.
There was nowhere to sit, and no way to steer, but the barge moved away from shore as if it knew where to go. Helfyra turned to address the group. “Eladrin are tuned to the seasons. Ilondrel is going into winter for the day her beloved’s heart no longer beat for her.”
Saeldian was cold. The cold stopped pain. The cold stopped fear. They drew it in close and waited.
Jubilee let out a sympathetic sigh. “I’m so sorry. Maybe we should leave her to privacy.”
Helfyra smiled and shook her head. “My lady will grieve. The land will grieve. But you are welcome here. The snow and cold of winter is a natural reason to seek warmth and comfort. You may stay as long as you need to.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Kell said.
The others murmured agreement.
Saeldian remained silent. They needed a moment alone—somewhere to hide, and they couldn’t hold on much longer.
Something had changed when they struggled to find something, anything they could say freely that would still be true while Ilondrel, gorgeous and heartbreaking, looked into their eyes and read that truth.
A shiver scurried across their shoulders. Strangers never had the chance to see beyond whatever Saeldian let them see, and then they built their perceptions on that mask Saeldian made for them. When Ilondrel weighed Saeldian’s words, she didn’t stop looking until she had seen enough.
Two voices—Jubilee’s and Lorzok’s—hummed as they chatted with Helfyra while she rode with them along the lake.
The sound blended with the ripple and splash of the water around them, and the moon’s reflection broke into a hundred replicas.
Had they barely escaped Ilondrel’s question? If they had, why did they feel so seen?
Saeldian hadn’t expected that. An archfey could have broken Saeldian’s natural resistance to enchantments like a door built of paper and made them tell the truth.
The pact that made me powerful keeps me alone, but I am nothing without it.
Saeldian had been waiting for her to do it, terrified of what would happen after that.
Kell was only a few feet away. They could smell his armored leather coat and the soap that rested on the edge of the tubs in the Village That Chooses Its Own.
Saeldian had dared one glance at Kell after Ilondrel had accepted their answer, and he looked at them just the same way he had when they had been caught in their shadows—like he felt sorry for them.
Pain and realization as he saw more than they wanted him to see.
Now he followed along in Saeldian’s fragile wake, and Saeldian couldn’t look back.
Maybe Kell’s heart still bled. Maybe Kell had remembered his hatred. Saeldian couldn’t bear either.
Kell had sung to strengthen their fight against the drowned creature that attacked them. He sang for them, after everything Saeldian had done to him, and they couldn’t thank him for it.
The pact that made me powerful hurts everyone around me, but I can’t be safe without it.
Saeldian looked back at the island. It was too dark to even make out Ilondrel’s silhouette standing before her beloved’s casket, but Saeldian stared at it until the boat bumped to a stop.
They hoped Kell would move away. The craft jostled as someone stepped off, but the smell of leather and fern-leaf soap didn’t fade.
“Jubilee and Lorzok? Here you are,” Helfyra said.
“Here” was two tiny cottages joined by a common path. They looked like a picture, covered in creeping vines turned orange and deep red, fenced by the last of the roses. Their scent mingled with herbs and ripe apples from somewhere behind the houses.
“It’s adorable,” Jubilee said.
“It’s yours for your stay.”
“It looks very pleasant,” Lorzok said. “Timtim and I will enjoy it very much.”
The barge moved on as soon as Lorzok’s boots landed on the wooden dock.
Saeldian had hurt Kell just by leaving. Saeldian would hurt Jubilee just by leaving. And a few miles after that heartbreak, Saeldian would find someone new to befriend, another heart to break and break again.
The pact that made me powerful makes me lie to everyone I know, but the power is more important than someone I can leave.
But they hadn’t said that. They said, I’m selfish.
Ilondrel had seen Saeldian and knew how much it hurt them to be alive, and how desperately Saeldian wanted to live anyway, and she had said, You and your hearts are welcome.
Saeldian shut their eyes tight. As if they could rest. As if they could grieve. As if they could heal and not have to rip it open when the job was done—
Kell’s leather armor and herb soap were right next to them. He touched their shoulder. “Sheld.”
He never called them that.
“I know you can’t talk about it,” he said. “But I can tell you need something. Can I help?”
“No.”
“Because you don’t need anything, or because I can’t help?”
“And this is for you,” Helfyra said.
Saeldian quickly grabbed their pack and hopped onto the dock.
They could say they were tired and close the door.
The dock bobbed with each step. As they got closer, they stopped walking.
That wasn’t right. There was only one cottage at the end of this path.
It was larger than the pair Lorzok and Jubilee were in, but it was still cozy.
A soft orange glow showed through the windows. A fire in the hearth?
“There’s been a mistake,” Saeldian said.
The little dock dipped when Kell landed behind them. “What mistake?”
“Pick anything tasty that you fancy; it’s all freely given,” Helfyra said. “Sleep well.”
And then she left.
“Wait,” Saeldian said, turning back to her. “There’s only one cottage. Where do I—”
But the wide ferry was already fifteen feet away, and Helfyra was busy coiling a line neatly. Or was ignoring them.
Saeldian knew a blow-off when they saw one.
“It must be next door, or a little farther back,” Kell said.
It wasn’t. The custodians of Hearthaven’s Repose never missed a trick. Ilondrel knew. They all knew.
“There’s only one cabin,” Saeldian said. “Jubilee and Lorzok each had one, side by side.”
“Maybe it’s behind this one?” Kell set off down the path toward the back of the cabin. Saeldian sighed and followed, but only garden met them on the other side. A very pretty garden for a very small cottage. Saeldian peered in the window and beheld the softly glowing fire and the foot of—
“One bed.”
“Are you serious?”
“Look for yourself.”
Kell turned back the way they came and opened the cottage door. “Hells.”
Only one bed. Of course. Bards had a song about Serenity and Bastion with that old gag. But it wasn’t funny when it was happening to them, and Kell sounded so dismayed when he saw it.
That should be a relief. “Jubilee’s cottage isn’t far.”
“There’s no path. You’ll wreck the hedges. The bed’s nice and big, at least,” Kell said. “And it’s not like we haven’t used the couple pose when we were running a game before.”
“That was before.” Saeldian dropped their pack next to the door and pulled on the drawer at the foot of the wide bed suspended between four tall posts. Blankets rested inside. Saeldian grabbed them all and laid them on top of a coverlet dye-painted with flowers.
“You’ll bake if you put all of those on the bed.”
“Shut up and help me roll this.”
“Fine.” Kell took an end and rolled the blankets into a bumper, then helped them slide the rolled bundle of blankets to the middle, marking the border between the two sides. “Do you want to go to bed?”
Saeldian paused.
“I just meant, do you want to get out of your armor—no.” Kell swiped a hand over his face. “Gods, I sound like an unshaven boy. How do we—”
“Oh, relax,” Saeldian grumbled. “There’s a bath. I want to use it. I bet you do too.”
Kell stood there with his mouth open for a moment. Saeldian heard themself.
“Not together. One at a time.”
They held out their palm and smacked their fist into it. Kell echoed the move and said, “On three. One, two—”
Saeldian shot their index and middle fingers out. Kell kept his hand in a fist.
“You first,” Saeldian said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
They went out into the cold before Kell could protest.
Kell let the hot water melt his bones, but he kept a corner of his mind trained on finding.
Lorzok and Jubilee were that way—together, in fact.
If Kell had to guess, in the same room, maybe seated in the cozy rocking chairs perched on a rug before the fire, a companionable distance between them.
Saeldian was on the other side of that wall, probably leaning against it.
Looking at the sky? Trying to make sense of the stars?